'genuflect through showering roses' — poetry by Leila Lois

Rose fall

The piano awakens~

ivory fingers trace memories,

as her gown cascades, like spilled bathwater

over weathered walnut.

A floregium of critique in grayscale captures;

"one body, one soul.” *

His arms, a laurel bower,

the Opera House flares with gold;

the audience “in rapture.”

He guides her pirouette– petals flit like fouettés

over Covent Garden’s pebbled twilight.

A tiny swallow and White Crow,

dance their last somnambulant duet.

Through glittering prosceniums

and marble-arched halls,

he exits like a midnight wind,

born to a Trans-Siberian train.

Beneath chandeliers and cherubs,

they genuflect through showering roses,

to Weber’s romantic refrains—

a symphony of a shared love rises. *

*1. Rudolf Nureyev famously said: “We danced with one body, one soul” in his partnership with Margot Fonteyn.

*2. Le Spectre de la Rose, a dream-like, haunting ballet duet, was Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn’s last performance together, on June 23rd 1979. Margot Fonteyn – aged 60 – decided at the last moment to go back on stage that evening for the last time.

---

Leila Lois is a writer and dancer of Kurdish-Celtic origin based in Melbourne, Australia. She has poetry, essays and short stories published internationally for publications including LA Review of Books, Honey Literary Journal and Cordite. She is also published in several anthologies, most recently "Sleeping in the Courtyard: Kurdish Writers in Diaspora", edited by Holly Mason Badra and published by University of Arkansas Press.

'my hands fuss with the details' — poetry by Jason Davidson

Ear

I dreamt last night of the yellow house. I dreamt of the yellow floor in the yellow kitchen of the yellow house. My pink upon all that yellow. I tried to breathe, but I had no lungs. I had no eyes with which to see, no heart with which to beat. These were common problems and I was speckled with thirst. I wanted a pint at the public house. I had no mouth with which to scream or drink or legs with which to leave the yellow floor. The woman named Rachel came from the night bar. She stood in the yellow doorway and wept pretty tears from her pretty eyes. I remembered then, what rain was, but the Painter’s head kept bleeding. Clear rain and red rain. It was all the same to me, for I could not see. Rachel coveted me with her soft hands and I wanted to kiss with no lips. I wanted to make love without touching. She carried me outside the yellow house, into the yellow field. She said I was a seashell and laid me down among the sunflowers. The ambulances in the sky were angry and dumped more rain. I wanted to tell Rachel I loved her, but the thunder found the mouth I did not have. Rachel made old, old love to the fire in the sky. The Painter stapled himself for good inside the yellow house, satisfied with his madness. The water from the sky turned me into a birdbath. I was no longer flesh. I was only an infection.

---

The Rest of the Story

hotter than expected, this July, but as I held your hand, it was cool and mild. we tried to kiss, but you started coughing and from your lips bleed razor clams, valentine sand and a lifetime’s worth of birthday promises. we had slept at the bottom of the ocean for weeks and now we live in a quilted cottage on the shore. I suppose I should be authentic here: I always figured we’d end up with something more. this is how the dead live, then. forgetful, full of wintergreen, constantly singing. I sleep on the sand sometimes and I awaken to hear you murmuring in minor keys, singing things I do not know. please stop with the names, dear. everyone is full of strangers. do you remember riding the train back from Yurakucho? there was a man screaming, saying that he had flown all of these routes before. there are no birds allowed in this poem. let me clear: we are not allowed in this poem. it is not permitted. we are not invincible. simply put: the snow. tonight you sleep in a bed of sand and you are the one screaming: whyever is the water boiling so? I have made you into a paper-doll, good one, and this morning, I try to make love to you in the shower. my hands fuss with the details. they are soaked in wet sawdust and your mouth is quiet now. I place you in a candy dish on our dining room table. I tell you how handsome you are. I sit in the dark and wait for the front door to never open.

