by Leslie Grollman

                                                                      Frayed laces on my running shoes
                                                                A snagged sock
                                                     Too-long fingernails clicking keys
 
A sunrise tries
                                              A rain puddles the walkway

            Tighten the hoodie, the wind

Too early for traffic      never too late for loss

                                                                   As if another chance

A day begins that way

Gulls soaring in formation
A cloud here and there
                          dispersing as if to disengage
            As if I could kin a cloud

                               Overripe bananas on the windowsill, again

                                                Midnight Mac-’n-cheese-childlike-wonder

                   Still and all, breath

Breath of a hard return
                               A barely-there look     

                   Breathe

     Brie on sourdough
     Espresso, black and sweet

               The heat

                                  As if to clip coupons like they were an answer
                                  As if      a soluble vitamin brought the real sun
                                  As if              cobbles weren’t begging me stay
                                  As if                          mom-and-apple-pie sated                                     
                                  As if                                            the night fatigued
                                  As if                                                  it all won’t end




____

Leslie Grollman’s work appears in Yolk, Spoken Word Scratch Night, Writing Utopia 2020 Anthology, The Selkie, Together: An Anthology, Thimble, Nailed, Pathos, From Arthur’s Seat, other publications, and is forthcoming. Leslie was chosen to be a reader for one of Octopus Books’ open reading periods. She holds an MSc Creative Writing, Poetry, with Distinction, from the University of Edinburgh.

 by Leslie Grollman
  

To want the shape of your body in my hand


To rock as in chanting as in forgetting my name


A novice unsure of how unsure of timing


How to blue the bronze of can’t 
          into a summer’s moon, into a naked swim 
 

A sculptor carves too deep into the marble then a debt is owed 


How do I swim spiraling currents deep yet debt-free  


What if I retract one hand to your two extended


What if only half is honey is tongue is morning moss 


Sometimes I may mistake my Self for hightide


What if you are mantis and I want malachite


Sometimes I feel like mountain water: crisp and fresh, babbling 
        in small streams, bubbling between stones and grasses bulging


I leave a suitcase full in case an avalanche comes  


What if silk fails   



What if we repeat ourselves: what if we run out
         of stories: we are not Scheherazade


Sometimes I may mistake you for a sand-filled empty,
        abandon you on a red plaid blanket  


Then what if my forgiveness hasn’t forgiven me

 
When I place my hand on your plumed flesh, close my eyes, I see our end

                        
                        What is the half-life of a taste  


Then water rushes down a mountain, there is no time to hide


To weep is to wander in place


                        I brush my hair pretending it cascades

Leslie Grollman’s work appears in Yolk, Spoken Word Scratch Night, Writing Utopia 2020 Anthology, The Selkie, Together: An Anthology, Thimble, Nailed, Pathos, From Arthur’s Seat, other publications, and is forthcoming. Leslie was chosen to be a reader for one of Octopus Books’ open reading periods. She holds an MSc Creative Writing, Poetry, with Distinction, from the University of Edinburgh.

by Sara Judy

I will call you plum and overripe peach, 
I will call you a stone fruit, heart pit, bitter pith
sour flesh, burst apart fruit, sun warm fruit
I will call you cherry-that-scrapes-its-thin-skin-open,
apricot-so-sweet-it-offers-sweetness-to-the-air,
ready to pick now, just right now, three for a dollar the
market is about to close now, no time to feel with your fingers
every one in the box with the right pressure to know—oh 
the plums, the plums, the plums that bruise against each other
the plums that will not make it to the fridge the plums 
the plums that press back under my hand, an offering offering:

I will call you every summer ripe thing I will 
I will call you every juice running down
I will refuse to lick it clean

Sara Judy is a poet and PhD candidate in English the University of Notre Dame, where she studies contemporary U.S. poetry and poetics, and religion. Her writing has appeared in Adroit, EcoTheo Review, Psaltery & Lyre, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @sarajudym.