You remind me that I am hungry. That I hunger. That I am meant to be fed. That this is a natural state of being. I should not be ashamed to want. You remind me that I need connection. You remind me that it is natural to be tethered—to other people, to a person, to an idea, to a thing. You remind me that I have grown from something small, small, small. You remind me that all of us were once small, small, small. You remind me that I have experienced loss before / a severing and survived.
Liza Sparks (she/her) has work published in The Pinch Journal (online), Allium, Timber, CALYX, Split This Rock, and many others. She was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net in 2022. Her work is informed by her intersecting identities as a brown-multiracial-neurodivergent-pansexual-woman.
Let’s keep dancing like you promised would never be done.
I have awoken, You’re no longer there.
Endless Tomorrows I miss you, I grieve for you so.
You helped me ignore my fears because you said tomorrow will always be near.
I have awoken from the illusion and I grieve for your return, but no, you were never really here.
Endless Tomorrows you let me go.
I see my fears now that you helped me get through, because Endless Tomorrows, you were always true.
Endless Tomorrows, I loved you so.
The pain of today replaces my fears, because Endless Tomorrows you’re all I’ve ever known.
Endless Tomorrows I danced with you, but it was only Ego & Fear wearing your mask in my belief that it was actually you.
I have danced with Ego & Fear I didn’t know they cut in.
Endless Tomorrows you were always there to hide my fears with the illusion of the never-ending dance.
Fear & Ego you cut in to dance, sneaking in. Never did you ask,
then I finally hear you say,
“Masquerade”
as you both finally remove your Endless Tomorrows masks.
Scott Nookester is a kind man relearning how to be in the present. He is a hard worker, who is learning to be soft with his edges. He is a man learning to dance with the new.
Crepuscular, adj., the behavior of animals most active at twilight
For Ash
BY NEAL ALLEN SHIPLEY
It’s cold but the sky is clear, cleaved: bright pink sits on blue and there are no clouds, but a stripe of white would be poetic. This administration will ban the sky if they can, executives ordering it to stop changing color – trying to administer a world where there is only day and night.
Imagine, refusing to believe in twilight while the sun seeps into the gums of the horizon – denying nightfall on a summer evening when you savor sunset, still warm and purple on your tongue. Hunting is restricted between sunset and dusk when these animals are most active – to feed, to court – at the height of their power:
*
Odocoileus hemionus, mule deer feed selectively at dusk, choosing the parts of sagebrush that are most nutritious. Site-faithful, they return only to the safest, most bountiful grounds, pawing the soft loam of your back yard so close we could hand-feed them if we weren’t so loud.
You call me but you’re worried about other things – the dog I pretend to hate is sick and it’s probably just normal shit, but still. I forget to tell you that I know twilight is real, that it’s the most beautiful time of day, the mountains’ silhouette like thick walls of a bowl thrown up by practiced hands to protect us in this conservative city.
*
Vulpes vulpes pick-pocket their predators in the gloaming, stealing yesterday’s prime rib for tomorrow’s supper. The red fox knows to keep away from traffic – has learned to scent the carbon steel of their hunter’s rifle on the wind, stow their stolen goods deep beneath the snow where it will keep until leaner times.
This administration has convinced themselves there is only high noon, masculine sun scorching the earth shadowless, baking them where they stand without reprieve – the delicate frills of dawn too dangerous for them, nighttime dragging her slow fingers down their chests, the cold dew of Spring fresh in the corners of their mouths.
*
Canis latrans call to their young with soft woofs when the sun sinks almost completely, a nightlight deep within the mountains – small howls that make you lower your joint. I tell you about the time a coyote invaded my cul de sac growing up, our neighbors shepherding their dogs inside to avoid a slaughter.
You tell me the coyote is a mean bitch, but you’re meaner. If they’re a threat, we’ll bring the girls inside and I’ll fight this administration tooth and claw with you until it’s just another neighborhood dog, one we’ve seen before, docile; we stay outside with the joint, the soft glow of dusk around us.
Neal Allen Shipley (he/him) is a behavior analyst living in Colorado with a modest collection of pets and an unhinged collection of plants. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in Creation Magazine, The Talon Review, and SCAB Magazine, among others. Despite the horrors, he loves a fancy hot dog. You can find him on Instagram @nealio9
To the reggae rhythms on his radio, a man pushes his coconut cart up the street, the juice sloshing in its clear bin, the coconut sweets & his dark skin gleam in this morning’s hesitant sun.
Poet-translator Lorraine Caputo’s works appear internationally in over 500 journals and 24 collections of poetry – including In the Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023). She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
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 blackbird flies backwards from tinted window and you are caught in its starling shadow waking cracks climbing the sides of these feeble buildings
the buildings are in a perpetual state of falling only grey skies hold them in place
the grey tone of your voice contemplates weather as if that were the only geranium your throat could grow
it is better to speak in chrysanthemums, lupine, perhaps shooting star
this city led you, little antelope, into a cunning enclosure
you never learned how to jump, never learned Indian Paintbrush but you know how to run
wide open calls you home in a language of blue blue that holds your heart in place, keeps it from killing you
your pillow was covered in blackbird feathers if only it were a sign
winged thing sits on your chest in the night to cry, but not in words
paved over rivers can still drown deer brothers and sisters, if only this were fable
then struggle would be no more than lesson transformation wouldn’t be so fatal curses could be lifted with the correct incantations
you are hooves and ochre, sawdust and iron blessed by coarse calico, be they ropes or binding
this city called to you three times and three times you answered with lips like milkweed
your geraniums are malnourished monotone grey where is the wild thing you once knew? was domestic chosen for you?
remember to run when the wind calls remember the buildings will fall do not let them take you when they topple
you are so much more than this Underland and ash you are flowers and flight you are the generation of beginning
plant your seeds in the mouths of everyone you meet may it be brighter when they speak to sew gardens over civilizations
a place without shadows or fences where antelope run and run, and run
Aspen Everett is a full-time parent first and a writer as often as life allows. Hailing from the wide open plains of Kansas, Aspen writes with wind in their lungs and muddy rivers in their blood. Aspen is the author of Tributaries from Middle Creek Publishing, Instructor with Lighthouse Writers, and chair of Geopoetics with Beyond Academia Free Skool. They live in Boulder with their teenager and stubborn house plants.
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.
south broadway press 