---

Jason Davidson is a poet, fiction writer, playwright and performer. He's written and directed over 200 works of experimental theatre and his one-act plays have been widely published. His poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in HAD, Heavy Feather Review, Trampoline, Rawhead, Hobart, SoFloPoJo, Burningword, Troublemaker, and Firestarter, among other journals. Jason lives on California's Central Coast with his husband. Find him on Instagram at @jasonwriteswords. 

'EVERYDAY I THOUGHT OF THE DEER' — poetry by Anna Drzewiecki

DEER∞

EVERYDAY I THOUGHT OF THE DEER.

[SIGH]

THE DEER

LAST NIGHT / HIS PALMS. VISION OF THE DEER

IN HER OWN LUMINESCENCE. DEER IN THE TALL GRASSES.

DEER ON THE HIGHWAY. DEER WHERE THE POND

TURNS INWARDS / DEER WHERE THE FOREST TURNS OUT.

IN THE MIRROR MY EYES GAPED. THE THOUGHT OF IT ALL.

I CRADLED MY ANTLERS. MY COLLARBONE STURDY AND GLOW.

THE AFTERTASTE WAS THAT MUCH DEEPER. WHAT COULD IT MEAN TO BE EATEN

UP.

DEER DISORIENTED / KICK TRIP FUR CRUSH SHIMMY DOWN THE BANKS: RUNS

TO RIVER.

PHOTO OF THE SUN-BLEACHED HEAD IN THE SHARP REEDS

[GASP]

VISION OF THE DEER POST-COLLISION. CAREENS THROUGH LOW GROWTH

TOWARDS

WATER. LIFE CINCH INTO ALGAE-VERSE. WORMHOLES ENCHANT THE MUD. HER

HIGHEST [INHALE / SIP IN AT THE TOP—MORE] HIGHS [EXHALE COUNT DOWN DO

RE MI]

HER LOWEST [EXPEL TO THE DREGS] LOWS. SEE: HELIX: SAFETIES: EXPOSURES.

I SAW THE DEER AU NATUREL THEN IN NEON AND ECSTATIC BLUE.

PFAS / SCENT TRAILS / BLOOD TRAILS...

TO DIE FOR. VENISON / HER MUSCLES...

HER MICROPLASTICS... HER MACRO...

THE BUCK / FINALLY / PHOTOGRAPHED SWIMMING FROM SHORE.

HOW DEEP / HOW THICK—TRAVERSE. TRANSVERSAL: SLANT OF TIDE-TAUT LINE.

I THOUGHT ABOUT THE SLENDER TREES IN A CITY I LIVED IN. I THOUGHT ABOUT

BLEACHED REEFS AND SQUID UNDER STREETLIGHTS. I THOUGHT ABOUT

LEONORA CARRINGTON AND I THOUGHT ABOUT A PETRIFIED BODY / IF

DREAMING

EXITS ; EXTINCTIONS ; JOLT.

PUKE IN MY MOUTH: THE THOUGHT OF IT: HER HOOF IN A BAIT BAG

HOW A PENDULUM REPORTS ‘THE PLANET IS A SPHERE’ THANK YOU? HOW THE

PENDULUM KILLS—IF YOU ARE DESIRED —> CONSUMED IF YOU ARE NOT

IT FOLLOWS: YOU MAY BE OTHERWISE DESTROYED

HERE GOES ASTRAY: THE DEER BENDS ON HER FORELEGS TOUCHING MOSS.

NOW WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SOOTHE. SUMMER / THEN WINTER.

I THOUGHT A LOT ABOUT ELECTRICITY CHARRING WOOD / AS IF LIGHTENING

NIGHTVISION / CHANNELS / TICKS / BEAMING

GREEN. HER MUSK. HER NARROW FACE / THE LIGHT

DEAR DEER, —

IN THE VISION I KEEP MY ANTLERS ABOVE WATER

PHOTOS FROM HIM OF YOUR HEART ON FIRE. IN A PALM RAW / THEN CHARRED.

FLINCH. AND THE PINCH OF HER FRONT TEETH.

AM I DYING? YES. NOT YET. PINCH ME

[PINCH]

DEER IN THE HARBOR / A WHOLE HERD SWIMMING / STOPS TRAFFIC

DEER IN THE BRACKISH. DEER IN THE BRINE.

