As burgeoning muscles flicker like lowgas streetlamps in the dawn, it’s blooming, boy
Girls who dance like slick newborn fawns. So lead me. There’s a moth on your shirt 
In the closet, a mark on your face: an instruction, my luminous tongue sings 
Sweet as sin or music, whichever calls your body to move
Past me, into the quiet rooms of shame I thought I’d given up. 
Your abs twin my lips. Believe it: I’ve never had a lover move inside me. 
If this was our last night uncovered, could you call me by my name? Imagine 
We’re married: eyes coy behind my bridal veil, your family checking our sheets 
For blood. But this isn’t a constellation, no myth of harvest gods 
We’re singing. You lead me well; I lower my head with a smirk & a bow
Ties my hands together. Hiding, a memory without a name--our careless dress & 
dance. Kiss me soft & quiet, an arrow launched from our quivering mortality. Hands 
Lead us back to the beginning: two boys in a dark room, begging to be made. Holy
Never ends safe, you say. We give each other up. Under naked stars, we pray. 

Willow James Claire (they/them) is a bi, gender-fluid poet and writer from Arizona. Willow’s work has been nominated for both the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize anthologies, and has appeared or is forthcoming in online and print publications including Frontier, The Indianapolis Review, the minnesota review, and Foglifter. Willow holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. You can find Willow on Twitter @thesundaypoet; they currently live in Orange County.

First, notice. Still the body, still the mind.
Open my eyes. And what is there? Sunlight.
Give thanks immediately. It’s so kind:
You're dying, and it isn’t always night.

The hospice nurse is here, but in the dark
He is another obstacle I curse.
Death has come to my house to leave its mark:
Sponges and trays; pills and checks to disburse.
I need your help. Like always. No. Like now.
But you are lost in furrowed sheets and skin.
So I will smooth myself out here somehow
And find a way to bring the sunlight in.

I’m mad at you. That’s why I meditate.
O Lord, use me, though I can’t concentrate.

J-T Kelly is an innkeeper in Indianapolis, Indiana. He lives in a brick house with his wife and five children, his two parents, and a dog.

Pomegranate — ripe,
Unbroken —

I, too, hide my heart —
Fruitlessly.

J-T Kelly is an innkeeper in Indianapolis, Indiana. He lives in a brick house with his wife and five children, his two parents, and a dog.

Strewn in Sabbath light.
Sullied by desire.

God, cull me holy.
Myrrh me, shin and tabernacle.

I have begun wanting
the silver spile of moon-rivers.

Broach the night’s breath unto me;
I want the Nile of everything.

            A basket of Moses.
Wrapped and unwrapped into prophet.

           Sea that sears me till Sinai
and back,       lapping at my limbed shore.


                        God,
                                     I am so stupidly human.

         Heart that stuns itself
         at the enormity of all that isn’t.

Worn by my own will to flock
toward each morning-door that creaks.
Each boulder, thinking it is you.

Seamed back in
                                       a sac
                          a shriek
                                                until skin again.

God, molt and melt me to manna.
Render me crescent,
let me snow in.

Letitia Jiju is from Kerala, India. Her poems have appeared in Indian Ruminations, Emirates Literature Festival and are forthcoming in an anthology by the Poetryhood. She was the second runner-up at the 2018 Taleem Awards. You can find her on Twitter/Instagram at @eaturlettuce.

From a 2021 photograph by Joanna C. Valente

Do you lie soothing 
in suds, creating feet waves 
warm while covering you 
in bubbles, pen over your
earlobe or keeping your
hair up in a bun, while 
the faucet drips, strings
of classical woodwinds
serenade you symphonically 
as poem lines permeate 
along with steaming unfinished
rhymes splash your body 
poetry soaking in sound bath
your mind seeks to quiet horn 
honking traffic stalled cabbies,
annoying construction worker 
cat calls, neighbors bickering 
in untranslatable profanities, 
the orchestra volumes to  
soothe you, finding the perfect
floating relaxation spot, warming
as inspiration poems gathers 
steam in the bathtub, do you
reach for a pen? Transcribing 
saltwater lines as soap drips on
the page of your journaled 
notebook, or do you soak 
eyes closed continue becoming
one with water, the inner 
music hither as NY winter
window cracked, shivers 
afloat lukewarm bathtub 
chills you in imperfect concentration.

