Poetry
My Mother’s Funeral by T. Allen Burnett
​
You were a Playboy Bunny, twenty-three,
insisting you were just waitressing and you would work
two or three jobs just to make sure I got to college.
You thought I was gifted and exceptional. I was six.
It was the time of Toys-for-Tots and free lunches where I got
to be at the head of the lunch line with my red card.
Our clothes were purchased on lay-a-way. I liked how
the food stamps looked like real money. But even then
you were telling me stories of rich men who wanted you—
only if you gave me away.
Later, the bedtime stories laden with vodka
always reminded me not to fuck with you.
You were a witch, you said, could cast spells—
part of your Appalachian folklife,
raised under the skirts of other granny witches.
I found the manuals, the lists of herbs in your nightstand.
On the coffee table was a hard-covered book
about demons fighting Michael, the grotesque red creatures entwined
and muscular angels of ghostly blue.
I was drawn to your images, your mythos,
the Omen, the Exorcist, the Late Great Planet Earth,
your angry belief in Nostradamus.
Later came the beatings, for my own good, spare the rod and such,
sometimes waking me from sleep to hit me with the “Tim” belt,
sometimes not telling me why, sometimes chasing me around the house
with a butcher’s knife, somehow you being the victim of my rebellion.
I would dress in women’s clothes and when you caught me
you proclaimed me your faggot, your sissy
even though the boys who bullied me were fourteen and I was nine.
You were there to tell me all the things I couldn’t do:
I couldn’t use tools even though
I painted my own room from ceiling to floorboards when I was eight.
I couldn’t fish because I never caught trout, catfish,
But bluegills—worthless Sunnys tossed back.
I couldn’t hunt; I could shoot a bow but not a gun or an animal.
By the age of ten, I wasn’t man enough for you.
At thirteen I began to write of trauma, of dissociation,
of suicide and sex and a need to belong and about falling apart.
You found my poems and read them.
You called them dirty and fucked up.
​
Judy Juanita read some of them at a NJ Teen Arts Seminar
and said I should be a writer: the advice of a Black Panther.
That same night, you did your witchy woman dance
with your vodka leading the way. You rubbed your crotch against me.
“So, you want pussy? I’ll give you pussy!”
Your husband watched without saying a word. I ran away.
You got the priest, the basketball coach, and the guidance counselor
to pull me out of class and make me go back.
No one said a word about what you did, not even God.
You spent the next thirty-two years keeping your covenant of silence.
When my acceptance letter and scholarship arrived from Columbia,
You sat me down to tell me
you would not cosign a student loan—
I was a bad risk.
No to NYC, no to MFA, no to mentorship
or being seen, no to my dirty poems.
My first therapist told me to suck it up, that I was spoiled.
You told me to get over it.
I kept coming home to see “the family”.
You said you were sorry once, you know... for being “strict”
but not once for anything you took from me.
At your funeral, you were carried by your three sons,
a son-in-law and two grandsons. I was at the front left.
As we set you into place I looked into the grave—
I was consumed with fear.
Not because of the darkness, or the enclosed space, or the finality,
and certainly not because of any sorrow or pity for you,
but by the thought I would someday be there too—
trapped with your Witchy Woman stories
and you always fighting the devil
to see how much you could keep for yourself,
wondering if even after deserving hell, you might
somehow take it away from me.
I Know How Bad This Can Get by Danielle Ryle
​
There has been enough terror. Sound hooks up the swan’s long neck
and blasts across this or that pond. In most of the glamorous paintings
it lays along her thigh or spent across her belly. Look at her body,
at that long, bony mouth that also isn’t an actual bone.
Near the water’s edge there is usually a small explosion of feathers
that means something awful happened, somebody got tore up.
I have bought some apricots. Tomorrow I will carry one and remember to eat it.