‘DEAR’ / SPEAK DEAR / DEER: I REMEMBER NOW!

IN THE WET / I CRADLED MY ANTLERS

I TURNED SWIFTLY TOWARDS THE HUNTER.

I DID AS I PLEASED!

MY ESTUARY / MY ESTUARY!

[POUNCE / THEN MELT]

EVERYDAY I THOUGHT OF THE DEER.

---

Anna Drzewiecki (she/they) is a ‘sick’ poet living in Maine. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography. She works at a sauna and teaches English at a community college. Read their writing in FENCE, Flaunt, Przekroj, The Maine Review, and elsewhere. Website: wrack.zone

'Tongue fat with want' — poetry by Isabel Galupo

Jesus Year

Girl pictures and

Earthly delights

White rhinestone collar

Metal raked against concrete

Frayed panties in the trashcan

Not not ready for baby

Tongue fat with want

Twenty-nine private tabs

And what were we investigating?

Lunar love songs, “smells like vinegar”

The very last to leave the party

You said it felt as natural as breathing

---

Isabel Galupo is an Emmy-nominated TV writer, picture book author, and poet who splits her time between Los Angeles and Louisville. Her poems have appeared in Pegasus: The Literary Journal of the Kentucky State Poetry Society and Pine Hills Review.

'robe me in brightness' — poetry by Muheez Olawale

road to damascus

at the gasp hanging
between the prayer for you and amen
i weep

call to me on the road to damascus
drown me in light
robe me in brightness

for love is blind
and the world is dark
yet you alone i see.

forever & ever
find a space for me in your heart

amen.

---

Muheez Olawale is a winner of the Makeke Writing Contest, a joint winner of the BCD-UTULU Prize, and a Best of the Net nominee. He has works published or forthcoming in Brittle Paper, PoetryColumnNND, The B'K Mag, The Hooghly Review, Aorta Literary Mag, Last Leaves Journal, and elsewhere. He currently resides in Lagos, Nigeria where he works on his debut novel. He tweets and grams @_muheezolawale.

'understand that you make me pyrophoric' — poetry by Juliet Kahn

Summer Break

understand that you make me
pyrophoric. you crack peaches open
with your bare hands and
make me a beggar bride, wet-eyed seabird,
someone who picks the scab. you put
a summer thunderstorm under my tongue
and wander off. what i’m saying is,
you make me a complete fucking idiot.
so here’s my proposal:
i make you a crushed calliope, a sore
in salt, a fixated weirdo.
i make you howl for more
like you didn’t just have some.
i cram your spine so full of july it goes slack.
and in the end, once we’ve
sizzled into two black filaments,
we call it even
and wait for the leaves to turn.

---

Juliet Kahn is a writer and editor living in Boston, MA . Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Fairy Tale Review, Gather, and Uncanny Magazine, among other outlets.

'Let us darken your blood' — poetry by jessamyn duckwall

Emmenagogue

to be held—to be held down by cold
air. light the candle, huddle.
to feel more solid than I really am.
full. burgeoning like a winter
bloom, freakish.

to find a smooth skipping stone
in the belly. to quench thirst
rain-sharp and sudden.
to bring the blood down pungent
yarrow

---

The nettles open their mouths to sing:

No need to wait for spring to heave one’s
great green body to the air. Our forked

roots rend the thawing earth, searching. We know
many forms of divination. We hear the birds,

the language of their flight-patterns.
The augury of redness, that quick dose

of pain. Snow, we drink its wide white field.
We tuck its sharpness in our hollows,

prepare for rain. Sigh down, sister. Bring us
your hitching breaths, gardens

of numbness. Let us darken your blood,
rest heavy in the cellar of the stomach.

Cut away the dead stems.
Make room in the mouth for the clearing.


*Note: This poem takes its title from a line of Sappho

---

jessamyn duckwall is a full-time poet and part-time sorcerer from rural Oregon. Their writing often incorporates aspects of plant sentience, folk herbalism, and traditional and found forms of divination. They are a 2025 Oregon Literary Arts Fellow, and they hold an MFA in poetry from Portland State University. Their work has appeared in Pile Press, Radar Poetry, Josephine Quarterly, and other publications. 

