Poetry

Amy Dupcak

before the music stops

for Elijah McClain

before the ketamine stopped his heart, before
paramedics rushed in armed with a syringe,
before You are all very strong, before the carotid hold:
that knee to the neck to cut off his blood flow,
before I’m so sorry, before they threatened dogs
to bite, before they wrestled his body to the
ground, pinned him down like a rabid beast,
Try to forgive me, before the 911 call laced with fear,
before I will do anything, sacrifice my identity, before
anemia froze him like something fierce, before
the open-faced ski mask to warm his skin,
I’m just different, before his brother asked him
to buy iced tea, a trip to the store turned deadly,
before he told them his name, before I can’t breathe…
he played violin for unwanted cats and dogs,
soothing them to sleep.

and ten months after his parents stopped
the life support, we sit in silence in New York,
watching two black men play violin, backed
by an orchestra of strings; there we sit
with our candles and prayers and pleas for no
more, no more of this please, trying to ignore
the flashing lights of police cars surrounding
this park, trying not to hear any voice or siren or
drop of rain, not even our hearts—only the lonely
cry of violin strings that breathe for the boy
and miss him too much.

Amy Dupcak is the author of Dust, Short Stories and co-editor of Words After Dark: A Lyrics, Lit & Liquor Anthology. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in District Lit, The Night Heron Barks, Pangyrus, and Alternative Field & Avenue 50 Studio‘s ‘In Isolation’ anthology. She has also published fiction and creative nonfiction in Entropy, Sonora Review, Hypertext, Phoebe, Fringe, Litro, and other journals. She leads creative and essay writing workshops and sessions at Writopia Lab and The Writers Rock, and acts as an assistant editor of Cagibi Journal. She lives in New York City and is passionate about social justice. Visit her at amydupcak.com. 

Jasmine Khaliq

aj again

the light binds me to a bench today and I think of you.
that dog, walking, also makes me think of you, more
gray than black and shock collared like yours.

that ugly tree makes me think of you.
that big iron gate with the spikes makes me
wistful, would you have loved me more

if you had seen me through a big iron gate?
my face sliced while you roll one palm
across the bars, while you prick one

two three four fingertips on each
spike, while you reach through
to me—I don’t want that anymore,

but I did then. or maybe I do want
the gate. maybe I do want a more
digestible face. we could have

watched each other slotted, had
a better reason for our distance.
remember that game we did not play,

tag but to tag was to kiss, so we watched
as only younger kids flew—by then
I had already thought of you

as beautiful. that yellow house makes me
think of you. I want to be clear.
who you have become I have no interest in.

there are days I don’t remember about you at all.
today one such.
today I am in the throat of the world.

Jasmine Khaliq is a Pakistani Mexican poet born and raised in Northern California. She holds an MFA from UW Seattle. Her recent work is found or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, The Pinch, Phoebe, GASHER, Raleigh Review, and elsewhere. Find her on twitter at @jasminekhaliq_.

Amelia Constance Eilersten

How to Die

I kill myself in the kitchen. Pear knife shearing skin
under clear soap and dishes. Monet’s water lilies, blood
spills of a timid pink, more pastel than chalk. When I am
gone, I wash my death away, watch it swirl down the
drain—laundering all evidence till the morrow.

I kill myself in the bath. Submerged body under lavender
oils and rose petals. Decorative bubbles foam to veil my
exit after my last withheld breath daydreams to the surface.
Silently, I go thereafter. Lungs effectively turned to coastline
buoys, seconds cast off, lifejacket floating to shore.

(Of all deaths, water is most serene. Painted flowerbeds
of wild and home alongside open armed Ophelia,
singing a lament in sublime song, welcoming me
along. An envious death if ever I saw one.)

I kill myself o’er, taking a breath when the plug is pulled
by meddlesome foot, pruned and old. Murder of self, undone.
Awake, Ophelia mourns in song. Reality has stolen her
one and only friend. Alone, in portrait, she lay, singing
pretty as melodies rush her towards muddy end without me.

I kill myself in crossing, awaiting that light overhead to go
green. The call to strike a bargain with a devil Johnson spoke
of at crossroads. A devil that long since washed his hands clean
of me. Then I search for another, at the rock Nina ran to.
Waiting, at the cliff, as the poplar trees burn and candy apples
waft into the air, I find none there. That devil was only for her.

