Image by Lisa Marie Basile
Vi Ly is a Vietnamese American writer and student, currently residing in Bellingham, Washington. She writes in all genres, but mostly poetry, and loves to explore themes of food, dreams, personal mythologies, and family. Her work has been previously published in Bellingham Review, where she was a finalist for their 49th Parallel Award for Poetry.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
I’ve started smoking weed again. Cigarettes too.
I lit up one in Portland, surrounded by Arab girls.
The cigarette smelled like home, which is to say:
It smelled like the balconies in Libnan.
Plastic chair, watermelon, generator exhaust, benzene.
I wear two necklaces on my neck:
Beirut’s cedar tree and a small gold heart intertwined with a larger one.
My father gifted the latter to my mother years ago.
I wear it to remind me what I move toward.
I slow the world down when I’m high.
It becomes darker, lighter, sharper. Like me.
My hands slips around my lover’s arm.
We walk through the park. Talk of revenge and conspiracies.
Wear bravado, then unleash it. Let it down.
He wears his homeland on his belt.
I pass the rolled cigarette back to him. We exhale together.
Remember to live in the world, not just survive it.
“Latif Al Ani (1932 - 2021) is considered the founding father of Iraqi photography.”
Gallery Isabelle¹
Euphrates river. Cattails. Marsh.
Bloom out of water. Brown hands
on the oars. Cairo smoking in the distance.
The people are losing their rivers to heat,
to pollution. This is the last time
he rides the river before sandstorms
engulf the city, before he grows tired.
His hand always to the shutter
moving through the world 120mm
at a time. Not as a method
of domination, weapon, colonization–
but as a form of witness
documentation, love.
That is the kind of life I am building
every day. To give somebody
more than what was given to you,
to linger in someone’s memory,
even once I no longer walk this Earth.
¹ https://www.ivde.net/artists/58-latif-al-ani/
Hana Saad is a Lebanese-American writer based in Phoenix, AZ by way of Tulsa, OK. She received an MFA in poetry from Arizona State University. Her work is featured in Mizna and has been supported by the Arab American National Museum and Tin House. She urges you to support the liberation of Palestinians and all oppressed people in small and big ways. Connect with her on Instagram at @hanaxsaad or say hello at hana-saad.com.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile, Bella Palermo
In April I am brutally killed by daffodils. The walls smear
themselves unsure with yellow. I go quietly—heaven crowns everyone king.
In this country we deadbeat our way into love. A boy prods
the bulb of his lover’s ear gingerly, like checking bruised fruit for picking.
//
In this dream, walls are a wailing electric blue. I embark, sick
with heat. I embargo. I dead squirrel on highways. I split for hot rain. I king.
In my memories summer is shaped like a farmer’s glistening sickle. A body
against a body & paper mouth on paper mouth, sticky crescents. Smiling eyes, keen.
//
In any world map I am hunted for sport. Squint at the sky & a helicopter
becomes a burning star. Squint at me & we both become micro-sinkings.
In the street sprouts my sister. Once, we flipped dreams hot in the pan. There was space
enough for two miracles. Now, I know which of us the world loves better fucking.
//
In poetry we are demanded to leave something behind
at the site of ruin. I declare myself heretic—teenage Ozymandias—king of unmakings.
In learning about deficiency I learn about blue. The sky has never needed
to touch anything to be in love; I waltz, hands empty of my own making.
//
In marriage there are no lesser rules. Quality daughters pull out
wriggling rabbits from top hat wombs. All our coagulated red is kin.
In China I am even less than I am now. I stick a hand in my stomach &
bang bang bang bang bang. I look for blood & everyone else is also looking.
//
In me is all the blue my mother swallowed in pregnancy. Supermarkets, empty of
spirulina & blueberries for cravings. Monochromed skies. Customer, become king.
In my chest lies a recursive—a girl is a ghost is a girl. Fall comes early & forgives
flammable nothings. Says: this is not your lover, Emily. You, too, have no kings.
