Before we met, I had a thought I’d paint
a mound of butter more famous than

Vollon’s. How his painting’s cream
did not soften the ego—

Now, the thought winces. Now, I am
all interior feeling, all terrified love,

All ants climbing over each other
searching for cause.

Some days, I picture myself burying
you with my ambition,

two fish tongues wrapped in brown
paper that I lay soft in the earth.




____

Marnie Ritchie is an Assistant Professor of rhetoric at a liberal arts university in Tacoma, WA. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Juked, FIVE:2:ONE’s #thesideshow, Burning House Press, Moon City Review, and Yes Poetry. Find her on Twitter: @marnieritchie

             after Eduardo C. Corral


I pull myself together out
             on the ocean surf after the boy
texts about a dream he had,

a dream where we were flirting
          with another guy, or he
was flirting with us.

I’ve already written this poem,
          but the boy told me to write

about the dream, about the jealousy
          he felt when the guy sent me a thirst

trap: a body like no other in a swimsuit.
          I’ve already written this
poem, but sea brine shivers

my skin, thoughts rippling
          through me, streams of
air from his opening lips;

as chill envelops, the arms
          of some ocean god, I imagine

us swimming together,
          nimble as dolphins—

am I not his animal?

We flicker through
          the water, kissing with

the bite of salt before
          I wake up from the dream.




____

Reuben Gelley Newman (he/him) is a writer and musician from New York City. His work is available in diode, DIALOGIST,Hobart Pulp, and elsewhere. He was a Fall 2020 intern at Copper Canyon Press and works in the library at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. He tweets @joustingsnail.

every week at the doctor’s office, I fold
my boxers inside my pants, and pull

the scratchy sheet up to my hips.
I didn’t know I could get used to this.

the moon hides once each month, just like me.
we are brothers, and I am the jealous one.

tell me if it hurts, she says.
it hurts, I say.

but it’s okay.
that’s how I know

it’s working.



____

Kaleigh O’Keefe is a gender outlaw and proud union member living in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Their poetry has appeared in Breaking the Chains: a Socialist Perspective on Women’s Liberation, Slamfind, won the PRIDE Poetry Prize in Passengers Journal, and is featured on indie music legend Ceschi’s album Sans Soleil. Kaleigh is a contributor and editor for Liberation News, is a co-founder of Game Over Books, and hosts the First Fridays Youth Open Mic in Jamaica Plain. Find Kaleigh online at www.kaleighokeefe.com, on Twitter and Instagram at @KaleighOKeefeOK.

the plaster bulged 
like a huge 
pregnant belly, or 

a cyst. cracked 
like a dry 
knuckle. I reached 

out my hands 
like I could 
catch whatever fell 

from it. shouted 
like it could 
listen. the water 

poured like an 
omen. I woke 
cloaked in sweat, 

one hand on 
my plaster womb, 

one hand on 
my pouring chest



____

Kaleigh O’Keefe is a gender outlaw and proud union member living in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Their poetry has appeared in Breaking the Chains: a Socialist Perspective on Women’s Liberation, Slamfind, won the PRIDE Poetry Prize in Passengers Journal, and is featured on indie music legend Ceschi’s album Sans Soleil. Kaleigh is a contributor and editor for Liberation News, is a co-founder of Game Over Books, and hosts the First Fridays Youth Open Mic in Jamaica Plain. Find Kaleigh on the web at www.kaleighokeefe.com and on instagram at @kaleigh.okeefe.poetry @FirstFridaysJP @GameOverBooks

by Hulian Zhang

Little flowers and leaves on the wall
If you could tell me 
How you sprout grow blossom 
I will know how you cracked the wall
I will know how our softness could be better placed 
In this similarly solid rocky world



____

Hulian Zhang (she/her) is currently a PhD candidate in Medical Ethics and Law at Newcastle Law School, Newcastle University (UK).

Ginger K. Hintz

we both wanted more 
so we took it

                                                                                            hands act like scarves 
                                                                                           wrapped around necks 
                                                                                                             turned over 
                                                                                                                     for you 
                                                                                                                face down 
                                                                                             filled with your effort


like dusty mandarins
marked with stranger’s fingerprints 
how do you carry your violence?



