Issue 31

March 2026

On Raising Good Men

Sometimes, when I think of sending you out into this world
without me, I want to vomit a little. My stomach clenches, and
my heart starts to flutter, and there’s a panic whisper that settles
in my brain that I can’t quite shake. Your grandmother tells me,
the world will never love him as you do. And the words make me
shudder, because I know it to be true. They will not always see
your gentleness. They will not always know the ferocity of your hugs.
They will not hear the questions that you ask about heaven.
About bugs. About why that little girl is crying, and what we can do
to help her. Sometimes, they will see the jagged parts of you—the
temper tantrums. The shadows. The impatience that rears its head.
And you will not get a chance to let them see that most of you
is made of marshmallow and honey. You will not get to ask them
questions about the moon. And they will, in turn, make a decision
about you. But I promise you I’ll teach you how to hold your
head high. I’ll remind you to carry other people’s hearts as gently
as you do your own. And when you make a mistake, because you will,
because I will, too, I’ll be the first person to say, I’m sorry.
I’ll remind you that being a good man means saying it, too.

Megan Minutillo

In Praise of Massage Therapists

When her elbow pressed the heart
of my calf, the only word I
could find was yes—

                 Fix my pain upon the yoke
                         of your training,
                 Turn this tight tissue
                         into seams so smoothe
                 You’d never know
                         the garment 
                                 was fraying.

Kelsi Folsom

Hello World

After Jenny George

I slipped from my mother’s body on a snowy February day before cellphones and streaming services. The cord between our bodies severed, the pull between our hearts pulsing with blood 

and Grandma Mary’s Zucchini Bread, handwritten notes, prayers offered on knees sunk into carpet, grape jello when I had the flu, your cradle of my babies under inky black skies. 

I am a mother now. I cut strawberries for my honey-haired daughter but pineapple for my chocolate-eyed son. Their nightstand drawers are full of cards signed “Love, Mom.” 

My bedtime whispers circle their brains, my love as sturdy as our wooden floors. We wrap ourselves around one another for Family Hug, a tangle of elbows, foreheads, wisps of hair. 

I teach them about the world. We send notes to neighbors, deliver beds to floor sleepers, bake cookies for families with new babies, invite children without playmates to slide at the park. 

A drop of blood in the world’s hemorrhaging wounds. But it’s something. What can I tell them when they ask why we don’t matter, the women and children? 

Our bodies break for our children, our souls grow with them, our resolve too. Somehow against all odds, we grunt, grieve, plow, pave a path forward. Upturned stones, one at a time.  

Alyssa Silvester

Night Shift

By nine o’clock she’s said the last good-night;
She’s kissed each head, recited each last rhyme.
She sits at last and wakes herself to write,
To push against the heavy hand of time.
 
For years she had exactly nothing left
When bedtime came, or never came at all:
She snacked and scrolled around; she was bereft
of guilt while drifters circled round the hall.
 
But now the quiet creeps back on all fours.
She’s pouncing fast before it flees away:
The keyboard taps, releasing untapped stores,
Unclouding shrouded thoughts long kept at bay.
 
What else could harness such electric power
As a mother’s charge on one still nighttime hour?

Elisa Stern

Always A Phoebe, Never A Rachel

I used to dream of haircuts. Honey blond feathers
and a cool-girl kind of smirk. I wanted my name
on the lips of every hairdresser, my face a trend
stuck frozen in style. I’ve always yearned for beauty, 
that red lip kind of fame. Once, I made a man
kiss the ground just to watch him leave me one week
later. Power is a parlor trick. The hair always grows
back. Now, I own my truth. I dress in sweats 
and graphic tees. Say yes to all my edges.
I stopped chasing haircuts and boys with muscle tees
and learned to run like no one’s watching. 
My soul is a stand-up comedian haggling for laughs. 
This poem’s a guitar strum away from Smelly Cat.
I no longer dream of honey, cheek, or lip. I am
the show’s best character. I get all the laughs. 

Jillian Stacia

ETHIC

The day your baby is born
ETHIC is the Wordle word of the day
your OB will walk in
shield her face from your phone
ask you to hide your phone -
you see she hasn’t done the Wordle yet.

You turn your voice and phone over
ask why
ask how
the baby was breech
and why it wasn’t caught earlier.

Sometimes a butt feels like a head.
All’s well that ends well.

Does she know because of the birth
you can barely bend
that when the other OB yelled,
Push so hard
the baby will fly across the room!
that your face feet are unrecognizable
swollen from pushing?

