beer this verb to be with an aftertaste
            bitterness my father said
            you gotta learn how to love
            same as coffee no one likes
            at first he thus expounded
I nodded never telling that Nonô

who was Lebanese in all ways that mattered
            had been making us café
            for years I can still smell
            Grammy’s chocolate-coffee cake
            by which I mean not the shape
of said cake but its contents soaked into

Brazilian coffee & cocoa equal parts
            I still hate beer it makes me
            think too much of everything
            I don’t miss about Brazil
            the aftertaste every time
I answer where’s your accent from & bubbles

from some foam from some ocean I still miss
            rush up crushing leave me flat
            an unwanted afteraccent
            whereas coffee accelerating
            & waning thru my veins
has made me feel the tides within the tides




____

Carlos A. Pittella is a Latinx poet, an accumulator of accents, a pile of expired passports. Having lived in Brazil, Portugal, & the US, he now studies creative writing at Concordia University, Canada. His poems have appeared in Tint, Feral, & the VS Podcast. Tweet hi @metaferal

1. they did not tell us the story of when adam was eve and eve was adam and neither were neither; nor did they tell us the story of when god tore eve apart, bone from bone skin from skin, made her watch as she was disassembled to make her opposite, and then the space where she had been 					was handed back her rib, as if to say it was somehow unsatisfactory; nor the story where god started all over and this time made eve suck adam dry and eat up the leftovers, as if to say, this is all you’ll be ever good for; nor the story where god had adam and eve scrawl the words man and woman into their bodies a million times as if to convince themselves that it meant anything at all; nor did you hear the one where they’re still etching it into their skin, licking up the blood as it pools, adam draining eve dry as a bone this time around as if to say — I’m sorry — as they slowly, painfully, joyfully, merge into one, bathe in sweetwater, and live out their days in a garden like none other

2. but we search for pleasure and redemption hand in hand
the apple the pomegranate why are we all so obsessed 
with the past, the big nostalgia, the mistake that eclipsed all
others. no one else was there when persephone bit into blood
orange, swallowed seed, no one knows whether or not they caught in her teeth, 
whether she spit them out before we were condemned
to the cold of winter. no one knows for certain whether the gates of hell
are surrounded by a grove of lush trees, danced into soil by her bare feet
pushing life into earth as she faced death. juice on fingertips on tongue on toes




_____

Gaby Benitez (she/her/ella), is a queer, Xicanx writer in her quarter-life-crisis living in her evergentrifying hometown of Austin, TX. She writes to make sense of her experience living in this tumultuous world, to make sense of the ways we relate to others, the earth, the cycles of life and death. Much of her writing is through the lens of the body as a borderlands, meeting place, and interdimensional highway for these pathways of connection. She is obsessed with watersheds, and water, and the flicker of sunlight on its surface, and with the way the elements tie us all together across space and time and universe. Would have coffee and sweet plantains for every meal if given the option. Gaby’s poems can be found in Wussy Mag, Peach Fuzz, Dinnerbell Mag, Stoneofmadness Press, and other scattered places. Follow her on instagram @gabriellebenitez or twitter @gaygardengoth

In this season, the river is revealed to us 
through bared branches; through our back windowpanes; 
its fog-steam rising in cold morning. 
A brick smokestack’s refracted reflection floats at its surface. 
Once spewing toxins from a laundry cleaning facility, 
the tall stack now stands dormant, still-reaching to clouds,
a vanishing point in our view to the west. How wide is the riparian band?
Does it have an end?
Looking out just now, I catch sight of two small flickers; 
small black and white woodpeckers, one redheaded. 
Then, the swoop-flight of wind-surfing black-capped chickadees 
riding a current from tree to feeder-seeds, sending a thrill that rivers 
over me and spreads, in ripples, to eternity.




____

Marjorie Moorhead’s poems are found in journals such as Verse-Virtual, Tiny Seed Literary, Amethyst Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Writing In a Woman’s Voice, Bloodroot Literary, and others, as well as many anthologies, and the two chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (FLP 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). A full collection is forthcoming in Spring 2022. Marjorie writes to discover and honor ways of survival with our planet and with others and to be in community with other explorers exercising their unique voice and stories. 

You write to prove you can still do it,
that somehow you are still alive. But the
lines never seem to click, words dying on
the tip of your tongue. Every summer is the
same now: a desperate need to return to what
is lost. It’s simple, really. You are a ghost in
a world full of ghosts. Your brain a bowl of
rotten fruit, a dried up lake. You rise early
before the sun, run until your heart forms
a thoughtless echo. You are trying to get
this right. This, being the rest of your life.
You kiss the ice, cut the loose end, rework
the fire in your blood. Still, there is nothing.
No sharp slap of resurfacing. The seismic gap
in your heart growing larger by the second.
What was it that you wanted exactly? A flint
to draw the spark with? An answer for every
question? Instead, you dream in absence, stare
at the letters of the months. You can’t see anything
when you aren’t really looking.




____

Jade Mitchell (she/her) is a poet & performer based in Glasgow, Scotland. She earned her BA in Creative Writing, Journalism & English at the University of Strathclyde, where she was awarded the Beatrice Colin Award for her experimental poetry dissertation. She is an Assistant Editor for Up the Staircase Quarterly. Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines, including Untitled: Writing, L’Éphémère Review, Inside The Bell Jar & Beech Street Review.

in an annual yuzu hot bath, a zoo's solstice onsen
for these too-short days, too-soon orion looming

overhead. let me stand in steaming mineral soup
orbited by floating citrus and snow and awash in love

from those who believe i am enough as i arrived: wet-
eyed, wanting, heat-seeking, sleepy. give me that good

hot vapor and a pair of hands to feed me fruit, comb
my hair, tell me i'm so sweet the oranges came to bathe

with me. let me float out these dark weeks asoak in a tiny
manmade inland sea salty with rock and bone and shell

— my satsuma-oil sweat and strain dissolving back
into the universe. give me nothing less. let me change

what i will no longer accept. wash me away
and away and away, amen.




