Saudade by Clara Burghelea

The way a place slips behind, lingering in faraway places of the mind,
its succulence haunting the brim of the tongue, lapping the lips before
it succumbs to its viscous lair, such is the texture of our waiting, thick
and urgent alike, as we harbor dreams tucked in pockets, night so sweet
on our tongues, crumpled shadows casting long limbs across the walls,
perhaps this waiting should be done in the open, the dawn’s thawing
staring at the muted trees, the bellows of the day, one breath welcoming
the next, the way absence steps into a poem, midsentence, an old lady
coughing under covers, we do not love alone, whispers your spinning
top soul, we are this snake that cannot escape eating itself, shouldering
into the tall grass, startled to find itself in the sun, this body of yours that
is my home, yet homes will crumble, what are you willing to turn into for love?

Believe You Me by Sara Femenella

Even I understand I am a woman
as my last laugh sears the thoracic nerve

when gripping my last, last straw
although I seem hysterical

although I seem angry
this is the very last time, I swear pretty

is as pretty as a symphony or the delighted
cacophony of morning birds when the child

I thought I’d never have shrieks at every airplane
he sees, a phenom of holiness gracing the blue

morning where my mutters fairly mask the mess of me
weather itself craves vengeance, once an incident

or three ago, if you will forgive me, I bled enough
children out of me for every bedtime

to have a new lullaby as the sky turns its waters
into fires not born yesterday creeping up

over the hills while my womanhood does unto others
because forgive me for saying but I’ve bled enough

Letters from the Editor by Anoushka Chauhan

after Tennessee Williams's "We Have Not Long to Love"

Youth was reckless our crass bodies fuelled
with kerosene. All grief I knew was red like
wildfire, the worst blizzard of thirteen winters. Now
all that remains is smashed perfume bottles & glitter from
expired birthday cards. This was a postcard from the future.
A summer polaroid of two trainwrecks skinny-dipping in salted
water. This is how regret tastes. Like oceans. Like the tar
of a cigarette’s last drag. It feels like a scarlet letter
addressed to a grave.

When I said we have not long to love
I meant to tell you that some loves outweigh
the syntax of most languages. I meant we have not much
love to lose. Almost in vain I handed over the apple tart as token
and testimony that love’s a commodity we can bottle in a jar of jam,
the moon in a measuring spoon. This is an epilogue built before
the premise. A postcard from a sweet sixteen ghost. This is us
waving I’ll see you by fall at the harbor. This us carving
two lonely beds across the ocean when we
could have built us a ferry.

Bokeh by Jay Julio

Everyone knows the beautiful thing isn’t the light,
but what it filters through. The way every masked blonde
on the uptown A looks until he doesn’t.

How I had to pause Billie on the Body and Soul remaster
ten seconds in because I missed the old recording’s fog.
And every time after years apart committing the asterism

of LA to memory from a red-eye’s oval window. ThePandanggo
sa Ilaw would not have commanded such awe if I hadn't seen
my own cousin inflamed by candle wax, her cheek colorized

under the clear glaze. Or the bowl of water she dunked
her head unceremoniously into again and again, a baptism
for new and peeling skin. It’s possible to see too much.

Every window square lit at 3 AM wishes it wasn’t.
And a stranger’s unsoliciteds somehow vanish all excitement.
My favorite author photo’s the one with my face turned back

into the sun we later cropped out; next to that, the mercenary shot
by stained glass (even with Hannah complaining about the angle
of incidence) that doubled for Tinder.Negative space,

I remember her saying while picking
a spot, tutting at the washed-out graffiti behind us,
sleeper ties we stepped over in search of frame.

Self-Portrait as Container by Sandra Fees

A girl’s pocket is a pond I drink from,
is a thirsted residue                                                            of childhood.

                                                                                                           If I could be
                                                                                        whatever I choose,
                                                                                             as my mother promised,
                                                                           forgive me, it would be
                                                                                                      comets and raspberries.
My throat’s blown glass
would choir a sunflower tribe.
                                                                                   Did you expect a ruffled dress,
                                                                                   hibiscus lipstick?

I am the vase
holding someone else’s                                                   bronzed zinnias.

For a split-second, everything as it was—
            and then . . . . . . . . .

Every Other Weekend, Pin Ball and the Ecology of Escape by Jessie King

The bar is bright Budweiser and Coors
signs, polyurethaned table tops
and the percussive slap of pin ball

levers. My kid cup fingers control
the shiny white buttons on the side
of the game. This machine is mine.

As my dad drinks Jack and Coke
and smokes, I heave my hips forward
to send the ball to the top of the ramp,

pop the pull down low to get another
careening slug on the slope. Quarters clink
in my pocket, and the plexiglass portal

is a flashing light at the dark edge
of dawn. I hunch down toward the trap
and stamp my feet when both silver

bearings are rolling toward the gaping
loss. I know the cigarette machine
is by the bathroom and that the leprechaun

and his Guinness looming over the exit sign
are new. My lace ups scrunch sticky
on the linoleum as I win and lose and am lost,

plastic cups in stacks at the waitress
station, a white pyramid of dinner sets rolled
reminds me of limestone mud castles at the springs.