But it’s ok
All’s well that ends well,
Right?

Reem Faruqi

A Parking Lot Prayer

Oh Lord, I don’t want 
to do this. I hate this place, 
it makes my heart hurt. 

She doesn’t remember me. 
Does it matter if I turn up 
with colouring pencils? 

Does it matter that she 
coloured with me as a child 
and I don’t remember? 

Does it matter if she beams
at the baby? If I conduct
a one-sided conversation? 

Does it matter if I rub 
moisturiser into skeletal 
hands, touch a starved body? 

Does it matter if she holds me, 
her body wracked with sobs, 
if she doesn’t remember me? 

Does it matter? Do you see?
My God, my God, be with me. 

Rebecca Marie

My Therapist Asks Me What I Want

and all I can think about is how my
bougainvillea has dropped 
all her leaves. How she spreads
herself bare in front of the open 
window. How she shows 
off her bones 
like they 
are worth 
something. 
They say 
Eve felt ashamed 
when she realized 
she was naked 
but that is a man’s wet 
dream. I know she 
just wanted 
to be seen. 

Michelle Windsor

Lately the Algorithm Serves Me Baby Videos

I can smell them as they turn their heads—
velvet-soft, scented with milk and unseen worlds.
I’m a better mother of tweens, which is to say 
I’m a better person when I’ve slept seven hours
and sometimes my kids laugh at my banter.
I don’t miss those days, really, would never buy a home there, 
but sometimes I wish I could visit—
I’d overpay for a flight, a bad hotel.
So when my long-legged daughter, smelling of cherry chapstick and peach shampoo 
whips the covers from my winter bed and curls into me, 
soft hair tickling my nose, painted fingernails 
clutching the front of my pajamas,
I let my list of “shoulds” blow away, and stay.

Lorren Lemmons

Surely There Are Wounds Deserving Silence

Surely there are wounds deserving silence,
 room to breathe,
 and reverence to expand.
 Some pain is sacred—
 not to be rushed,
 not to be reasoned with,
but left lonely.

Yet somewhere softer,
 somewhere safer,
 a quieter story is settling in.
 One where sorrow becomes identity,
 and comfort takes the place of courage.

Perhaps it sounds like:
 No one sees me.
 I am too tired.
 This is too much.

And of course, humanity in all,  it is—too much sometimes. 

What if the ache is not the end,
 but an invitation to respond?
 What if overwhelmed is only the first sentence
 in a story still unfolding?

Do you see another way—not denying that pain,
 but refusing to be defined by it? Or to let it linger?  

A way that says:
 This is surely uncomfortable—
 But mountains are for climbing not for burying and therefore
 I am not without choice.

The shift is small,
 like the breath before a scream. 
 But it matters.
 Because transformation doesn’t come
 through blame or waiting—
 but through the quiet decision
 to rise.

And rising doesn’t always look like winning
 Sometimes, it’s just
 choosing tenderness
 when bitterness would be easier.
 Speaking honestly
 when silence would feel safer.
 Extending a hand
 even when yours is empty.

No, you are not a victim
 of every hard thing.
 You are a carrier
 of something deeper—
 the capacity to become
 new.

Ashley Elizabeth

Light Conversation With A Sherpa

Take every note on this mountain. 

A face can be stoic and maddening. 

Climbers are reaching and doubting, 
carrying dangerous loads.
 
If valleys can really be fountains, 
then let us take turns 
to places that grow. 

Megan Sciarrino

Fool’s Gold

And at the end of it
how did I get here?
Monstera and Calathea
and Diffenbacchia
dotted across my home
placed with difference
and touched, often.
A set-apart creature
a snake eye die, a thing
left over, a rapture.
At the end of it,
the left-over work day
trauma-done lifeway,
when I look at me
I am a woman with a heart
throttling for foliage,
for peonies in a vase
from God-knows-where
the color of all my past blushes
both giddy and horrendous,
for jewel-like strawberries
plucked from earth
one mile from home
that melt with sweet and rush
and make me ache
with want of perfection
crave a coupe of champagne
in spite of Tuesday, in celebration
of what lifts us from our corners
the soft tea towel
of everything over us
to peek at the yeast rolls
greet the steam-rise
with expectation of what is good.
How did I get here alone
with such a sediment of desire
all lust washed out
no rapid or bubble, a settledness
and, gazing beneath the surface
what might be a sparkle
what might be an allusion.

Jordan Williams