Adrian Ernesto is the author of Flashes & Verses… Becoming Attractions from Unsolicited Press, Between the Spine from Picture Show Press and La Belle Ajar & We Are the Ones Possessed from CLASH Books and Speaking con su Sombra with Alegría Publishing. Adrian is a LatinX Poet who lives with his wife in Los Angeles with their adorably spoiled cat Woody Gold.

it's a raw deal
the hunting heron's
frightening eye

it's a square call
from a round mouth,
the frog's fear

we imagine
such an end
or if we don't
who can blame us,
having escaped for so long?

I think about how large we are
and how small.

it's a raw deal
however you cut it
predator or cauldron

sample or multipack
deadly affection,
unkind love

no science heals
this living

Kyla Houbolt (she, her), born and raised in North Carolina, currently occupies Catawba territory in Gastonia, NC. Her first two chapbooks, Dawn’s Fool and Tuned were published in 2020. More about them on her website, https://www.kylahoubolt.com/. Her individually published pieces online can be found on her Linktree: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

you left your fingerprints  
scorched into the skin  
on my throat  
and in my hair,  

a soft laugh  
at the sharp intake of my breath  

I left my palm print  
on your stomach  
and the indent of my nipple  
against your back  
as your mouth filled with smoke  
and your mind with mercy  

Do you remember?  
that was the day  
you didn’t drown me  

Christina Barlow is a book collector who lives in her library in a sea-side village somewhere in Africa.

last night’s hue was a Kate Moss red
but a salmony pink is better fit for a Monday
technically “coral” but I try not to think
of those dying reefs

tomorrow I might go for something
more plummy, perhaps even “Heroine”
that’s the person I want to be
not heroic, but bold and with
an electric side of mystery

I have plenty to choose from
most shades of red, except for nudes
not much point in those
I know one day I’ll have to take off
the mask, then I might grow timid
and go for a matte lip gloss
but that isn’t yet, I can still
breathe into my secret fog chamber
embellished with scarlet, vermilion and fire
all the fruit I’m hoping to ripen into

Maija Haavisto (she/her) has had two poetry collections published in Finland: Raskas vesi (Aviador 2018) and Hopeatee (Oppian 2020). In English her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in e.g. Wondrous Real, ShabdAaweg Review, The North, Streetcake, ANMLY, Eye to the Telescope, Shoreline of Infinity and Kaleidoscope. http://www.twitter.com/DiamonDie

to my parents


I get the feeling, still, that you two think 
he is a fragile egg & I am a rock,
unbreakable, unshakable, golden.
That’s what our name means, from the German: gold stone. 

Let me tell you, 
I was not as resilient as you thought.
I was not an adult trapped in a child’s body.
I was a child trapped in a child’s body, unable to move.   

Why can’t you see I crack & cry & break & bleed?
I am the egg. He is the fox, 
scratching at the tiny doorway,
looking for more, hungry. 

Phil Goldstein is a journalist and writer who has been living in the Washington, D.C, area for more than a decade. His debut collection, How to Bury a Boy at Sea, is forthcoming from Stillhouse Press, and his poetry has been nominated for a Best of the Net award and is forthcoming or has been published in The Laurel Review, Rust+Moth, Two Peach, 2River View, Awakened Voices, The Indianapolis Review and elsewhere. By day, he works as a senior editor for Manifest, a content marketing agency.

It starts so simple⸺a boy
lost in a field, covered
in twigs, spread thick
to the fingertips. He learns
to play dead. How to still
his earthquaking chest
while others hive around
him in search—their loud
howls drifting towards
the timber in waiting. Most
of the others have all been
found and hung to dry
at the wrist by this point,
but this cannot end
until all of the faggots
have burned⸺childish game
they play. Who can spill the most
blood into the firepit to watch
the flames glow neon, how to
turn a boy into a blooming field
of flames. The art of hunting
with a lit torch and palms
full of gasoline, they continue
to scour. They cannot find
the boy, he stays hidden.

jason b. crawford (They/Them) was born in Washington DC, raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut Full-Length Year of the Unicorn Kidz will be out in 2022 from Sundress Publications.