I will not imagine it as a soft, yellow womb, detachable like the weapons
of beefy action figures. I will try not to imagine the name of the woman
who dropped them into industrial tubs (Camila, Maria, Sofia) or what might
happen when the angel comes down, swan-winged, spurred like a cock-of-the-walk.
(Forget it: We all know the legal precedent for carried away re: Helen.)
I have bought some apricots, and there has been enough terror. Let me stop being
a woman for this single moment. Let me enjoy consumption like a metaphor
won’t try to make something out of me, like I need not worry my pretty little head.
An Unfurnished House by Theodore Davis
The more I document,
the more I forget.
For I have become
the minute hand.
I feel the salt tears
welling in my eyes,
but under the lightbulb
I don’t believe them.
I wish I could find you
in the heating vents.
I wish I could find you
under the tiles.
There’s an unfurnished house
that we broke into
and found a calico
gnawing on a mouse.
You taught me how to look
into its pupils
without breaking the spell
and turning around.
I find the documents
that I can’t forget,
but I have closed the door
that led me to you.
If I were to depart
and find a highway
to ride into the night,
I would find owls.
I would find a motel
I visited once
in a fugue state or dream,
and I’d settle down.
I’d strum the feral cats
and leave out some milk
before I fell asleep
upon the floorboards.
​
I’d dig new aqueducts
and drink of the rain
before I fell asleep
within the ditches.
In all my documents
I often forget;
I hear the clock ticking
on the horizon.
I am a traveler,
and you are a stone.
Eventually you’ll find
the calico again.
I am a traveler,
and you are a stone.
Eventually I’ll find
you in the vents.
The more I document,
the more I forget.
The windows were broken
and left unspoken.
Mother and the Wildflowers by Alan Hill
​
Do you remember mother
that summer day
you held a Buttercup to my chin
how
its miniature sun printed its plate
uneven yellow circles into my flesh
illuminated the way for us
back from the napkin sized park
along the knife slit of busy highway
under the dying Elm trees
into the open hand of meadows
that held our house.
It was then I had you to myself
the two of us
in the nest of eye sized flowers
that blazed in the basket between us.
My Brother’s Wife Has Sharp Teeth by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah
​
From the abundance of a busy mouth,
the crooked tongue counts its clattered teeth,
like there was the need to know
how life would crawl out of the woods
into other crevices like our hearts and souls,
that our blessings or curses pre-position us
for the stones and storms the weather throws up;
the way we do things that occur by accident,
the way we grow into things without knowing
how they hurt or storm us into epilepsy.
When a fly buzzes over her head,
my brother’s wife bares her teeth like raw rain,
or hard balls of the sky water down her body,
chewing drops of water like rocks
or when a mosquito perches on her thighs,
she summersaults a thousand times a second,
in a way to throw her head to her thighs
and her thighs will hang in the air;
she chews the little flesh of the vampire
as war rages between two vampires.
The other day, my brother confirmed
that a snake hissed by without adjournment,
his wife leapt out like a frog into a pond,
struck out her teeth like an aeroplane about to land
and began to munch the body of the reptile.
Whatever passes by is meat for her teeth
that have borne the brunt of her growth,
a teetering of the blood of her siblings
that found no solace in her bosom.
That the air was chaff or the moon was juicy
was not within the ambient of her sensibility,
but whatever is chewable is forgivable,
when forgiveness is among the things
that grants peace and flourishes a soul.
Her thirst for bones and flesh
would not let her see the dream of her life
but the necessity to go into a thing and come out
without suffering an emergency or an ambulance
as consummated her spirit since birth.
when death comes calling from the mountain,
she reels out her sharp teeth without grinning;
she will chew; she will munch and regurgitate,
but death will have no flesh and blood to shed.
Dandelion by Sarah Voight
​
It's February the first.
Beneath the snow,
in the belly of the earth,
awaits the lion’s root.
Soon, the fiery sun
will melt ice into water,
waking the roots.
