Issue 9 (2024)

She sprinkles manure over the flowerbeds. Black confetti making them starker, like the outlines in cartoons, more defined than before, darker, and with such surety

How do you light the Alps I wonder, out of thunder? Is this hello? The way we stand close by, and then you ask me

Night is lowered, sinking. Its shade begins to steep the sky. Before I see I feel the moon (the one that waits between our worlds).

It doesn’t help when—my eyes closed, head tilted back to picture you more distinctly as the second tallest now among your three adult brothers— you

Once upon a time there was a young woman who always said “once upon a time”. When her boyfriend became abusive and unfaithful, she said,

The morning after, the world dares to be beautiful— sunlight filters through the reluctant embrace of clouds, and her garden, neglected in the rush of

If I should overdose on your homemade lentil soup Don't stop me I love even the sound of it The aroma lifts me to future

A kindred* spirit**: one*** who always1 finds2 themself near3 in a timei when closenessii is sparseiii * related; linked by sustained communion

Sometimes I'll roast pecans with cayenne & brown sugar —even on summer mornings. It will smell like you & I will fold the pecans into

let’s practice, I say, I will send you a link what’s a link, he asks and I’m careful to smile and become a slower version

grooves animating your sculpture in pinstripes of heavy starch fastened by clay fingertips, tender as summer soft lima beans or a freehanded pianist tuning anew,

Born last shadowed in loss— I stay latched at her hip longer than any other. I rise splendid with the sun to sit by her

as I watch you walk into the waves I think of Virginia writing the waves but she walked into a river let it unravel her

Mornings were blooming darker, the shapes of moods no less secret, and missing any sunset mattered. Family came over to see the woods, the beach,

It is a picture of you, wearing only a grey bra and grey underwear. It is 4:53pm on October first. You are standing before your

it’s hard to say when it started – the erasure of my father but it may have been my wedding day before our “first look”