'dark in the blonde sea' — poetry by Heather Truett

I am pelican mouthed

barely balancing above the sea, alone in the flocked feathers of gray. How old
am I really? Ancient and also fifteen, leggy in a linen dress, back pressed,
brick wall, alone in the group, dark in the blonde sea, but someone saw
me. Middle aged, still desperate to be seen, flip flops coated in sand
and feathers painted in memory like oil. Wash me. Please. Peel the
seaweed strands from behind my knees and pluck seashells off
my collarbone. I am skeletal and sinking, invisible in the beam
of your lighthouse. I am embarrassed in my need, like always,
fifteen, body curled closed, pelican beak, the nature of
nostalgia, the girl always bobbing alone, shivering
foam of a beach day tumble from dune to grass
to white sand flowing need
to fly.

---

Heather Truett holds an MFA from the University of Memphis and is doing PhD work at FSU. Her debut novel, KISS AND REPEAT, was released from Macmillan in 2021. She has work in Hunger Mountain, Whale Road Review, and Appalachian Review. Heather serves as editor-in-chief for the Southeast Review. Find out more at www.heathertruett.com.

'blood ripple shimmer' — poetry by Savannah Manhattan

Polymorph Perverse

Possessed, I am a shining sedition of flesh

Spokes of a wheel engineered to an amphibious hub

The living, craving star, radiant in six directions

Open to every abundance since the first creature crawled from the trenches

I am Mobius strip of milky body and sbozzare excavated with gradina

Trailing strings of titian and mazarine LED in negative space

In your cube of lust you are Metatron how you pierce with slow, deliberate hands

The artist continues on under a sextet candelabra as the blind sense colors and shapes

With many teeth on the chattering windows, my rain courses down

You hold your heliotrope over my hungry mouth

Our shivering breath in the sable

It mixes

It’s frantic

but why not defined

Consider my answer when my lips wrap around your earlobe like a stygian staircase

Consider my love at your feet and yours at mine

Intertwining parabolas coaxed into insanity

Why does the world test its lovers?

You are a whisper that twisted me

A scream that changed me forever

You keep libraries of secrets between us that swell the Euphrates of my chest and belly

I will crest when clouds render into neon and zap the lower buildings to make us curious again

When our needs fuse and transform telepathic and hivemind

When memories hold color without leeching my own

I will crest when I shake from the magnetic fields of inner childhood

When we find the leylines among our barren stones

---

A Studio Sometime Last Night

A war helmet sits on a Wurlitzer
A Klimt rests weary on its side
A butter-yellow metronome idles
A clock breaks at 11:35
A black chandelier intertwines with moose antlers
An inverted Volkswagen emblem foils a rusty pitchfork
A vaudeville clown figurine befriends a skeletal bird oddity
A lone baby grand reflects the dust of ages
An inflatable dominatrix pig holds a giant cigar
A plague doctor waves the American flag
Six guitars wait for the band to come
A caricature of Eisenhower watches a whittled ballerina
Men are in the stairs
Women are along the walls
They wait for the band to come

---

Savannah Manhattan is a trans author and poet in Los Angeles. She has two published poetry collections, short stories in national anthologies, and poems in various lit magazines. She also loves studying the occult and architecture. 

'flesh fever our bed' — poetry by Adrian Ernesto Cepeda

Ascension. My body

Note: This is a Cento poem created from “July 1936” of Anais Nin’s Fire: Journals 1934-1937

Dizzy on emotion,
burning sensual fire,

his kiss, sparks awe,
and possession, Our bodies

a communion. He breathes,
tender, outpour of depth,

his skin burns a soft kiss,
we vibrate, lie like flowing

dream, soft honey, hungry
for his caress, his eyes a drug,

we awake in touch coming
hymns for my lover, for each

other, I love the face, pure
head taking me, his Finger

trembles, tossing stockings,
underwear, I feel open—

the delicacy, shutters,
my body, Ascension

the thirst in my wildly
sensitive lips. He aroused

ecstasy, the poetry
of sex, my opening swells

a magnet yearned, flashes
dream of his beautiful brown

flesh fever our bed, heat,
eat me desire, wanting him—

we come in a frenzy
of kissing.

