photo by Yasser Alaa Mobarak

by Johnna Schmidt

J.M. Schmidt writes poetry, short fiction, and plays, and lives in the Washington D.C. area. Their work has appeared in the Beltway Quarterly Review, On the Issues, The Rush, the Little Patuxent Review, and is included in Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction.They hold an MFA in fiction from University of Maryland, College Park.

Yasser Alaa Mobarak (b. 1993) is a multi-award-winning photographer represented by ZUMA Press from Alexandria,

art by Tiffany Babb

by Emily Barton Altman

the birds on the power wires
stretched down the street. French doors.
our plants are particular. I can’t see

the source of the sound.
an abandoned home improvement project.
a bowl of cherries.

the whistle of the neighbor’s tea kettle, the low murmur
of inarticulate voices.
it’s a soft sound right now. the body

gets used to the rhythms.
a faint smell of lavender from the closet. it catches me
unawares.

by Derick Chan

for Pat, at the corner of Prince & Mott

We met one day in SoHo, right across
from Old St. Pat’s Cathedral. Through the crowds
I headed north and late for happy hour,
sharing an urban sense of self-reserve
to hardly hear a stranger’s call, but as
the sun began to sink between the rows
of city blocks I saw you tapping with
your cane against a row of Citi Bikes.
You called, “Can someone tell me where I am?
Can someone help me out?” Averted eyes
in answer: Yes,

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,