In my dreams psalms of rain echo and echo around a cabin my parents rented one summer.
I stand invisible beside my nine- year-old self as he gazes beyond the window overlooking twilight.
Rain slants past the poplars, and this fog, thick as a noose, winds itself around the heart
of the woods, where a lake, pale-faced, mirrors lightning. My younger self sees no danger,
only the innocence of boyhood. My younger self rests his head against the pane as if to dream,
too, of the mud, worm-wrung, that will wriggle between his toes when he stomps and laughs
in the grass after the thunderstorm. But as he closes his eyes, I turn around, hoping to catch
a glimpse of my parents laughing in the kitchenette’s stovelight. Before I awake each time, I find
their silence staggering shadow- like across the wooden floor, reaching out to touch my heart.
How foolish of my younger self to assume life is merely stitched in rainsong. How foolish of him
to mistake each hum of thunder for lullabies, to mistake our parents’ silence for anything but silence.
Jacob Butlett (he/him/his) is a gay poet from Iowa. Jacob’s creative works have been published in many journals, including South Broadway Ghost Society, Colorado Review, Lunch Ticket, and Into the Void. In December 2024, Kelsay Books published Jacob’s debut book of poems, Stars Burning Night’s Quiet Rhapsody.
No One Follows You Home After the 4th of July Orgy
BY DANIEL BRENNAN
Bone bent out of shape by the bombs against your back. You shuffle down the shadowed boardwalk, still ringing with a body high, the sea-reeds stalking in formation about you. The moon talks back, scolding you, your skin riddled with cartographer’s notes; men’s hands leave a mark on whatever they can. You’re alone again. Lonely again. It’s always again. Can you ever make these hungers more than just ghosts? In the back of your throat are the words you keeping humming to yourself in the dark: this is what I wanted. Anyone could find you here, their fishbowl eyes pooled with longing for more than the whiplash, the burn, the coming and going in dark rooms where you can be anyone or no one at all. Fireworks in chorus against your back. Siren song almost done.
Keepsakes
BY DANIEL BRENNAN
The stretch of their soft tissue unimaginable, as all the best myths are. Our friend describes their faces, the salt & pepper stubble of one man, the jaw made uneven by surgery of another, eyes and lips and the pained expressions as his fist slides inside them. He has them all ranked and filed, these men, these men with their immense hungers which I, patron saint of squeamish doubt, cannot fathom. Like a promise, or a lie, even, it is all about the delivery; the coning shape your hand must take as, bathed in its appropriate lubricants, it enters another body like parishioners entering their house of worship. My friend fists all kinds of men; daddies with 2-bedroom bungalows in the Pines and young finance professionals he’s cruised at the gym and off-Broadway understudies alike. I am jealous of my friend, and of these men; not that I trust my body enough to harbor such a kink, but I envy that they know what they want, know how to give it a name, to ask and most assuredly (to our shock) receive. His face takes on a fevered veil as he tells us how it feels: to be so close to the center of heat, pressing into a body’s dire vulnerabilities, to feel your own hand wrapped in wet warmth like a newborn wrapped in a towel. He is sole proprietor of this vice, the tight lip of flesh surrendering; the names of these men held in the back of his throat like a keepsake When we laugh, it is because we are cowards; we know that our bodies lack the faith required to wield such palaces within us, cathedrals welcoming the wound fist of a God. My friend, he discovers new pleasure each night, and what has my disbelief provided? Pained smile, stifled laugh, soft well of an empty bed.
Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he’s in love, just as often he’s not. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Sho Poetry Journal, and Trampset. He can be found on Twitter @DanielJBrennan_
Three-liter Cola, zeppelin of delight and angst, we imagined your dares at once contained and floating to our bodies.
We imagined each empty spin— steady propeller or crash against knees, crunch of plastic, bunch of: do it like this.
We imagine how simple a twist of the wrist until our turn, a bumbled one, bounce of the bottle, tilt of the world lasting the longest seconds.
Look how you settled, the unholy and holy—genesis of desire swelling in gasps.
When not teaching at the Community College of Denver, Brian Dickson avoids driving as much as possible to connect with the quotidian and the sacred. He also serves as an editor for New Feathers Anthology as well. His chapbook, A Child’s Sketch of the Afterlife, recently came out from Finishing Line Press. Find him at www.dicksonwrites.com.
A GUIDE TO SLUMBER; A TIRADE WITH TANGENTS; A MANSPLAINING; A SURRENDER
BY DUSTIN KING
I was asked at a party how I sleep at night it is a delicate balance we dread the midday nod the yawning the staring beyond consternation missing invital information
we dread midnight MRIs self-diagnoses silly ruminations false revelations realizations we assume true for everyone
pharmaceuticals failed us fucked us up we can’t get into it so CBD melatonin in a pinch but it makes us groggy black-out curtains ear plugs but what if we miss the first screams of catastrophe plus wax build-up
we avoid alcohol caffeine one sip and we stay up laughing with whoever will have us
masturbation is unreliable it sends us across wastelands of regret wanting we were someone else with someone else
our minds like dreams like our lives a notebook of scrawl left in the night pages flapping tearing scattering we try to gather
our hands pinned beneath us in unholy yoga poses we sign curses into grimy sheets we throw our phone across the room oh, would we could snap it in half
peer in windows neighbors’ faces lit yellow by the light of the netherworld ogling netherregions portal through our very hands
or through the refrigerator in front of which we stand scratching ourselves
light light light squeezes through every pinhole and crevice like water or an octopus tentacles reach for us we reach for tentacles we march across an alleyway to smash a floodlight with a chunk of pavement but the blue blink of laptop modem humidifier moonlight starlight dawn
signals to somnambulate the streets come to at front doors of exes burning with shame lovers who burned in bed with the heat of a lightning strike body-locked us like pro wrestlers
we writhed free gasping for air extinguished ourselves in a cold shower
do co-habitators bind and gag each other? do they sleep the sleep of dogs in dens sharing heat and odors?