---

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is the author of Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, Between the Spine from Picture Show Press, Speaking con su Sombra with Alegría Publishing, La Belle Ajar & We Are the Ones Possessed from CLASH Books and his 6th poetry collection La Lengua Inside Me with FlowerSong Press won Honorable Mention in The Juan Felipe Herrera Best Book Award - One Author- Bilingual in The 2024 Int'l Latino Book Awards. Adrian lives with his wife in Los Angeles with their adorably spoiled cat Woody Gold.

'blue hands wrapped with rosary' — poetry by Bernadette McComish

Some Spots You Can’t Remove

Your tape recorded voice
reading Virginia Wolfe,

your stiff
blue hands wrapped with rosary.

I’d like to believe death was your plan
all along. To take it too far,

kill the inner King, usurp a nation, be reborn
a better Queen.

But there was no salvation,
just your old bedroom

with a broken stereo
and a bloody dagger that could never

get clean. I found your spirit
in a cauldron, stuck

between your old life
and your new grim.

I’d like to free you from the murdered
you left like pictures

in a forgotten place.
Which painted devil holds

your hand in eternity?
When you ask him to wash

what’s invisible, do you show
the inside of your arm, spread

your toes, or go
mad?

---

Born in a blizzard with the gift of premonition, Bernadette McComish is an educator, producer, and a poetry oracle. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Press, The Cortland Review, Slipstream, Peregrine, For Women Who Roar, Flypaper Magazine, Waxing and Waning, Indolent Books, and Rising Phoenix, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, was a finalist for the C.D. Wright Prize, the Joy Harjo Prize, and the New Millennium Writings 41st Poetry Prize, and won the 2022 Kali Moksha Prize in Poetry. Her chapbooks include The Book of Johns (Dancing Girl Press, 2018) and Florence Nightingale’s Lost Log (Lily Poetry Review, 2021). Her debut full-length, Prophets of Los Angeles, was published by The Los Angeles Press in 2023.

'dancing in pleather dress' — poetry by Jill Khoury

scream fest

like lamb legs i am detached from smooth proper willing
what a blessing before a current ebbs because it has been
over-salted / dancing in pleather dress / ease the sharpest knife
out of nowhere / an agitation
rises out of faith repealed
years ago / it takes a minute
to catch up in bare feet /
the worst is to be buried whole
and unremembered /
the day’s wear
dials me down

---

Jill Khoury (she/her) is a queer, disabled poet and a Western Pennsylvania Writing Project fellow. She has taught poetry in high school, university, and enrichment settings. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and edits Rogue Agent, a journal of embodied poetry and art. Her poems have appeared in numerous venues, including Copper Nickel, Bone Bouquet, Dream Pop, CALYX, and The Poetry Foundation’s Poem-A-Day. Winner of the Gatewood Prize, her second full-length collection earthwork is available from Switchback Books. Connect with her at jillkhoury.com.

'I will give you horses' — poetry by Johannes Göransson

TWO POEMS FOR OTHELLO

1.

