' I am brutally killed by daffodils' — poetry by Emily Tong

Girlhood Ghazal

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.

'violet scabbing on ankle backs' — poetry by Lexi Rosen

Body Wants

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 

'it was something more gory' — poetry by Caroline O'Connor Thomas

Everyone was licking someone’s hands

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.

'I’ll accept delight’s gloom' — poetry by Hazelyn Aroian

CIRCLE OF FIFTHS 

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.

---

artist statement

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. 

Notes

---

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.

'every hour is one long suffering' — poetry by Anne Halsey

Found | Mourning Diary

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.

---

author’s note

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. 

'a terrible countenance for what nourishes' — poetry by I Echo

Quest

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.

'I am the aftermath' — poetry by Taylor Hamann Los

Dear Body,

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.

---

Self-Portrait as Dove After Strychnine

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.

'as if landscapes verdant' — poetry by Kacey Martin

The Pressing

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.

---

Patina

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.

'a wasp giving itself to the fig' — poetry by Elaina Edwards

Idolatry and Other Fields I Run Towards

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.

'ghosts in hair follicles' — poetry by Trish hopkinson

she-god after she-god

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.

'roses among men' — poetry by Amy Thatcher

Saint Joan of Arc

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.

'bloodsponge rubies & wicked diamonds' — poetry by Emily Murman

sandman

the garnets in yr ring
gleam as wet tumors do
above somewhere a dove
coos uselessly

frost powders the grass
every nippy morning
winks in sour sun & I
sore on my skeleton,
bristle & hiss

wrap me in yr black cloak, konstábl
let me somnambulate a little while

moldering w / desire more devilish
than ever
limbs heavy as coffin lids
sleep sweet as tea cakes

---

rings

I misplace my rings
for four days & nights

the thought of their
bloodsponge rubies
& wicked diamonds
heckling til I cry myself dry
chaplipped & wheezing

we pick apart clumps
of dryer lint
tear open bags of last
week’s garbage
rot hanging in january
air, snow sparkling
under flashlights

perhaps they are
some hierophantic fetish
mere metal symbols
of my failing containment
objects to be twisted
when unease creeps in

we go to the funeral home
hours after close I cannot
let him in

fumbling for lightswitch I
glance at my visitors
one waterfat & green
another younger than
this husband
& feel nothing

---

post-

I prep only for a day &
everything clings
even soaped my parched
hands reek

think what it means to be
opened
of who does the opening

& an unattended faucet
is always trickling
it is only natural
to crave & to carve

I mean if this month
you watched an artery bleat
in the throat of some lover
know I have held that thing

---

Emily Murman is an autistic poet & mortician. She holds an MFA in poetry from National University & is the author of four chapbooks, “SHRIVEL AND BLOOM” (Dancing Girl Press, June 2021), “I want your emergency” (Selcouth Station Press, July 2021), “all the light in here” (Ghost City Press, June 2023), & “hey nonino” (Dancing Girl Press, July 2024). Emily lives in Chicago with her husband & two sphynx cats. 

'beauty is the last thing before death' — poetry by Francis de Lima

Sortilege

“The living reduce the dead to those who have lived: yet the dead already include the living in their own great collective.” — John Berger

and here the dead become a part of the landscape. sling their sickles over their shoulders, after a day of work. I carry anything with me. carry you, carry me. carry the boy, jumped out of the sixth-floor glass window. carry the man lifted from the lake. carry the woman, fallen asleep. carry the sleep, carry the forgiving. when we march to the crackling fury of a steel furnace, we rob our feet blind, bandage them in sleep. when did you last feel the basin of rocks? there they repose. the dead carry your feet. every step, a handprint. the ground is pass-through, permeable. their hands meet our soles to make a step; a wave of palms, every arch, a mountain to circumvent. there is knowledge under the moss, in the mulch. the gone are collecting in their droves. driving us out of the heavy door of the future, where our tongues will syncopate to the same rhythm. arranging the string figure of the woven child. divining the tempest, the soft humming. having secret meetings with the first dew. showing the sunlight which way to go.