Dark in the corners, rubber bar mats, red
and papered baskets of fries, and wings,
and oyster trays. The other kids at the games

are like prisoners promised pardon and waiting
for release. I try not to think of home and mom,
yet when I hear the flip and flap of the bats

and my feet on the floor it is like I am dancing
to the percussive slap of rain on slick, new
magnolia leaves. It is spring. The buds

will open soon, and the river is filling up again.
A yellow bellied sap sucker claws his way
up a long leaf pine towards the crown, somehow

it is dry down here in the needle-laced light
of late afternoon. At the edge of forest
and wildflower I want to be like all the different kinds

of bees. They pin and ping from butterweed
to blue dogbane, and disappear
into the petaled gold of Coreopsis.

Girl AND (Hourglass OR Timepiece) NOT Pink by Eva Heisler

Not the pink of sky at dusk.
Not the pink of balled cellophane.
Not the pink of dusty bricks.

Pink like a dab of Dippity-Do
 smoothing bangs.

Pink like blooms of jelly fish
 swarming my legs.

Pink like peeling skin
 on a sunburned shoulder.

Not the pink of an Icelandic banknote.
Not the pink of a stucco bungalow.
Not the pink of blossoms scattered on   cobblestones.

Pink like a sliver of Camay
 at the bottom of an old woman’s tub.

Pink like broken capillaries
 on a nose pressed to the window.

Pink like Bazooka
 on the sole of a sensible shoe.

Not the pink of wild apples
 tumbling through the streets of a German   village.

EVERY PART OF THE CHEST CONTAINS MACHINERY by Susan Michele Coronel

that approximates instruments like the didgeridoo,
shakuhachi, and ivory trumpet. My sternum functions

like an ornithopter, wings propelling the body forward
as I strive to balance in air, but lose momentum

and drop like a blue stone. The world is composed
of sudden accidents that occur when one grows weary

of lying in bed. Sometimes I wake in the middle of night
to locate star swarms between Pegasus and Cassiopeia.

At daybreak I light Toxic Toast cigarettes while devouring
poached eggs and café macchiato at The Rusty Bicycle,

which makes my stomach calm down after carousing
at Ye Goate Tavern—that dive that whips me into wakefulness.

I encountered an old and dearly-loved friend there
and she turned into a kite—a Kite Nymph, to be clear—

her seaweed hair wagging like mangled strips of tissue paper.
At first she was afraid to go back into the rain

but the wind invited her like a subaqueous fire,
scorching a sea of her enemies, so out she ran,

wingspan scrambling to fit through the door.
Next time I long for the Kite Nymph, I’ll seek her tail

and lay down lilacs, their leaves turned upward
like the brim of a hat riding the updraft of wind.

Excerpt 2 from The Unusable Dictionary by Kyra Jee

dis•tance
| ˈdistəns |
noun
1 | ornamental nonchalance
2 | in every dream where i find you again, the five years apart carry over
          • last night, we met at a grocery store cheese corner.
               you tell me what happened to you — trauma in one hand,
               manchego in the other
          • ever in sleep-scape, i look for you
               and tell myself apocryphal stories
3 | bogland shimmers under hot sunlight. strawberries ripen, then seed —
          — and the hills go on and on

A Boy ago by Nnadi Samuel

We learnt the waters the length of our teenage year, brother and I.
call me kayak in that lazy drift.
call him the paddle wheel.

Two of us— a perfect duo, racing past bison and tulips,
past the sainted mist.

once, I attempt speaking-in-tongues
and brother cupped my incoherence in seraph palms,
the way you size a demon before casting it out.

once, I drove breadknife to his skin
hoping to leave a scar— how tides leaves their remark on our vessel.
hands shuffling hands:
like this, we took turns in the corporal punishment of paddling.

If I’m worn out, he troubles the water on my behalf.
If he is spent, I win the tide to his side
and we both raced to satisfaction,
else this longing burns out.

l likened crawdads to our own kind of misery,
and he says, anguish comes in species.
I metaphor a bird pummeling the futile wings of its hatchling, as resilience.
love is stubborn crime, he tells me,
and I lavish in the knowing, nearly mouthing my yeses!.
age catches on the skin in gentle patches,


where he first knew his boyhood to blossoming.
If he says bro, I metaphor it as a palm soothing the first ache.
If he says joy, I liken it to grief in transit.

we keep afloat this thought for months.

each night, we swam the aqueducts praying the rivers yawn into rain.
each night, we god the waters.

Allison Roberts

is a lens-based artist working with photography and the moving image. Roberts’s work has recently been exhibited in the U.S., South Korea, Malaysia, Poland, and Colombia. She has been published in several photography journals including SHOTS, All About Photo, and Pastiche. Roberts holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Angela Galvan

was born in 1987 in Venice, Italy. There she studied Philosophy (Cà Foscari university) and drawing (Academy of fine arts) before moving to Pisa and England where she graduated in the History of art. Now based in Hungary and Slovenia she works as a language teacher at ELTE university and privately, she paints and writes. She is a member of the Hungarian movin' gallery and she exhibits in several countries.