____

Ginger K. Hintz, originally from South Dakota, eventually found her way to Oakland, CA. She is a self-taught poet and independent scholar with a day job. She has an MA in American Cultural Studies. Find Ginger at cacheculture.com. Publications include Friends of William Stafford Journal, Bluestockings Magazine, Q/A Poetry. She was a finalist for the 2021 Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize and semifinalist for the 2021 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize. 

by Ginger K. Hintz

Will the past be unobstructed
when the observed become intervisible narrators?

Culture is cancelled. Culture has been cancelled.
Only blue this morning.

The cat’s fur fades in the summer light.
Time [redacted].

We remain virtual until we go outside.
Hashtag: nature, grass, sky



____

Ginger K. Hintz, originally from South Dakota, eventually found her way to Oakland, CA. She is a self-taught poet and independent scholar with a day job. She has an MA in American Cultural Studies. Find Ginger at cacheculture.com 

Publications include Friends of William Stafford Journal, Bluestockings Magazine, Q/A Poetry. She was a finalist for the 2021 Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize and semifinalist for the 2021 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize. 

by Regina Jade

I am told 
That because I am a woman
It is my job to yield.
I am to be smiling and cheerful,
I am to be soft and gentle.
I should be like water in the ocean:
Adaptable and constant,
Welcoming to all who wish to relax
And forget their troubles
After a long day’s hard work.

Never mind that the ocean is angry
When it roars during storms.
Never mind that the ocean is unmerciful 
When it swallows houses and beaches whole.
Never mind that the ocean is deceptive
When it lures the unsuspecting into dangerous riptides.

If I am to be the ocean, truly,
Then I choose to be a riptide.
Calm and smooth on the surface
And an inexorable force below
To drag down all who expect me to yield. 



____

Regina Jade is an Asian American writer and poet. She loves chocolate, custard tarts, and cats. In her spare time, she can be found trawling the depths of libraries for new books to add to the to-be-read pile, which never seems to get any smaller Her recent work appears in Eucalyptus & Rose Literary Magazine and A Coup of Owls, and is also featured in an anthology titled “Imaginary Creatures” from Carnation Books. She tweets from @thereginajade.

by Colleen Abel

Colleen Abel is a disabled writer living in the Midwest. Her work has appeared in venues such as Lit Hub, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection, REMAKE, won the 2015 Editors Prize from Unicorn Press. She has two chapbooks, HOUSEWIFERY (dancing girl press) and DEVIANTS, a hybrid work about stigmatized bodies that won Sundress Publications’ 2016 Chapbook Prize. She has been awarded fellowships from UW-Madison’s Institute for Creative Writing and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She is the Poetry Editor of Bluestem magazine and Assistant Professor of English at Eastern Illinois University.

Note: “Venus of Willendorf” is reprinted with the author’s permission from the chapbook DEVIANTS (Sundress Press, 2016).

by Colleen Abel

When I got out from under
the damp tongue of the priest’s 

sermon, there was something I was
finally ready to declare

something grave:     God
as the great

naught     God
as un—     not ur—

All I held:     fictionalia

& then I went to the castle
of bones     the bunk-

beds of martyrs     with God
yawning from the clammy tufo

requiring nothing

Heresy is easy scoffs the marble 
saint     the axe marks 

in her neck say try believing   

& there was something I was—

finally ready to




____

Colleen Abel is a disabled writer living in the Midwest. Her work has appeared in venues such as Lit Hub, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection, REMAKE, won the 2015 Editors Prize from Unicorn Press. She has two chapbooks, HOUSEWIFERY (dancing girl press) and DEVIANTS, a hybrid work about stigmatized bodies that won Sundress Publications’ 2016 Chapbook Prize. She has been awarded fellowships from UW-Madison’s Institute for Creative Writing and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She is the Poetry Editor of Bluestem magazine and Assistant Professor of English at Eastern Illinois University.