Tag: sun

In the end, everything dies. | Cailey Johanna Thiessen

~ South Broadway Press ~ Leave a comment
Image: Mario Verduzco

In the end, everything dies.

The mold, the spoil,
the mushrooms rising
from damp wood.
All around us the house caves in;
fading rays of sun
illuminate the decay,
and we breathe deep
the rot. Our bodies grow
twice their size
before we start to disappear,
before the fungi take root
and all that’s left
is life.

Cailey Johanna Thiessen (she/her) grew up between Mexico and the United States. She writes in English and Spanish and sometimes a mix of the two. In addition to writing poems, she works as a translator and is an editor and founder of Last Leaves Magazine. She released her debut chapbook Wilder this year, and her poems have been published in 8 Poems, Willard and Maple, Cecile’s Writers, Hispanecdotes, and more. When she’s not working with poetry, you might find her doing embroidery, walking her Frenchie Earl, or eating really good food with her husband.

Scout Locket | Monique Quintana

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Image: John Hayes

Scout Locket

Crow taught his specter mother how to sew dresses from what had once been her favorite windowsill. She sewed dresses so unattractive that no one would want them, and she could keep them as her daughters. Each dress with an x of a body, she blew copal over where their ears and their shoulders should be. See how bold your sisters would be, and when the dresses rose and billowed in the cold sun, they drifted away, said good-bye, mother.

Monique Quintana is a Xicana from Fresno, CA, and is the author of Cenote City (Clash Books, 2019). Her work has been published in Maudlin House, Wildness, Lost Balloon, Okay Donkey, and The Acentos Review, among others. Her work has also been supported by Yaddo, The Sundress Academy for the Arts, The Community of Writers, and The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. She was the inaugural winner of Amplify’s Writer of Color Fellowship and is a contributing editor at Luna Luna Magazine, where she writes book reviews, artist interviews, and personal essays. You can find her at @quintanagothic and moniquequintana.com.

Last Fig | Jennifer Browne

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Image: John Hayes

Last Fig

A kid outside shouts
“There’s no tomorrow!”
and, I think, he’s right.
And, I think, how must
it feel to be this kid, ten
and skating a paved alley,
bright sunshine in April,
and feel not joy but dread.
The world is burning.
But I have just eaten a fig
that tastes of your mouth
and tastes of my desire
for your mouth, so if
he’s onto something,
and there is no tomorrow,
let me fall into the rubble
with this last wash of your
sweetness on my tongue,
let my desire be the blade
of sprouting green
that cracks the wreckage,
let all the world that comes
after sing out for you.

Jennifer Browne (she/her) falls in love easily with other people’s dogs. Her poems have recently appeared in One Sentence Poems, Right Hand Pointing, Quarto, Trailer Park Quarterly, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and the tiny wren anthology All Poems are Ghosts.