Emily Tong is an Asian-American poet from New Jersey. Her work has been recognized by or is forthcoming in Augur Magazine, Palette Poetry, Fugue, BRAWL Lit, Thimble Literary Magazine, and elsewhere.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile, Villa Giulia
salt
violet scabbing on ankle backs
magnetism
a love note carved into ancient stone
rice pudding
cot or other such pillowified flats
static shock kisses
archaeologists found the message on accident
sunburn
soil
stings
they had been looking for a king
repairmen
marble
help
they didn’t have anyone on the expedition who spoke the language
blood sliding down my shin
becoming uncouth
unbecoming couth
the call back to headquarters was tense
another ear
a third eye
extra hands
perhaps on account of not being able to tell that the letter was love and not other
maybe a cleaver
not-yet-frozen ice
sipping
maybe they expected a declaration of war
bags
crunchy scarlet leaves
burning at the swallow
maybe they were surprised to find a sedentary declaration of longing
Lexi Rosen is a queer Greek American writer from the Chicagoland Area. She serves as Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor of Silly Goose Press, and her work can be found or is forthcoming from The Writer’s Chronicle, Midwest Review, Wildroof Journal, Outskirts Literary Journal, Maudlin House, HAD, and others. She studied Fiction at The University of Redlands and holds a dual-genre MFA in Fiction and Poetry from The Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Honk at her: IG @lex.rosen, others @lexirosenwrites, or at www.lexirosenwrites.com
at the party so I thought of you and
squeezed an orange, still thinking of you,
of what happened when you entered a room,
what happened in the places you inhabited.
I turned to my friend to say
I wish I had been more of a slut, because
I knew it would make her laugh, and because
I knew it was true, and the orange
transformed into a sticky rind and the ants
went to work tasting the thought of you
in their pincers. Otherwise,
it was something more gory, more
satisfying, but not knowing where to go
next, I left the party.
Caroline O'Connor Thomas is the author of Fourth Trimester, now available from The Economy Press. Her poetry has appeared in Colorado Review, Sixth Finch, Ghost Proposal and other publications. Her full-length collection Night Person was a finalist for the 2025 Interim Test Site Prize. Her first chapbook, Unusual Light Source is available from White Stag Publishing. She lives in Portland, OR with her husband & son.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
Trees cast their calligraphies deeper and deeper.¹
I was never a quick scholar but sulked,²
dug two hundred graves,³
fell asleep in the field only to discover on waking⁴
inside my body, more night.⁵
The opposite of language is not silence,⁶
just laughter.⁷ A chime, a blush
of⁸ dark trees multiplying all around it.⁹ A moveable theme
drawn into being by a great composer,¹⁰
wound tight in the logicless pattern
of a crop circle. Waves,
silver on black… this time, I’ll accept¹¹
the piano’s sadness
and the rifle’s moonlight.¹²
Still these same bones bind my frame.
I grip the air with my eyes.¹³
* * *
Reeds bend and thrash. Breeze heaves,
sick with a blank stroke of luck.
I tug at a blunder: white gate,
false leap. Bleached cove where I stake out,
haughty, sore from flight.
Theatrics strangled what’s wild,
swapped rhyme for throat thrush. So
molt. Apply moral sound to the wound. Keen
crowds shuffle closer.
Indict the sea-drenched turn.
Oracular pitch of waves,
silver on black… this time I’ll accept¹⁴
a grand task’s risk,
my stifled earth-right.
Until the deep owns my name,
I drift. Times I stared and tried.
* * *
I’m incensed. This can be prudent. Lessons
from November heather: no art stalls
decay’s pathos. I sip at a tonic
to loosen the past. Door steady
as a hip. Till hinges twitch. Evade
fate. Bait fate. Dull drizzle in the rafter
leads to attic sag. As a draft, tightly
spliced, whittles a small room
from a full life. Outside, spot
indents. Through a yielding dawn, starlight
thins in waves,
silver on black… this time, I’ll accept¹⁵
delight’s gloom. The ruse is tainted.
Pissant stammer. Enterprise.
Spastic battle, acid rain through
my core. The shore’s now gone.
* * *
A dead stump’s rootless. My tendons
flex like tethers: I chart
the crow’s path, asymptotic.
Noons limp as laundry on a slackline.
My forehead slick with fever-sweat. Which indicates
a break. The inverse of laughter
is still laughter, light
as a knife, whittling a small room
from a full life. I slip out of the false round
and into the real pond, silk dress rippling
in waves,
silver on black… this time, I’ll accept¹⁶
the light as it moves through its stations.¹⁷
Shifting grammar of railroad ties.¹⁸
Language rattles. Like a train. Like a
die. Let it roll. It rolls on.