---

Why I am not a critic

Because one day I woke with an omen in the throat. Trade lines like baseball cards. Because I want to make music with the chords pressed into the red of skin not delineate their concurrent tension in the paragraph. Because the circle of my life got smaller. Got good. Grift, catapult. Because starlings murmurate in their own shape. Because hurricanes interlink into dead men walking. Because truth. Interpreter. There are old gods just behind the window. Because I don’t really understand what people mean when they say doozy. Because at the end of the day I want to say this is true, but I end up saying this is beautiful. Firework. Because I want to be beautiful, because beauty is the last thing before death. Before avarice. In our hunt for honour we went as far as suppression. Likewise, a handshake cannot be dealt with a singular body. Feeling falling. The hands intensify like moss up the tree. Because climbing for the sake of height is the reverse of falling on accident. Because these breaths equal a conversation. Because your heat in the falling light, because your heat. Lightning rod. Because in engraving the alphabet, I slipped into the early hammock of the dawn. Because the dawn. Because the fuzzy quality of atoms. Soft light. Because gravity does not know the ground, its insistence. It knows space, the inverse of a leap. Riot. Rhizome. Tangle. Knot. Knowing. Corpus. Cavern. Climate. Raincheck. Forest. Special. Because finally, the circle must hold and it did. Because finally. Because finally, within the circle, we found the music of the dawn, its long held note, and it was near silent. Deafening.

---

Francis de Lima is a Finnish-Brazilian poet living in London, where they recently completed their MA in Poetic Practice at Royal Holloway. Many of their poems can be found in online literature magazines, and some have even been shortlisted for an award or two. They also work as a translator, as well as in various roles within independent theatre, film, and art projects, both in the UK and abroad.

'remember the language' — poetry by Adjei Sun

A Passing: 2

In salt and lime I washed off
The blue vervain, then stirred
In a cooking pot. He spoke alive poems:
Like rain birds and black birds
In the shadows that taught people
How to lift off the ground like sahara
Dust, when thunder swallowed the cries
From their throats like conch shells
Let out to remember the language
Of canoes on obsidian
Tides, sirius stars, beaded
Mask dances to the drum.
Said not to add sugar,
That the bitterness was medicinal,
That those whose pillows were rock stone
And still did not wait to be buried
Facing east before they rose
Knew what those who were in paradise
Stole from their own souls.

---

Adjei Sun is a poet and facilitator based in Birmingham, England. His emotionally resonant poetry has been performed nationally and internationally including at The World Expo, Birmingham Hippodrome and The Natural History Museum, London. He was also formerly awarded as a BBC 1Xtra Future Figure for his work as a poet supporting young people and communities, leading creative and educational projects. He often draws on Caribbean storytelling and histories, environmental themes, surrealism and social justice poetic traditions. You can find Adjei Sun on Instagram @adjeisun.

'through the bramble in the name of joy' — poetry by Tara Labovich

girlbedroom

---

Childhood Law

the law declared dozens
of fruiting bodies planted
in every yard. we grew rich
with hazelnut, strawberry,
tart cherry, and johannisbeeren,
fat with black walnut, quince,
and honeysuckle. at the edge
of the yard tangled
a wide apple orchard, abandoned,
except for in our playpretends,
when it was populated
by land-stranded pirates.
but there, at that edge
lived the blackberries.

we’d sucker ourselves
sweet on those little gems.
we’d pry ourselves bloody
through the bramble
in the name of joy.

i, too, want to love
and be loved well—like holding
a palmful of ripe blackberries,
refusing,
to tighten the grasp, to crush
for the sake of sweetness
or dark, beaded drip.

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Tara Labovich (they/them) is a professor of Creative Writing in Iowa. Their award-winning multi-genre writing can be found in over sixty publications, including Brevity and Tractor Beam. You can find them online at @taralabovich or checking out the prairies of the midwest with their dog, Finn.