Fresh wind will stir
the first greens’
ground breaking.
A flower will form,
in the shape of the sun,
to give thanks,
and shine in the hair of my love.
Before The Chupacabra by Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith
​
My parents met in Douglas Arizona long before
the first chupacabra sighting. I cannot
come to terms with how they found
each other. Both college graduates but from
opposite ends of the galaxy. They fell in
love next to the orphaned dreams
that yelled up and down the calles,
up to the smelter gates, down to the railyard
fences and infused the scared border ghosts
that could never be put to rest.
My abuelo often sat on the porch during
cool evenings, playing his harmonica. His one
good eye kept watch on his overworked faith;
making sure it did not cross the border and visit
any of the local cantinas with my enthusiastic tios.
They would return home just before
sunrise and sleep until the day was
bored with itself. Is it true that we are
made and shaped by what we love?
At night I remember watching from the porch
the hot red slag piles. They glowed in the dark.
One of my tios told me that one night
Godzilla would rise out of those mounds
and destroy Douglas. My abuela would tell him to hush.
One summer and into the fall mi hermano and I
lived in Douglas because our mother was ill.
My grandparents seemed to know everyone,
and their nickname: Sapo, Maza, more
than one Pancho. To me it seemed like
Douglas was a town where people went
to disappear. Keep another family.
Nothing was original. Nothing seemed worth stealing.
Provider by Amelia Badri
​​
The lucky earth
outside our patio door
is of pollination’s breadwinners,
their love, a glow
which attracts a mockingbird
family to build their nest
in the climbing vines
amongst the purple breasts
of our bloomed queen’s wreath.
When the bobbleheads
of two baby birds begin
to cheep! cheep! cheep!
for more seeds
and mealworms,
I realize I don’t really know
how anything works
in the world.
Does this mean I’m also their new provider?
Not unlike a wireless phone
provider
that upcharges
the second we flee
for another serene home
this summer.
Though perhaps more
like the provider that buys
popcorn chicken or wings
for dinner and freezes
the leftovers and small bites
of our life. Then there’s a protector
that takes delight
in the daily pleasure
of seeing our daughter’s eyes
sparkle like cream soda
(or a Dr. Pepper)
when the fledglings open their mouths
like tiny tulips—here,
where the last edge
of a cold breeze wraps us
together
in its safety blanket
and spring’s language: steady, flow,
prosperity, rest, and ease,
gossamer’s larceny.
What do these things even mean
if the sunlit squabbles
between our dog’s sandpaper paws,
and father and child and the little alarm
of these birds, hold such a fragile peace?
When we pack our swimsuits
and tubes
of sunscreen and leave
all June, why should any attempt
to harm or enter this dream
we try so hard to safekeep?
Will the mockingbirds ring out in their shielding
tone, this branch is temporarily closed.
Should we counter with a cheap
family plan that provides
the best coverage and endless crazy calls?
Rabbit, Rabbit by Haley Neddermann
​​
I hold my hand above my hand and let the curve of the moon fold into my palm, becoming a vessel
filled with light. My heart is some bright planet, maybe Jupiter or Venus, and lets me see inside
dreams and skulls. The air is clear, I see two rabbits facing away from each other. I offer them
moonlight in hopes that this will cool their disagreement. One rabbit drinks quick, dark eyes
unblinking. The other runs off into the woods and I chase after her.