Circle of Fifths is a sequence that draws on my identity and experiences as a woman writer. It explores the paradox that in order to call attention to the fact that an injustice is taking place, and especially a systemic injustice like gender-based violence or gender inequality, one must sometimes re-enact that injustice through narrative, imagery, etc. in a piece of writing.
The first part of the sequence is a cento (with a few lines taken from my own old work). All of my other sources are attributed in the footnotes, which I’ve included below.
The final part of the sequence is a modification of a form invented by Leila Chatti called the antipode. Chatti takes an existing poem and translates it, word by word, into its “exact opposite.” The final part of the sequence translates the first part, but using entire lines instead of words. (Sometimes, I actually used a line that I rejected from the original cento; these are marked and attributed in my footnotes).
The second and third parts of the sequence are (quite loose) phonetic translations of the first and final parts of the sequence. My intent with this was to free the sound of the words from the meanings imposed by their bodies.
Throughout the sequence, I grew especially intrigued by places where an act or method that should have been freeing created a meaning that felt more restrictive. I want the entire sequence to have a sort of knotlike structure, to feel like both a progression and a snare.
Hazelyn Aroian lives and writes in Massachusetts. She has worked as a software engineer, grocery store clerk, and movie theatre attendant. Her writing has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature and can be found or is forthcoming in The Shore, Stone Circle Review, Strange Hymnal, and elsewhere.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
for Lura Beam & Louise Stevens Bryant
August 28
Louise began to have pains at ten last night,
heat and nitroglycerin did no good. At two,
I wanted the doctor but she would not. I
called him before 7 and the ambulance came
by 7:45; oxygen, 3 nurses, consultation
authorized. Dr. S. does not think it coronary
(she thinks gall bladder)—but says to me
“critical” pulmonary edema, exhausted heart.
August 29
In the morning, Louise said, “Much better”
and said I should have gone to the publisher’s.
In the afternoon she was nauseated, appeared
by evening very ill, wanted water, the last word my name.
August 30
I would not have been able to get the obituary
to the Times because writing it was mountainous.
Lill came and took it.
August 31
Francie; her black velvet frock; the funeral services;
autopsy.
September 1
Funeral, 70 people—minister from Christ Church,
coffin with auratum lilies and pine, only her pine
with her into the flames.
September 2
Sleeping medicine.
September 5
I kept the lights on.
September 14
Dr. Phillips says nothing could have saved Louise.
He thinks she had a cardiac aneurism, very rare.
The opposite artery was blocked from the first attack.
October 10
Burned all the old letters and photographs in Louise’s
desk in our fireplace and threw the ashes to the cedar tree.
October 16
Bronchitis; sent for Lulu to cook and clean;
illness washes away grief, territory shrinks to bed only.
November 3
Began packing books of Louise’s, gift to Smith
College; reading L’s Diaries; cannot read fiction
or hear music.
November 25
Prefer to be alone.
December 1
Sent Rose Kerr’s letters to Louise—1926-38—
to her daughter Alix in England. Louise had said
she intended to destroy all personal correspondence
except Rose’s.
December 22
I got to thinking more about a book about Louise.
December 26
Louise moved to Sycamore Road in 1926—she had
untold troubles with her mother’s illness—help—etc.
and lost the apartment and $10,000 capital and was so
lonely she had to buy the piano.
December 29
I sat awhile in the church—I shall perhaps read only
poetry for a time . . . every hour is one long suffering.
February 23
I began on the Attic—exciting but causes misery.
March 1
The second sleepless night in a week.
March 12
Found an old-fashioned lap desk from L’s family—
(which I then gave to Roger Carleson).
March 14
If L could see, she would notice that everything
is the way she liked it—The Varieties of Religious
Experience by Wm. James by my bed.
March 25
Have copied all letters in L’s handwriting.
March 29
Maybe 400-500 of L’s letters.
April 1
Rain; working on genealogical table for L & old letters.
April 6
Wrote 2500 words on L’s Family Notes which I am finishing for her.
April 9
Aunt A’s silver cake, basket re-silvered, I hung Leslie’s
drawing; bilious; laundry cost now $1.00 a week. Illness
helps me to grieve less.
April 12
Gardening on Midland Avenue
April 15
Redwing to the feeder today.
Sold my Charnin Bldg $500 bond.
April 16
Mowing lawns; tonight I began to write
whatever it turns out to be about L.