My son asks me if I have ever been black.
Asks me if I have ever been homeless. Asks me if I have ever
seen god’s face. Was it surrounded by butterflies?
Was it ugly? Were the teeth made of gold or silver?
My son asks me If I have ever been to Los Angeles.
Asks me if it was made of silver. If it was built by angels.
Asks me if angels have teeth. Asks me if they whisper to me
at night. If they smash mirrors at night. If they can
have babies at night. My son asks me if angels
are black. Asks me if I have ever dug a grave. If I dug it
with a silver spoon. Asks me if I have ever been poisoned.
If he has ever been poisoned. If he can have babies.
Asks me who drives by our house each night
in a loud car, its headlights flooding his room.
My son asks me if he can eat roses.
My son asks me if I would eat roses for him.
Asks me if I will ever leave him. Asks me about his
biological mother. Is she poisoned? Is she alive? Does she
live inside a car? Does she walk around with a revolver
in her suitcase. Is she lonely? Is she safe? Is she angry?
My son asks me about my heart. Does it ever break?
Does it ever drown in fury? Does it ever want to
destroy itself? Asks me if his biological mother is furious.
Does she watch TV? Does it burn her eyes? Does she live
on blood? Will she consume me with her fury?
Is she black? My son asks me if I have been to the desert.
Was it very warm? Will I ever go there? Will my biological
mother be there? Will she consume me?
Will she bring a revolver in her suitcase? Will you drive
her in car? My sons asks me if I have ever ridden
on a horse? Was I scared? Was the horse?
My son asks me if I have ever stolen money from kings.
Asks me if I have ever hit a television screen with
a hammer. Was it made of silver or gold?
Asks me why I have a silver ring on my finger.
Asks me what a spine is. Asks me about his dreams.
Who the person walking through the desert?
Why is she surrounded by birds? Do crows live
in the desert? My son asks me about horses. What is a
stampede, he asks. What kind of teeth do they have?
How do they sleep? Are their shadows made of gold?
Do their branches break if you step on them?
My son asks if the snow can cover up the night. Asks me
if horses can survive in snow. Asks me about his breastcage.
Asks me about his spine. Asks me about the hooves
of horses. Asks me about photographs of horses.
Biological horses. Asks me about stampedes. Asks me
about horses. Asks me about the slaughter of cattle.
Asks me if I will ever leave him.
Asks me about horses. Asks me when I will die.
When will you die? Will you die in a car? Will you die
in a hotel room? Will you be alone? Will I give him
my money? Will I give him my little black book of poems.

2.

You name is already in it. You already own it.
You are already biological in it. Your spine is in it.
Your mother is biological in it. If I die in the desert
you can put my spine in it. If I die in a car accident
I will give you horses. Hundreds of horses. Biological
horses. Horses that stampede through the desert
for you. Horses that are angels in the desert
for you. Horses that are biological on television
for you. Horses that are slaughtered with silver
hammers for you. Horses that are mirrors
in Los Angeles for you. Horses that are dripping
poison from their spines for you. Horses that are poisonous
for you. Horses that are cars for you. Horse that are angels
made of shattered mirrors for you. For you will travel
into the biology of angels. You will hear them
whisper about the car that floods your bedroom
with light every night. The loud car. The biological
car. When I die I will come back as a biological
horse for you. I will come back with my spine for you.
I will come back as a mother. I will come back
with arms made of gold and a spine made of silver.
I will steal from kings. I will memorize your names.
I will bury your horses in roses. I will bury you mother
in snow. I will wake up every night and flood
your room with light. With darkness. With crows.
With crows I will sing for you about silver.
I will sing for you about gold. I will rub out the light.
I will carry a pistol in my suitcase. I will walk
around town in the snow. I will bury the kings.
I will steal their horses for you. But we will never
find your biological mother. We will be biological
in the desert. We will be mothers in the streets.
But will your biological mother ever find us?
Will she carry a gun in her suitcase? Will she
be riding a silver horse? Will she be surrounded
by crows? Will she be enveloped in angels?
Will we see her on TV when our eyes burn?
Will we see her in ambulances that flood
your room with lights and noise? Will she steal
my little black book of poems? Will the poems
be biological? Will the book be made of horses?
Will we bury her in roses? Will she bury us
in snow? Will the poems be furious? Will your
mother be black? Will she be furious? Will you
be scared? Will she whisper my poems for you?

---

Johannes Göransson is the author of ten books of poetry and criticism – including The New Quarantine (2023) and Summer (2022) – and is the translator of several books of poetry, including works by Aase Berg, Eva Kristina Olsson, Ann Jäderlund, Helena Boberg and Kim Yideum. His poems, translations and critical writings have appeared in a wide array of journals in the US and broad, including Fence, Lana Turner, Poetry Magazine, Spoon River Review, Modern Poetry in Translation (UK), Kritiker (Denmark) and Lyrikvännen (Sweden). His is a professor in the English Department at the University of Notre Dame and – together with Joyelle McSweeney, Paul Cunningham and Katherine Hedeen – edits Action Books.

