Decency

/

Steve Cushman

Some days the decency of your neighbors is obvious
like the cake or casserole after a loss, the wave each
morning, the how ya doings and have a great days!
But what’s not so obvious is the way Jess,
the early morning jogger, tosses your newspaper
a little closer to your house or when mail is
delivered to the wrong box and they walk over
and give you what is owed, depositing it in your
mailbox without telling you or like last August
when you’d had a bit too much to drink after
Stella finally passed after that year of treatment,
and you fell asleep in the red and white striped lawnchair,
in your front yard, so far gone that they Meyers kid
on the corner was able to untie your shoes and
remove them, then tie the laces together and throw
them over the power line in front of your house and your
neighbor, the quiet one with the little white dog that barks
more than you like, spotted you while out collecting his paper
and pulled his A-frame ladder out before you woke and retrieved
the shoes, untied them and placed them back on your
feet, even tied them, so that when you woke you had no
idea why your shoes were tighter than normal and that
strange man was walking up the road with a ladder
in one arm and a for-once silent dog in the other.

Author’s Note: This poem actually grew out a writing prompt. For the longest time I have resisted prompts, mostly because I thought I write enough on my own and don't need someone pushing me to write about a particular thing. My poetry father, Mike Gaspeny, and I were joking that while neither one of us wrote to prompts we had both purchased the prompt book: Write It: 100 Poetry Prompts To Inspire because of a workshop we had taken, so decided to try one of the prompts for the hell of it. We asked, Lee Zacharias, Mike's wife and my MFA professor, who is a first-rate novelist and essayist and Hollins grad, to pick a prompt. She chose one that said write a poem about a high wire. For me this translated into write something about a power line, so that coupled with all those times I'd driven under shoes tied around power lines got my mind spinning and this poem grew out of that.

Steve Cushman earned his MA from Hollins University and MFA from UNC-Greensboro. He’s published three novels, Portisville, Heart With Joy, and Hopscotch. Portisville won the 2004 Novello Literary Award. Cushman’s first full-length poetry collection, How Birds Fly, is the winner of the 2018 Lena Shull Book Award. A new collection, Eating Paradise Without You, is due out in the fall of 2023. He lives in Greensboro where he works at Cone Health in the IT department.

Still Remember

/

Sam Kealhofer

I still remember
runnin' thru the clothes lines
into neighbors back yards
like I didn't know better
chasin' them lightnin' bugs
wherever the wind
might've taken us—
chasin' after ‘em just for the thrill
of seein' that warm yellow hue
emanatin' from my cupped up hands—
just for a moment—
'fore realeasin' ‘em
back into that buzzin' summer air
like I had given birth to light itself—
and then we'd run back to where
we came from, 'fore
mean ol Mr johnson caught us
like he owned the whole world
and couldn't nobody have any fun in it
without his say so,
which he never gave—
and that's how I'd spend my summers
with the cute girl from down the lane
who wore her hair in pigtails—
'fore I knew anything 'bout love
or relationships
or sex
or the boys who lived behind me
who chased those same lightnin' bugs
just like we did—
'cept they'd catch ‘em and smash ‘em
into their arms
so that warm summer light
would blink just for a moment,
smeared across their skin
and then never return again—

Author’s Note: I was really happy to hear this poem was accepted for publication. I wrote it years ago and never did anything with it. But the older I get, the more fond of it I become. I wrote it while teaching dialect and  BluesAin't No Mockin Bird by Toni Cade Bambara to my 10th grade English students. That's where the informal language was inspired. But what I love most about this poem, more so than any other I remember writing, is how I went to my desk and wrote it all in a single setting, no more than 15 minutes. I was totally engulfed in the creative spirit, and it just came out of me.

Sam Kealhofer is a Mississippi native who obtained a master's degree in English with a concentration in creative writing from Mississippi State University. His work focuses on setting, tone, and revitalizing a modern day romanticism. His work has been featured in Dunes Review, Peregrine Journal, Roanoke Review, as well as other online publications. He plans to pursue an MFA in future. 

