Issue 13

June 2024

Photo by Megan Sciarrino

Sleep Talking

On nights when sleep evades me
I think about the moon
I think about my life and my children and what book I could be reading 
I scroll Instagram for a while,
The true city that never sleeps

Finally I think of this poem
I vow to remember it in the morning
But know I never will
So here
In the blue light glow
I peck out these lines

By sunrise I have forgotten
Days later I find it
Buried in my Notes app with to-do lists and reminders 
The bare bones of a poem
Riddled with typos 
Like art on layaway
Waiting just for me

Amy Grass

Those Who Mother Us
Are Not Always Our Parents

is the title of a New York Times article
I read two days before Mother’s Day, 
and a memory stitches itself together
in my mind or my heart or my body 
or all of it, the time I duck my head
and walk briskly into the bathroom
of my childhood church because 
when your own mother buys you mascara
so that she can say, don’t cry or your 
mascara will run, you get good at hiding.  
In the bathroom is the beautiful mother
I sit behind in the sanctuary, always 
with the back of her head curled perfectly 
and me wondering how she does it, 
the one with two teenage boys, 
and of course, I think to myself, 
of course she will not know what to do
with me and my melting mascara, 
of course this is all a mistake, and when 
I turn to leave, she wraps my limp limbs 
in her arms and I see her in the mirror
holding me, taking a tissue and wiping
clean the inky thumbprints under my eyes,
and even though we never spoke a word
to each other that day or after, I still hear
her voice clearly when I look in the mirror
saying, yes, yes I will take care of you today. 

Krista Drechsel

Good Girl*

Once upon a time 
a worthy woman possessed 
a sweet and gentle nature
She could not endure 

wretched kings - they could
talk of nothing but golden 
flowers and diamonds.
They summoned her 

for she had good taste.
Her godmother said, promise
to be a good girl. 
She went and gathered the finest

rat and brought it to the ball.
Beside herself with delight 
she made a profound curtsey 
and departed as quickly as she could. 

*A found poem sourced from Cinderella by Charles Perrault

Michelle Windsor

An Elegy for an Ache

My grandmother says she’s grateful she can FaceTime 
my Dad from her hospital bed. She misses
being able to touch him. He’s 600 kms away. 
I sit on her bed and George climbs onto my lap, 

curls up there. I’ve become accustomed to constant 
affection. My hip aches, my shoulder throbs, 
my knee smarts, and stabbing pain pounds 
my heel from carrying a nearly-three-year-old. 

There’s exhaustion, brain-fog 
from interrupted sleep,
pulling George into bed, 
how he nestles in next to me,

the warm heft of him, wriggling, 
then deep breathing. 

I sink into the capaciousness of his affection
like a warm bath. I don’t know
when I will be down to droplets. 

Rebecca Marie

STRONG MEN

weep when the baby is placed in their arms
for the very first time. strong men fall to their knees 
when they get the phone call, beg 
the doctors to hold on for just one more 
second. stop and smell flowers on the side 
of the road, grind the coffee every morning,
cut up vegetables. strong men read
poetry because they like the way the words
feel on their tongue, smooth like a skipping 
stone, cuts like a river. strong men know
the name of the pediatrician, the math teacher,
the date of their daughter’s dance recital. 
strong men wake up in the middle of the night,
wipe tears and change diapers, hold tongues 
and doors alike. strong men wear pink 
every day for a week after a student in their son’s 
class says it’s not a boy color, let their daughter
paint their nails, stick butterfly clips in their hair.
strong men cry without shame, fall to their knees, 
beg the moon for forgiveness. strong men hold up
their own weaknesses, turn them over in their hands,
examine them in the light for all to see. strong men
refuse to pretend they are always strong, or right,
or brave — not when the world is so ripe for potential,
not when they have so much left to learn. 

Jillian Stacia

Roots

I thought I would be a tree
rooted in one coordinate.
Deep system of support
limbs long and strong to hold
seasons, people, and time.

I thought I was a leaf
unceremoniously plucked 
and blown on a whim
to an unchosen destination,
spinning and free-falling.

But, I am a butterfly bush
(non-voluntarily) divided
and then transplanted.
My hearty roots adapt,
learn new soil and weather.

The clusters of blooms
fight to show off violet
dresses, the color
sky holds after a storm.
All the flowers’ nectar 
beckons butterflies 
to dance. Applauded
by passers by, the sky,
and the bush, herself.

Alyssa Silvester

Resistance Exercise

In elementary school, 
when you beat the pants 
off that boy in the pacer test
and his fists sent so much red 
to his head, that you simply said, 

     Next time, try wearing a skirt!

You didn’t dance around 
the fact that you were

fast

her.

In middle school, 
on the activity bus, 
when the upperclassman 
said you were in his seat
and you answered him 
with a question: 

     So, what did you stay after for?

     Powerlifting.

     Oh that's nice. You lift weights?

     Yeah.

     So, are they the little weights - 
     like the ones old people carry when they walk?

You didn’t resist 
this resistance exercise. 
You stood up by sitting down.  

The summer before senior year, 
the one who got all hot over Italian ice, 
who told you to take your beach pics 

down from the gram, 
because he didn’t want other guys 
to see you looking like 

you 
were 
going 

swimming?  

     So, what do you wear at the beach?  

You didn’t go deeper. 
You guarded 
your one wild 
and precious life
 
in a two-piece. 

And you, my daughter, 
my dear and remarkable speciwomen, 
you are nearly ready to 
to leave the nest. 

And you’re smartly wary of the ones 
who fancy framing you
in a shadow box, 
like some rare butterfly. 

But they can’t pin you down
or keep you waiting in the wings. 

Because this beauty of yours, 
it does not suffer. 

It flys

away. 

Megan Sciarrino