in dreams we fall but never hit ground flirt but never fuck if we rise to pee as we must once twice a night we can only contemplate bedwetting for so long
we stay the dream in our heads even if the home invader’s head vibrates and falls back on a hinge the horror softens once we welcome the dark figure under the covers
memory’s phantom limbs wave dream bits like bone shards if we could recall it all we’d desire nothing but the thrill of rest the earth might replenish
we’d only wake to whip-poor-wills like our brother whispering in his sleep warblers like mom and dad are fighting wrens like they make love one last time
Dustin King would always rather be sneaking a bottle of wine into a movie theater. When nothing good is playing, he teaches Spanish and exchanges dreams with loved ones in Richmond, Va. His poems pop up in The Tusculum Review, New Letters, Ligeia, Marrow Magazine, samfiftyfour, and other rad spots. He is a poetry reader for Sublunary Review and curates the poetry and performance event “Yodel Farm.” His first chapbook “Last Echo” is now available from Bottlecap Press. His second “Courteous Gringo” will be out this summer from Seven Kitchens Press.
roof tiles gray and thin falling away in the sun like ash ‘round my feet
windows cloud and warp with the long passing of one too many hothouse summers
the paint outside cracks and flakes – bare patch betrayals ebbing pulse lull
the kitchen screen door sticks—hinges in need of grease— in its ever-shrinking frame
floorboards ‘round the stove creak and sink underfoot, it’ll need a cleaning soon
pictures on the wall faded, some slipped from the hook, crash down in silent thuds
dust storms in dark corners, settles ‘round pillows and teacups I write “Wash me, please”
but
the studs are solid, foundation holding strong. Ghosts seem to know their place
and
the morning cock still crows in the yard, pecking at its lil yellow stones
David Estringel is a Xicanx writer, Professor of English, and EIC with words at The Opiate, Cephalopress, Dreich, Beir Bua Journal, Literary Heist, The Blue Nib, The Milk House, and Poetry NI. David has published seven poetry/hybrid collections, six poetry chapbooks, and one co-authored novel Escaping Emily through Thirty West Publishing House. Connect with David on X @The_Booky_Man and his website www.davidestringel.com.
On December 4, 2024, 27-year-old engineer Luigi Mangione assassinated Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare—who had made millions denying claims— outside New York’s Midtown Hilton.
Baby Lulu, as they call him, has many TikTok wives. One in Beijing
cooks puttanesca with penne. My husband, which is Luigi Mangione,
she says, stirring red pepper in her sauce, needs comfort food from his culture.
Others cut wedding cake with their hero, whose black lashes & threaded brows,
so tender & misunderstood, accentuate the necessary beauty of his deed.
Does his anachronistic name kindle some ancient hope, conjure a revolution
fought on Garibaldi’s side against a crooked pope? Lesson Learned,
The Wall Street Journal intones, Tighter Security Priority for CEOs.
I find comfort in stillness when blades kiss my skin and thundered tongues hail down my name. In the grey, I close my eyes—
and let the rain mourn me.
Latoya Wilkinson is 20 years old. She is currently a rising Senior at the University At Albany, studying Journalism and English. She doesn’t have any intentions of being a poet, but she took two poetry classes and realized that she would much rather write than breathe—and that says a lot.
I passed it unawares, others fallen, rotting with perfume pervasive as the gnats forming my halo and feasting delicately on the membranes of my ears and eyes.
I knew the yew had metaphorical heft, but failed to remember the sources. Nowadays memory fails faster than legs which also begin to falter halfway.
Nothing prepares you for death— isn’t quite true. We know in our bones that shadow from the hill will only lengthen as the day wears on.
Yew, I never knew you in your glory, having never walked these woods. But is it a crime to feel no sadness for a tree that perished naturally?
I walk toward a clearing, heavy in my heart and heavier-legged as I seek something more than communion with a natural death.
Salvatore Difalco is a Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller. His work appears in a number of print and online journals.
I have stolen the dandelions scattered their seeds across
fields of tulips and tamarind I have felt desire crack
my lips apart under the weight of its slippery skin
What fresh figs, what sunny flowers What breaking hearts
rot beneath the hills beneath sticky sidewalk pavements
We grow older but not duller hovering translucent over
calendar time
Sara Whittemore is a poet living in Houston, Texas. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Jack Kerouac School at Naropa. Her work has recently appeared in Interim Magazine, Juniper Press and Tiny Spoon, and others. In addition to being a poet she is an artist, alien and cat person. You can find her on instagram @sarafromsaturn.
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