I went to uncle’s house after the funeral — the house was filled with water. I couldn’t see my legs once I entered. People stood on chairs to breathe. Children on their swim rings to stay alive. Everyone in the house, except the family, tried to find the tap left open. Nobody could ask or speak about the tap, the outline of the house’s inside, or the water. Cousins held shut the doors of other rooms — so no one could see what the water touched. The wife of the youngest cousin

Falling  By Pilar Graham Stubborn Mule Press – 2025 Devil’s Elbow, MO Having never encountered the first name “Pilar” I looked it up and learned it is of Spanish origin and comes from “Maria del Pilar” which means Mary of the Pillar. This was a title given to the Virgin Mary after her appearance – an apparition seen by St. John the Apostle – on a pillar in Zaragoza, Spain. And so was born the honorific name Pilar, denoting strength and steadfastness. Ms. Grahams’s collection

In orchids, he multiplied the room until the balcony broke open. Four floors underground, he grafted the apartment to compose a deep poem. Each depth has its own darkness— until he found one private enough to write in, a fragment of shadow. An invisible clock-hand spun him tight; his gaze bent with its curve. Almost swallowed by the abyss of his own eyes, he wondered: If the battery sleeps, can I stay awake outside time? What difference for one who is already the sand in an h

"At the Oncology Clinic" Did our tumors beat in sync across the decades? My mother, resigned and afraid— me waiting, always, for it to be over. Our church prayed for her death, certain it was the will of God she suffered this wither of flesh and bone. I, having learned, tell no one and so they can’t pray for me, no calls toward some divine being to kill me quick. I stand alone in an ice-slicked parking lot, the clouds weeping snow. That Once in A Lifetime She asks if I’ve eve

The dresser top is scarred; bird’s-eye maple  marred with scratches, a layer of dust fine as  powdered sugar seeping into the deep grooves  caused by many moves and careless movers,  the wood old and dry, crying for a soft rag to  smooth and soothe its surface with gentle touch  of healing wax. This is your grandfather’s dresser,  the one he hand-picked, fifty years in the furniture  business, for your grandmother to hand down to  you, and then you gave it to me in the first

Shana Ross is a newcomer to Edmonton, Alberta and Treaty 6 Territory. Qui transtulit sustinet. Her work has recently appeared in Great Weather for MEDIA, Ninth Letter, Grain, Literary Review of Canada and more. She prefers walking in the woods to social media, and budgets her time accordingly.

Nico Santana is a Filipino poet from Quezon City whose poetry has been published in Bluestem Magazine, Midway Journal, and TLDTD, among others. Aside from poetry, he likes to write scripts and storyboards for comics and video games he never plans to actually make.

Our five-year-old neighbor calls from the roof of his parents’ car, parked beneath the tree. “Would you like to pick some cherries?” He is barefoot, grinning, rouged in juice.  You could be too. Mid-summer, mid-morning,  the halogen sun humming long and early. I climb. Smooth, scarred bark  against my arches, skin to skin as cool  as tidepool. Higher now, I’m bobbing in the spray of gumdrop blood clots. Ruby orrery, a hundred miniature Jupiters  at every stage of storm.  He w

Foggy Night Somewhere a saxophone’s sob gropes through the rivertown of blues cloaked by the fog. crossroads a stop sign glows  in headlights Sensual Expression boogie-woogie a swift tempo of spiritual  bewilderment hip-shakes in happy collapse Monoku delta breeze a slow-tempo blues sways across cornfields  Monoku night blues petrichor of land rustles in wind Tanka eruption  of jazz  fire rainbow over  nightclub Jianqing Zheng's poetry books include Dreaminations (Madville 2

The Leaving   These pockets of my mind reek of mulch & citronella & the thick flesh of shed flight   butterfly sliced, fed to bubbling oil   & the circadian bebop of night churning   a boxed monster & those Lisa Frank hot pink flowers with that gorgeous name lost  somewhere in the dirt or trunk of mom’s SUV. The rest is blintz & valley folded into my  amygdala, like Brianna’s paper fortune teller,  the one that promised a life etched out in shades  of colored pencil. The Big