Marbled

/

Callie Crouch

And if you were to peel back my sun-scorched
skin – moving my tough flesh to the side and
picking at the tender meat nearly falling off the
bones of my ribcage and into your hands –
what would I look like to you?
Would you lick your lips, humming like a
cicada at the sight of my inner soul exposed,
wild-eyed and hungry for the first time?
Or would you merely gawk, mouth open and
drooling, paralyzed and stuck like the bug’s
empty shell instead?
As whole of a human being as you’ve always
known me to be, a working nervous
system of blood glue and clothespins, I’ll
keep myself together. But if I decide to unravel
one day, melting myself down into China plates
of carved meat and teacups of tears, please,
dig in.


Callie Crouch (she/her) is an English major at Saint Joseph's University and Editor-in-Chief of the university's literary magazine, the Crimson and Gray. Her work appears or is upcoming in Olit Magazine, Wingless Dreamer’s anthology Dulce Poetica, Quarter After Eight, Red Noise Collective, LEVITATE Magazine, RockPaperPoem, Coffin Bell, 300 Days of Sun, new word press, and New Note Poetry. Callie is originally from Florida but lives and writes in Philadelphia

Troubleshooting Failed Connections

/

V. A. Bettencourt

Abort if explicitly rejected. Implicit rejections
may be a feature or a bug — check with source.
Reboot if inactive for days or if you’ve avoided
sparks for fear of shock. Complex systems lack
simple user interfaces, are dynamic and can be
volatile. Misfires with promising prototypes
should be promptly diagnosed and corrected.
Upgrade to new model if repeated patches
fall flat. Ensure your specifications fit
detectable features: even flagship specimen
flop in incompatible settings. Recovery isn’t
always feasible or desirable. Available sources
that actually listen form superior connections
with suitable counterparts; do not redirect.

V.A. Bettencourt writes poetry and short prose. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Magma Poetry, The American Journal of Poetry, Burningword Literary Journal and SWWIM Every Day, among others. 

Two Poems by Jak Kurdi

/

I Do Not Write Poems About Gender

However, when the day sloughs off and falls
to the floor of my bedroom, it looks like dread
and a binder – a spandex and canvas fabric

masquerade – which only agrees to lower
its ligature from the contours of my ribs and lungs
when night declares, it is now safe to breathe.

Tchaikovsky’s Christmas angels, suspended
in gorgeous agony, remind me of this.
With battered bodies held together with only ribbon,

gel, and wire, they dance, sculpted and stiff
like marbled cupids, forced to find air
between the orchestra’s rests or through the eyelets

of their corsets, hoping the rib-throb does not leak
in salt from their eyes. I wish I did not seethe
each time the conductor cuts off their music

wings and they stand, human and panting
as roses flee commoners’ hands for a chance
to kiss their feet. I wish I knew how long

I must dance, breathless, in dim lamplight,
to unlace, unsew, unstick, or unwind the sensation
that I am merely an understudy in my own ballet.

Autumn Duck, Listening

Today, the trees have started boarding up
to prepare for the snap. They’re cinching
limbs and letting the wind’s gusts pluck

and toss each writhing leaf into
a haphazard husk meant to jacket
the feet of the swaying, drowsy trees.

Each of my steps down the hill cracks
this autumn crust, as I ruffle my way
toward the pond bank looking for you,

the emerald headed mallard,
who politely totters away from your roost
to greet me and accept the small gift

of grape halves from my outstretched palm.
I say, after an accidental pinch
from a miscalculated snatch, fingertips

do look a little like grapes, it’s okay.
I remind you that I will be back each day
until the sky is too gray and mean,

and that I hope you don’t wince
when the wind’s bite finds the skin
beneath your feathers. I also tell you

Alex died – chose a pill or a gun
to help him sleep, they didn’t tell me.
It’s okay, though, you will be warm and fine

in your nest under that mangrove
blanket. You will wait for Spring’s
sun to rise and find you, huddled,

until its warmth washes over your eyes,
and I will do the same, ready
to see you again.

Author’s Note: “I Do Not Write Poems About Gender," draws inspiration from the myriad times when my transgender body fails to meet the expectations, or "dance the dance," of the world around me.  

"Autumn Duck, Listening," is inspired by the ritual in which I found comfort after the death of a close friend. Yes, I actually talked to ducks. Yes, grief is weird. 

Jak Emerson Kurdi, a recent Best of the Net Anthology nominee, has been recently published or has poems forthcoming in The Citron Review, Radar Poetry, Chautauqua, Inklette, The Writer's Foundry Review, and others. He lives in the Dallas, TX area with his wife, cat, and two dogs and works as a high school English teacher.