The Poet is Dyslexic

By Grace Mary Finin

Sometimes I try to count

How many steps

Each of them took as they

walked all the sudden

all distant like

Away from me and

how many steps until

I was no longer a sight

to never be seen.

Mostly I am lazy I am a failed

fruit that cannot squeeze the supposed juice

And I am not escaping the zoo

nor would I last too long as someone’s pet.

So, I watch how easy it is

For Janice to use the knife and use it more than properly

And my life is shatter-proof in some way.

She will always puncture me

And then teach me how to

aid for myself.

It would be crucifying

To say out relationship

Has never touched a side of disorientation.

If I were to ask Janice:

how is it that we came to be?

She would neglect to never answer,

to not manage a look.

They cannot look at me, I am

Hardly around but the fright of my name

Is heard from a sum of ungrateful tongues.

I am exhausting.

Home is not in reach.

An Ode to Us

By Caroline Schwartzbeck

I thought dynamic duos were a thing of fiction, but
proved myself wrong when we grew up together,
when we became us, two pairs of little feet tickling the
front lawn, I still think you’re a nuisance just like I had
ever since you came out the womb, we’re still
sisters, not us, we fight as much as we laugh and
laugh while we fight, not at me or at you but with
us, the way our parents looked last summer when
we talked you’d think we invented another language but
of course we didn’t, it’s still English, just us, we both cried
the last time we saw each other but only just after the
fact because neither you nor me would ever sully
the sacred final moments of us, we live beyond the grave, writing
letters sometimes and calling regularly and texting
often and thinking of each other way more than that
because we’re thick as thieves and even seven hours by
car could never, ever stop us, and it’s impossible to fully
understand another human being but if it wasn’t
you’d get me and I’d get you, because who else but
us?

Car-B-Que

By Charly Ella Peter

here is my ode to cardboard french fries
to safe food runs at 9 pm
when food becomes scarce and the desserts are dry, Burger King will always be there, right
by your side

half an hour before close
you know the employees are already done
still, though, you make your way to the counter
just to ask for “one-

-impossible whopper please, completely plain” you croak
so childish, a plain burger, with ketchup and fries
she looks confused and asks you what soda you want

its dr. pepper of course, what else would it be?
Anything but 23 seems criminal to me
collect your burger and sit outside,
parked in your car you no longer will find
that extra napkin you stashed away,
in case you had a car-b-que the next day

thank god for comfort food, I’ll need you again,
forever and always you will be my best friend

Empathy for My Mother

By Vittoria Burgess

There was a time in my life where my current situation was incomprehensible
Curled up on the couch with red eyes and smoky fingers
The inklings of my misdeeds hide wrapped in several plastic bags
And pushed into the depths of my purse

My twelve-year-old self is ashamed of the person I am
Maybe I do have a problem
“It’s not normal to need to hide so much”
But I remember being twelve

My calloused fingers constantly bleeding
The weight of my mother’s childhood was held inside my hands
She had given birth to her past
It was time to correct her mistakes

With that weight now relinquished,
Our fits are slower
We talk lighter
We ignore the hard things
I learn to hold myself up
I treat my past with forgiveness
the way I wish she could with her own

Mt. Boney

By Joy Schmutz

Before summer is May,
Warm and beautiful,
With fair weather and the last of the flowers.
She wears a dark green,
Still celebrating spring but knowing the heat is coming,
Cotton and hemp pants,
With a loose fit and a draw waist,
Yellow flowers in her hair and in her pockets.

When June and July come,
The yellow is exchanged for olive-toned scrub oak,
The last of her vibrant green for light brown and tan.
A flowing skirt and apron,
Cotton is breathable and light enough for the heat.
Her hair is tied up and covered,
Otherwise she would be covered in dust.
Her shrubs are still slightly green, though,
With pops of white from the yucca,
And the last of her creek still trickling at her feet.

When it becomes August,
She’s in dark browns,
And has shed the cotton for linen,
Despite her strong stature,
Like everyone else,
She begins to melt.
But work is hard and time is short,
With sweat on her brow, she prepared for fall.

When fall comes she is worse for wear,
September only gets warmer.
And eventually, even her sisters fold to the heat.
Eventually, she ignites.
Shades of reds and yellows,
Slashes of orange,

And she burns bright until she suddenly doesn’t.

Once the beauty of the burn is done,
she is left in mourning.
With winter on the horizon, she wears black,
Thick cotton and wool weigh her down.
She listens to the sun and the stars,
She sits with the rain when no one else will,
But never speaks herself.