April 19 (Good Friday)
Church of the Heavenly Rest . . . “All the
vain things that charm me, sacrifice them.”
April 20
Ferncliff after Christ Church yesterday,
L’s Easter flower was one Red Emperor.
April 23
5 hours per day, garden.
April 25
Ordered white lilac & hemlock, L wanted,
and a bushel of myrtls.
I breathe with great difficulty.
August 28
. . . Gave David Smith drawing ($300+) to MoMA as a memory of L.
September 19
I went to the Museum of Modern Art
with David’s drawing and went to look
at 122 East 62—where Louise lived
when I was in N. Carolina; apt house now.
October 8
Gardening to 2:30; white and gold aster.
October 17
Bilious after chocolate cake.
October 19
Flowers by roadside are gone.
October 23
The crepe myrtle is flowering all over.
November 24
Planted bulbs, cut down Rose of Sharon.
December 19
I dreamed of Louise.
I’ve been working on this project—telling the stories of Lura Beam and Louise Stevens Bryant through verse—for nearly two years. The poems are inspired by and/or derived from the women's personal and professional work and archival materials. In particular, Found | Mourning Diary, is an assemblage of sorts from a lengthy diary Lura kept, which is in the archives at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/sch00218.
Anne Halsey is a feminist poet and memoirist. She received her education at Macalester College and New York University and currently lives in Central Texas, where she writes about art, history, and culture. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Illanot Review, and JSTOR Daily.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
I have many things to ask. How much can go wrong?
In Port Harcourt, a woman wastes cassava to feed
Reckless dogs. There is a flood. The woman comes
Close to drowning. Woman, do you have a double life?
My father, come to me. This is the hour of division.
I put you in the water. Can you swim? Swallow
The wind. I am taking a piss. Hold on. Where is she?
I smell something dead growing like true bamboos
In a living room. My brother waits to test his endurance
Against the shoot. Does he need this? With the dead,
He seems complete. Do you still have a son, my father?
I am haunted. I council with sirens & whistle-blowers.
What good thing did you find in your travels? Did you
Find Jesus? I believe in Adwoa. I believe I had a father.
Adwoa sleeps open like a cave. I sleep inside Adwoa.
What have the elders spoken about such competence?
I do not have the time for such questions. I dream dogs.
I have such a terrible countenance for what nourishes.
How long can a man swallow water? Are you still there?
Father, the fate of the woman after the flood worries me.
I am trying. How much can you hold of a son? Hold me.
I Echo (b. Chris Baah) is an MFA student at George Mason University. A Ghanaian-Nigerian, he is the author of 'Among the Secret Things,' forthcoming in the African Poetry Book Fund's New-Generation African Poets Series. His work has been published in Mudroom, The Good Life Review, Ußwali and elsewhere.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
We haven’t spoken in a while. You & your paper lungs & click of beetles under the tongue. You & your longing to pull a pink moon from its sky & drink its nectar until satisfied. I told you not to dwell on the moon. It sings all sorts of lies. Remember when we believed that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, you’d grow one too & wasn’t that a miracle? The miracle of slicing something open & finding ants inside. No, I won’t apologize for leaving him. I know that’s what you want. You ache for cantankerous gods: the sting of deer flies or the splintering of bone. You’ve grown feral, whining like a dog snagged in a trap. But look, I am the aftermath.
Researchers split me from bill to tail & thumb through the almanac of my organs. They pluck out my liver, ask why it tells of stunted seasons. Why my feathers clench around my skin. Why there’s no conversation between brain & muscle. I say: Because the serpent deceived me, & I ate. The bait crooned with the voice of grain. I say: Because scalpels slide too easily. I threaded my nest with thistles & left behind a drop of blood. How could I know I’d spend half my life convulsing? I found a storm drain & sang down into that cellar-dark. I prayed to walk in light blinding as a lab coat. If I could just touch these garments & be clean.
Note: “The serpent deceived me, & I ate” is taken from Genesis 3:13 (ESV).
Taylor Hamann Los holds an MFA from Lindenwood University. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Whale Road Review, Magma Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Chestnut Review, and trampset, among others. She is the author of Between My Spine & the River (Ridge Books, 2025). You can find her on X (@taylorhamannlos) and at taylorhamannlos.wordpress.com.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
There are some of us who chase after midnight.
Hypothesis: it is the unceasing compression,
bathypelagic, that makes the darkness feel familial.