'Darling, clean up your heart' — poetry by Lavinia Liang

Days at Sea

Sometimes folks will ask me, How did you get here? and whatever they mean, career or location or otherwise, and however I answer, I always think: I must have closed my eyes. I don’t remember yellow trees or sky-colored waves passing by. Did I take a plane, train, car, road? I don’t know, I do things just for the feeling. Go ahead and close my heart. The only true answer to How did I get here? is: by myself.

---

Darling, Clean Up Your Heart

Ma called me back and told me to pull my heart back—to retract it—better yet, compress it, forward and back, to rein in my heart—but my limited grasp of the language heard, Darling, clean up your heart. She was right, she always is, I’m only alright at handling my needs like light on flowing water—I give up when I shouldn’t, I keep going when I should stop. I knew I had to shou my xin because I’ve seen better hearts before. Once I saw slight beauty and great truth at the dinner table, how my cousin and his wife spoke to the whole party while speaking only to each other. The conversation turned to me at some point that night and I knew even then I had to shou my xin, knew I wasn’t the star of the show, but a repository for mutually unsaid things, no-man’s land on which to safely tread, needed whenever lovers love nearby. But still, I basked in it, happy to take it for granted, leaping at the possibility to have my own orbit, my unyielding my only my unclean heart.

---

Lavinia Liang is a writer and attorney. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, The Atlantic, TIME, the Los Angeles Review of Books, AGNI, and elsewhere. She can be found on Instagram @lavinianshores.

'am I the lonely wicked one' — poetry by Lindsay Lusby

Self-Portrait as Skirtful of Hell

Never. Never. Not my real wife.
She’s my real witch, my fork, my mare,
my mother of tears, my skirtful of hell…
—Anne Sexton, “The Interrogation of the Man of Many Hearts”

am I the lonely wicked one / my mouthful of cicadas / jewel-green wings thrumming / constant

though sometimes / the song still rises & falls like / heatwaves like dreamwaves / my pocketful of

acorns & milk teeth / my handful of antler velvet & moss / not some flightless nymph / I am a

plague of wingbeats / always flickering in rooms with no / wind no windows / my eyeful of kudzu

vine & pokeberry / my earful of don’t go & stay / & more & more & more / I am a fever of never / good

enough heart humming / dripping & sticky with bees / my lapful of lanternflies / speckled skirt

trembling / ash- gray & flash of / red underwing smoldering / catching like live embers / then we

all go up

---

Daughter as Omen, as Nightjar

When my father asks me to call
more often, I rattle & rasp

like a rapid knocking against pine bark,
against the dark glass of windows

I mistake for the moth-feathered sky.
I don’t have a pretty song to sing.

I am a gaping mouth tucked
in the undergrowth—

a bird-shaped fragment of night,
a night-shaped hunger that sleeps

all day beneath the mayapples—
fern-owl, dew-hawk, briar-thrush.

When my father asks me to visit
more often, I come gliding above

the moonlit nettles, follow the ghost
of his voice floating low to the ground,

half-here half-gone like mist. I move
silently through the deep-green air

until morning creeps in at the edges.
When my father says he’s ready

to die, I know he’s already turning out
the lights, one by one—those night-

blooming bellflowers blinking closed.
But, little deathwish, I keep showing up,

churring from the tangled hedge out front
& he opens the door & he lets me in.

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Lindsay Lusby’s debut poetry collection Catechesis: a postpastoral (2019) won the 2018 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from The University of Utah Press. The author of two previous chapbooks, her poems have appeared most recently in Booth, Coffin Bell, Epiphany, Copper Nickel, and Puerto del Sol. She is a Senior Poetry Reader for Cherry Tree and she edits poems at Tell Tell Poetry. With Amber Taliancich, she co-founded and runs Perilune Editing.