And eventually, her black gown is shed,
With the smell of spring,
As it flows into February.
And she is born anew in shades of blues and orange.
The sun and the sky,
The rain and the clouds,
Could not rival her.

And with March everything explodes with color,
Soon her blue and orange wardrobe introduces tones of yellow and green,
And she sings with the birds,
And while they sleep she harmonizes with the creeks,
She sways with the grasses,
And hops with the rabbits.

And with April she celebrates,
Weathered and beautiful,
Boney is dancing in green.

Maine Song

By Marley Reedy

memories cut across
the dream like roots and curl around
my wrist extending from my fingers till
I can wield them like
a sword. the roots are different people and places

one is on your porch with the tall grass
lounging and the sun the calico cat and the speckled hens

I’m apologizing always for the distance
for the sword I want
to be here
in this, a black and white photo
it’s warm here

another memory roots and I’m
on my back in a lake another in
your car another with my head
on your lap this one’s not
real I’m telling your dad about
beetles and the dream begins
to fall apart

I turn and cut a root then
another trying to hold them
dearly but my sword extends
like my fingers and I cut you
without trying

Letter to George Berkeley

By Taly Nudelman

If a tree falls
her mother will weep,
a cry like the flapping of wings
of crows who have made their homes
in its generous limbs;

her bark will flutter off like a moth
leaving exposed its worn-out heart,
rings like waves on the shore
to meet the accordion bodies of earthworms,
full of life from
the veins of fallen leaves

yellow dandelions in ragged patches
like ornaments around her roots
will sigh velvet petals,
a release that sets scrambling
slender spider legs,
their eyes wide as if to say
Yes, you are here.
I see you.

Dear Berkeley,
God is dead,
but the forest is watching.

A Rainy Day with the Creatures and They Tell Me Some Things

By Sam Ferland

The creatures get rowdy on a rainy day.
They jump up and down for the
droplets to fall,
The water boosts off their glossy skin into the swimming rivers in
cracks.
Where the water would only soak my hair.
It is a day nonetheless–
I imagine them marching into my bed of leaves to drag me out/in
to the party.
Because if they didn’t I wouldn’t be (t)here with you.
I could have never made it,
to the place where the water falls because the weather is a character–
An evil one in my tale (like a witch), but not for them.
Falling down from the clouds... the
creatures told me are actually “pods of elixir”...
So even though I feel the cold rain soak my garbs,
I imagine they feel it warm even though it bounds off their skin;
Because they party and dance ...
They also question what it’s like to bees human
Sorry, the bees are their airplanes two
places they go.
Wherever I am and wherever they are.

Autopsy Tales

By Gracie Healey

When the doctors look beneath my skin
They’ll find a myriad of curiosities-
A body possessed by light,
That wounds from the inside out
In great big masses of color.

My collar bones seal cages for the song birds in my chest.
(I hope they leave them open when they lay my soul to rest.)

My lives extend far beyond the one I’ve left.

The ancient blood in my veins, though cold in this body
Burn hot in decades past.
Dressed in the same porcelain, sun stained skin
Pulsing through the same, love trodden heart.
It bleeds secretly.

They would find novels in my cheeks
Trapped by last breaths
and cats on my tongue.
Hopefully they have enough room in their abstract for all of it.
I had some wonderful things to say.
So many butterflies in my throat.
Wings that matched the ink on my skin.
Great big masses of color.

Death is truly the mother of beauty.
Even the tungsten light of an operating room could not rob the glamor of the stillness that resides
on my face.
I’ll think of this as webbing my cocoon,

And as the doctors pry at what composed this breathing form,
I shall build another.

Hard to Find, Easy to Miss

By Arianna Delmastro

On the beaches are smooth stones with fossils trapped inside
The stones fit in my hand
And in the stone fits 541 million years of geologic history–
541 million years fitting in a hand
The way profound things often can

Children on the beaches build sandcastles lined with seashells–
Shells that used to be homes,
That one day might be fossils inside of stones,
And they’ll fit into hands like they do now,
Only they’ll be bigger,
Because there’s nothing special about a shell until something fills it–
Nothing special about bone until it’s surrounded–
Until some geological event– some horrible or wonderful catastrophe– alters it
(Something like a mass extinction, or love)

For a fossil to form, the calcium must be pressed into the ground,
Held firmly, warmly, in the precise way that lets it integrate slowly with the rock.
Millions of years later, if everything remains [just right],
It will fit inside a stone–
A stone that can fit inside a hand
The way I fit into Us / The way profound things often can