My breath brings a layer of fog to the ground, hiding the running rabbit. I want to cry out, but I
know this will only scare her. I lay down, let the low clouds cover me, and tell my heartbeat to
slow as a late spring frost creeps over my skin. I hear the rabbit running towards me, pausing to
make sure no one else is near. She leans over my planetary heart, it’s orbiting around my blood. It
has eleven moons and a soft yellow light. The rabbit sniffs and starts to drink. This is the light she
wants.
furrowed by James Butcher
​​
father’s gentle hands had wrinkled
of their own accord wrinkled
into something approaching a calming
sort of dignity because he told
us we were all blessed with tiny droplets
of grace that appear out of nowhere
like gently falling raindrops on hot and
cantankerous days
at those very times when we are
tempted to think that all is for naught
or at the very worst
everything is there for the taking
and what those fingers must have caressed
mother among them
and even me
when he tousled my hair
or charlotte too
when he held her tightly
because she wouldn’t
stop screaming those
perilous thoughts
and speaking of mother
yes that mother
who said your hands are godlike
and i am afraid if i touch you
i will most certainly turn into
a tiny pile of ash
in those quiet moments we never saw
yes that mother
the one that wore those shimmering pearls
with a glaring divinity
from which father never recovered
hands that were weathered
into a leathery sort of mortality
possibly touching the outer bonds
of sacredness and if not that then
something approaching a ladled
form of blessedness
Prose
Back when the world was small by Lana
​
Back then the world was three bedrooms in a small brick house. The backyard was as wide as the local swimming pool. A dogwood tree stood watch out front and before it lay a road that touched the sky. In that small world was me, two parents, and a dog.
One of my earliest memories is of that unending void. I slept on car rides, so everything felt like small separate worlds. The road was the mystical portal bridging one to the next. The world of buttery popcorn and moving pictures. The one with mama’s family, slower paced, surrounded by more trees than I could imagine. It made me feel like the flicker of a candle flame. Its fields stretched as far as the sky, farther than my backyard.
There was the world of books and “learning.” Where adults made me like I’d been snuffed out. It was always cold. Other children laughed at the way I dressed, the way I looked. I wasn’t rich enough or skinny enough. I wasn’t social enough. Too prone to living in other realms. Weird. I had no siblings to pave my way.
But I had the dog. The best brother I could ask for. Mama tells me that I’d drag him along like a toy on my adventures. He’d curl his scruffy white body next to my pillow at night. I read him stories and told him my secrets. Not that an eight-year-old has many of those. He didn’t often join us on those car rides, but he did when we went to mama’s family. And he was that night.
I wasn’t allowed in the road without an adult. To cross that turbulent stretch of magic was impossible and forbidden. It’s why I didn’t step on the asphalt as I watched him lying there. Why I halted at the edge, foot hovering over roiling sea. His white fur glowed in the starlight. The first car had already come and gone. The second didn’t stop either.
There must’ve been a thud, maybe an echo of his tiny body hitting the tires. Surely there was a scream, mine, mamas, both, as he sank into the street. Did the drivers even notice? Does it haunt them years later like the shroud that hovers over me?
It was the first time I remember seeing mama cry. He was her baby long before I’d ever been thought of. The first time she couldn’t fix something. He couldn’t be stitched back together like the holes in my clothes. I didn’t understand why he stopped moving. Not until she wrapped his body carefully in a towel. Not until she put him in the freezer. We went to her family.
It was the first Christmas without him.
There were more after that. In that house. On that road. But we were more careful. Always leashed. Always watching. The road was no longer a magical portal to new worlds. It was the vast ocean, its roiling waves ready to pull me under. To drown me, and no life preserver could ever protect us.
The numbers have changed several times over the years.
2 Parents, 1 dog, me.
2 parents, 1 dog, 1 cat, me.
2 parents, 3 dogs.
1 parent, 5 dogs, 2 cats, me.
He was the first. We buried him in the backyard with a simple gray stone to mark the spot. The land began to eat away at the stone over the years. Now, the dogwood tree is gone and his grave has likely been swallowed up.
Another family lives there. I think about them sometimes. Maybe their world is just as small. Maybe they have children who play on his grave. Maybe the road has taken from them too.
In another life, in another world, I took that step onto the road. In another world, maybe I joined him.
Music
Fleeting Magic by Indrajit Banerjee
Taricha Torosa by T Lavois Thiebaud
The Harlow Rag by Brian Billings