But there are layers to it, as to all things. And we,
find thrills playing on the abyssal edge of them.
If we could only taste his blood upon the needle,
we need not chase the alluring phosphorescence.
The pressing can make a church of anything.
A nightly migration—call and return, but only just,
with half my particles stuck in the thermocline.
Descend far enough, self becomes languid.
On the cusp, one brushes with dominion—
then, only the hadal:
the trench floor,
flickering dissolution.
as if landscapes verdant,
both feral and radiantly ordered.
subject to consecrated gaze,
to be declared unhallowed.
to dispose of a once-used rosary.
they litter the city dumps
in their hundreds of thousands.
i am stained-glass silhouette,
pixel-flesh projection of sweetness.
salt drip to navel, slurped up
before becoming too profane.
forsaken in the baring of
wanton heat. to unfurl is
to pluck them momentarily from
sacred enmity.
scry upon my body
in its aftermath.
not your crucible —
only a temporal patina.
to attend to your acedia
will take much,
much more.
Kacey Martin is an emerging writer-poet, and academic of Māori (Te Arawa) and Anglo-Celtic descent. They live on unceded Gadigal land in Eora/Sydney, Australia. Their work has been published in PRISM international, Cordite Poetry Review, Rust & Moth, Tell Me Like You Mean It 8, and elsewhere. Kacey is a proud cat mum to Paikea and Rehua. You can find them on Instagram at @kaceymartinwrites.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
I once dreamed for animal
bones, the sharpness of canine
teeth, and when the spring comes
I tell myself I will no longer
beg for dreams of horses,
olive trees, or the apple
of your throat on my tongue.
I can dispel the need to indulge
on heated musk, blue veins,
and that night after the party
how someone else waited
in the other room for me,
and us on the porch,
the sticky want before screen door,
if I had let us have it, that moment,
I wouldn’t be running through bluebonnet
salivating wildly for the chance
to have you sit me on your counter top in green light,
cicada song, long moon, whisper
there is nothing about you
that I want to be gentle.
I know what I do isn’t right.
And although there has been nothing,
my present lover, pure as wheat fields,
I’m sorry, simple is something I never
understood. I need a bleeding gum
as I eat. Look, here’s a wasp
giving itself to the fig.
I know what happens inside
and I still circle around the flesh
sink my teeth and pull.
Elaina Edwards is a poet from the Texas Hill Country. She received her MFA from Texas State University. You can read her in Phoebe, Hood of Bone Review, Variant Lit., and others. When she’s not writing, she’s jumping into every swimming hole possible.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile, Santuario di Rosalia
she who came before
climbed jagged rock face
& granite overhang
again & again, who fell
from great heights
only to clench her teeth
& take hold
she-god after she-god
after she-god, standing
sole to shoulder
link together
those bruised & abandoned
rise & morph to crane
& basket, woven with limbs
that cradle & lined
with centuries of endometrium
it all comes rushing back
the muscle memory of survival
the witness in marrow
& ghosts in hair follicles
shed too soon
suffering wells
threatens to leak out
unexpected, this explains
the exhaustion hovering
over what she hoped
to be the finale
but quickly recognizes as the reprise
she-god holds nothing supreme
no ridiculous fate or reasons
just preparation
& the wildly uneven
distribution of prospect—
one white clover flower
amidst acres & acres
of carefully piled stone
Trish Hopkinson is a poet and advocate for the literary arts. You can find her online at SelfishPoet.com. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines and journals; and her most recent book A Godless Ascends was published by Lithic Press in March 2024. Hopkinson happily answers to labels such as atheist, feminist, and empty nester; and enjoys traveling, live music, and craft beer.
Image by Lisa Marie Basile
Like the head of a coin,
I performed my worth—
riding the red flag
of my menses into battle.
That night in Orleans,
I undressed beside my horse.
A little gold bullseye
grew above my head,
glowing like the dying
end of a cigarette.
The dark so admired me,
even the moon couldn’t
find my nipples—
small and shrewd,
unpruned
roses among men
who stood no chance
of holding them.
It was the happiest
I’d ever been––
alive in the flames
of God’s undivided
attention.
Amy Thatcher is a native Philadelphian. Her poems have been published by Salt Hill, Denver Quarterly, Copper Nickel and others.Her first manuscript, Weird Girl, was awarded the 2025 Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, and will be published by the Ohio State University Press in the spring of next year.