___

Adrienne Crezo (she/her/hers) is an editor, Pushcart-nominated writer, Tin House scholar (2022) and native Oklahoman of Comanche descent. She serves as an editor at Daily Kos, as a poetry reader for Okay Donkey and Kissing Dynamite Poetry, and as associate poetry editor for Pidgeonholes. You can follow her on Twitter @adriennecrezo.

(after “Housekeeping” by Marilynne Robinson) 

O, make of my teeth. a sieve. 
drink. from this. font of mercy. 
make of my body. a community. 

lips nets. filter all impurity. 
every virus. every bruised silted 
eye. sifted. through. every hurt.

sold. let tears collected. saltcrust. 
make from them. crystalized. calyx. 
tinkering grass. swaying. invisible breeze. 

realized. glazed stalks. bowing. to receive. 
caresses. gentle kiss. on the forehead. 
gentle hand. on the back. gentled. 

fingertips. sepal split. let me reach. up. 
with both fists. & grasp the wind. that 
joy withheld. cast into the sky. for me 

to find. now. to harvest. to harness.
to imbibe. how then. to live. now. 
with such hunger. on the wind. with danger.

fanning out. in every direction. if i could.
lay a table. for four hundred thousand. 
for all of the empty chairs. lost. and we are.

still losing. pushed away. from the table. 
here. i set a place. for every heart. take up all. silver. 
every syringe. gather up. the mercury. every 

fevered thermometer. cobble together. each scalpel. 
open chested. melted into. oneflowingsubstance. 
pressed. then cooled. into utensils. for our feast.

this is one way. we remind our.selves we are. alive. 
we survive. by silver linings. we dine on. & 
even while falling. peeled away. from seats. 

full. too early. it is salt-glinted things. 
that shine us. into understanding. 
we were always. whole. 

this is how. i will sing. for you our supper. 




____

Adrian Dallas Frandle (he/they) is a poet & queer cook. A poetry reader for Variant Lit & Okay Donkey Lit Mag/Press, they have poems Daily Drunk Mag’s “Marvelous Verses” print anthology, Celestite Poetry Journal & Feed Lit Mag. Work forthcoming in HAD, Olney Mag, Sledgehammer Lit Mag & more. Tweets: @adrianf

& sea water became everything                we pulled it from ground             
we materialized it from air                                    we got salt caked in our
eyebrows                                   & harsh winds ripped at our hair                           & our steel    oh     our steel shone so correct             these swords 
drawing blood           on summer days    til the grass choked with the stuff                               that goo             get into it         We slipped & fell on it    for it          we 
forgot who we were within it        our hands   stained red                      
then washed pink & brown by the ocean we lived nowhere near         but that stole up to clean us anyway    thank you ocean      thank you sea                   thank you disney megacorporation      for the grift       		        of piracy          
& all its lessons       the salt & the blood         mainly             lay me down beneath it all        salt &      wave &        boisterous sun      let the sleep 
that takes me                  be a kind one    let the water lap my face 			                                                
                          like a good dog 	come running        



____

Alyssandra Tobin is the author of PUT EYES ON ME NOT LIKE A CURSE, forthcoming from Quarterly West in 2022. Her poetry appears in Poetry Northwest, New Ohio Review, Puerto del Sol, Grist, and elsewhere. 

toward the rose
worthy still when its petals are tired, 
toward burgundy thread,
dust blush on your cheeks.

Toward frilly things—
femme froth and butch bloom, 
rose gold cuticle,
pale palm of foot.

Decay is another way
to unfold. At the bottom
of the pond I still desired.






——

Meredith Arena (she/they) is a queer writer originally from New York City. She moved to Seattle in 2011 and learned how to drive in 2015. She is an interdisciplinary teaching artist, facilitator and organizer. She served as an editor on the journal Lunch Ticket for two years. Her work can be found in various journals including Longleaf Review, Entropy, Lunch Ticket, Peatsmoke, Blood Orange Review, and forthcoming in Poetry NW. She was the 2021 Erin Donovan fellow in poetry at Mineral School in Washington. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles.

Diaphanous and hardworking.
Sometimes folded over at the edges.
Tucked and sewn in small stitches.
Transparent and larger than the body.
From behind black windows
a fog has settled on these roads.
It lifts before I am ready. I wait
at the window. They crest the hill.
Don’t tell me you can’t see them.




____

Liane Tyrrel is a visual artist and poet. Her poems have been included or are forthcoming in: The Shore, EcoTheo Review and JMWW among others. Her prose poem “Spontaneous Combustion” was nominated for Best Short Fictions 2021. She lives and walks with her dog in the woods and fields of NH. https://www.lianetyrrel.com/

for Agnes Martin


I walk the planes of this last town, symmetrical, enclosed.

When she quit the city
to break from her constant hysteria, she promised herself the apology

of firmness. And she repeated it. Had to
separate the voices. Though she couldn’t

recover, she could hold her flush from its strata and heaving

             and flat-manner a composure, put the question
             of being in the right order.

She fit to a square within
mottled adobe. Bright and wide, the light. She lived

a long time in the unmarked eternity. What drifted easy
in the mind. She listened, then drew a light line

through a bland center, a line which looked like nothing but was
an actual place, the warmth of her hand and also a surrender.

Bio: Lauren Camp is the author of five books, most recently Took House (Tupelo Press). Honors include the Dorset Prize and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award and New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Witness, Poet Lore, and Beloit Poetry Journal, and her work has been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, and Arabic. www.laurencamp.com