Dog paddling down the years, treading water, your drowning song echoes up the moonlit road to where I lie in bed, wondering if you’re all right. Wondering what you want from me. As years press on, your song keeps me awake. When I sleep, your song invades my dreams. In my dreams, I see you shake the water, curse the world, and sing—to me. As years press on, I learn you do not sing for my help but for my hand. To seize my hand and pull me into the water. To make me drown alongs

For years, we greeted like lost relatives, half-hugging before walking toward the bedroom, a buzzing motor, pool towels and bottled water pre-arranged  like a celebrity’s rider. For years, he updated on his MMA training and lost matches, above  eyebrow scars, one Christmas after shaking  my doctor-father’s hand, he guided fingers up- ward, a bit left, tracing red cauliflower bumps sprouting his ear. For years, we texted birthday  cake and Santa face emojis, sometimes half mar

Your thumb’s gotten you into trouble before, but never too much for you to quit the life. You haven’t pressed an accelerator in longer than you can remember, but a week ago you were in the middle of the Badlands and now here you are in the Appalachians, full of pizza bread and armed with directions. “Just take Jericho all the way down past the churches,” the trucker (whose name may or may not have been Joshua) said, “and once you’re on 2 you’ll cross Crooked Creek twice and y

I used to refuse to  wear my glasses, &  with my poor vision,  a squirrel squirming  along a birch tree  looked like a birch  tree squirming along  itself. As my eyes  struggled to focus,  the streetlights burst  into wiggly amoebae,  & the comb-patterns  on the ceiling began  to dance in the dark. An offering: my first  glimpse of the animal  that exists in every- thing—in this unlit  candle, in these birch  roots, in this rock,  in these silver swan  scissors that came from

Transubstantiation for Beginners Magic glides through me, a black velvet painting fuzzed into the static of my archived life. I knew him when I was wild as daisies. He was my grandmother’s Labrador Retriever. Black as a lake in the moonlight, I spent hours drowning in him.  He was my first dog, though he wasn’t mine. It’s so hard to love something that will never fully be yours, but it’s the only way to love anyone. Be overtaken, drown a little.  ... Grandmother’s organ rides

My sister strays in the reeds beneath the clay mound. I saw her inverted image in my photograph. I can transpose my sister’s name into the hawk’s red shoulder, into the little bowl of its open socket. The hawk’s eye nestles between the image of my fingers. The hawk grows old in a nest of fibers. My sister builds a machine to explain herself to herself.  Connor Fisher is the author of A Renaissance with Eyelids (Schism Press, 2024), The Isotope of I (Schism Press, 2021) and

You’re waiting for Singer. A sucker’s game. Too near the bar, bridesmaids brush past you to find lost brides. What building is this? Why’s his name known to some, not all? The car drove past time that dripped from columns. Are you in the band?  Not Singer—you. A bass looks like something you’d know. The house was named for a book. Sand courtyards. Where’s Singer? Drink isn’t calling your name you hope. You pray. Stop your old ears with candlewax. Spot the old man who drove th

it's wet tomcat weather. the windows are striped. drivers are turning on wipers – toggling the lowest two settings. it's weather that ruins expensive suede jackets. makes vanity duck into a cafes and order black coffee. the streets aren't plated, but are specked with a freckle of water. at the bus stop on eden quay, people are clustering as if being close together  will protect them from pepper from above.  DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet"

Who’s to say? If she could trace an intention to its root, would it curve, would it bend?  She can’t see it in the moment,  but splinters are waiting before she cuts  into the bark. Pine forests grow  while she sleeps. 4 o’clock is the chopping block.  Saw and sear down  the mountainside. And what if most days she seems fine? The rings score a story more telling. Dallas Raquel Klein is a queer, Latin/x poet. She is from Texas and received her MFA in creative writing from Texa

After Visiting Hours What is this grass as if the blades are strings that sing?   I think this in the park outside the hospital. It is  summer and the cicadas are whirring back and forth as dusk places her mauve tongue upon the trees. Soon the dark holds me, as I sit smoking on a bench. If I look I can see a window where you rest in a room hooked up to machines. A Junebug the shape of a cello lands on my arm, then departs—Helter skelters into the air, bumping into the streetl