art by Stephanie Ann Farra

by Stephen S. Mills

a story told over & over & over until it becomes a shadow of itself / boogeymen thrive / the dead of night / Halloween maybe / most definitely fall / a crunch of leaves / a stick that cracks against a sneaker / that silence of midwestern nights / the ones of your childhood / dressed as a dinosaur/ your mother made / roaming the neighborhood for treats / never tricks / tricks would come later in the heat of Orlando / that Florida humidity / where you spent three nights a week at a gay club/ sometimes in costume / never a dinosaur / sometimes shirtless / chest tight with youth / bones and skin / and a time or two in less / a foam party that was all slick hands &

art by Stephanie Ann Farra

by Ann Pedone

It’s only when we choose
to move through the poem
as we move through the cunt. And I
raise my glass
Invested but sure, but sure, was
scriven, an unplanned
pregnancy, who is the
true mother of my damage

I mean no, I said, and my unusually
clean scalp, the pile of teeth
over by the back
door, I had a dream of erotic

Distinctions last night, prefacing
my translation from the
original Greek

Circa,

art by Denver Boxleitner 

by Lance Le Grys

fishing with worms
from the bank of the river
I saw the head of Orpheus come bobbing along from upstream
eyeless and swollen
I called to it

is it true that you saw your Euridyce
before she melted to fog

the swift current carried it past
knocking against the bank and the rocks in the riverbed
dropping my pole I ran alongside keeping pace with the head
turning up like a barrel it spoke

it is a lie
my beloved turned to no mist fools pass on such stories garbled and senseless

falling into a pool the head paused as it turned in an eddy

when I turned to see if she followed
it was not she but the earth
that melted away
the rocks dribbled like ice in the sun
when I reached
my arms flapped like flat weeds
against stones in the bed of a river
it was I who was mist and unconscious

we were now approaching the white rapids

what then I cried the river outpacing me quickly before you are lost

but the head turned over again
and
face down in the water
was sucked into the foam of the rocks

Lance Le Grys is the author of the poetry collection Views from an Outbuilding (Clare Songbirds Publishing House,

painting courtesy of the MET Museum Archives

by Leah Skay

something in the air calls for soft peaches

and slow forgiveness.

the rain catches us smitten and selfish with cherries,

misting us to spare the downpour of yesterday.

I hold up two fingers and dare you

to spit the pits of sweet fruit through the goalpost

to challenge your aim, where you’re going. I

hope you miss and hit me so we’re square.

strawberry seeds fly with flesh shrapnel,

art by Jacelyn Yap

by Kirsten Chen

When I came here
            I said I wouldn’t bring death with me
                         but it snuck into my suitcase

and now it’s all over my clothes.
            Death wears me like a period stain.
                        Death wears me defiant

and obvious as a long night the next day.
            There’s a well beneath my eyes.
                          There’s a motorbike in my brain.

It’s distant and spinning
            and at night I am the emptiness
                        its highway craves.

art by Jacelyn Yap

by James Croal Jackson

Industry

So much industry in your mouth– fake a gasp
as you unzip your pants. Another binge.

At your worst, you are greed
and restless enough

for the pizza to come, for the beer
you gulp & burp from plastic cup,

a heap of chicken wings to devour
without tasting a thing,

squeezing a flood of ranch out of plastic
to smear on your lips like ChapStick

every day but it is only brunch
on Sunday

25th

I wore a gray-black striped shirt.