I kill myself in numbers. Counting calories to
make amends. A new fad diet for our new fab client!
Shedding weight to make room for all the possibilities
that could come between a starving ego and fat wretch.
This death, unstable, makes me tip into the drink—
bird-hearted Odette, wings clipped, stayed from the
ball now forever metamorph, overturned in pond graves.

Desperate now, I can only kill myself in place of my
darlings. Those pesky cliché bookends; half-assed
tragic suicides shoehorned for a gasp and shake. I kill
myself in mediocrity. In the floundering of word
merchants, illiterate patrons of the Hotel d’Alsace.

I kill myself slowly. Faithfully. In hopes it will prevent
your unkind killing entirely. The death of the stunted soul
in the slow dying body.

Amelia Constance Eilertsen (she/her) is a Zambian-Norwegian writer with a BA in Creative and Professional Writing from Bangor University. Her life is a cosmic swirl of insomnia, travel and the brief spaces between the making of a moment, and watching it pass by. She has had poems published with Poets’ Choice and High Shelf Press. She is currently working on her first poetry collection. Reach her on Instagram @ameliaconny.

James Champion

The Lake Colored Yellow

The history of me
is the ceaseless scratching
of this pen,
and your eyes, watching.

They give me posture.
I thank them for that.
They light dim things
like me. Though I hide

in the silent bricks of cathedrals,
I worship the church bells.
I pray to the sound.
But unlike you,

and unlike those absent-bodied gods,
I kill things
when I close my eyes.
Guillotines, guillotines—

be cautious: they shut
things up in the dark space behind them.
A small hell.
In there, I keep a cat

circling. In there,
I keep a tattered letter
crumpling endlessly. I keep
leaves falling to land

drifting on a lake, directionless:
a restless funeral procession
with no mourners.
Soon

the bony trees will have shed
all of themselves
on the lake’s surface,
concealing their reflections entirely.

James Champion (he/him/his) is from Whitehall, Michigan. He graduated from Central Michigan University with an MA in Creative Writing in 2019. He currently works as a cashier at a home improvement store. He likes skiing, walking, travelling. In other words, he is frightened of stillness. However, he is also enthralled by it. This balance might well be an accurate summation of his writing. He is the Editor-in-Chief at Temenos (temenosjournal.com).

Brooke Dwojak Lehmann

Imbolic

It rains for twenty-nine straight days
and then I wake to a dry morning,
sun illuminating the copper floor frays,
highlighting dust and grain, pouring
shadows across the blue velvet chair.
Halfway between winter and spring,
where the naked branches new flair
are sprouts of jazzy green rings
on their fingers, and the Camellias
are teasing us with full blush blooms.
Inside, a cinnamon candle burns like Ophelia
losing her innocence, lonely in my peach room,
as I’m trying to heat something deep,
hoping it will last, at least, until spring is not asleep.

Brooke Dwojak Lehmann is an emerging writer whose work focuses on recovery, illness and conscious femininity.  Her poetry has been published by Tipton Journal, Parentheses Journal, Black Fox Literary Magazine, 805 Lit and forthcoming in Streetlight Magazine and Noctua Review.  She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University and feels formal poetry is similar to solving an engineering proof.  She lives in Seattle, WA where she freelances in the fashion community and as a consultant.  You can find her on Instagram @blehmann524.

Shereen Akhtar

Amazon Reviews the Bible

Esther plots with her cousin to save the Jews
Vashti refuses to dance

Good size sections to do each day
Would love to try this with my friends

Saul chases David away
David plays the lyre for Saul in his madness

I purchased this book to accompany my quiet time routine
that I am perfecting

Noah builds the ark
Noah sends out a dove to check they can safely land

It’s easy on the eye

Joseph ends up in a hole.
Joseph ends up in prison

Joseph ends up running Egypt

I was disappointed in the additional content

Abraham pretends his wife is his sister
Abraham sends his ‘sister’ to the king
The king sends her back

Box damaged
but I’m not complaining.
Binding is nice.

There are two different versions of creation in Genesis

The author went to a great extent to create this book
Lovely format

Devorah sits in judgment
Devorah sings of righteous war

The book is written by a woman pastor
which I do not believe is biblical
Her writing tactics seem to be that of all about self

Moses leads the Israelites out of bondage
Moses breaks the tablets of the Commandments

Wouldn’t necessarily call it giant print

Jacob waits seven years for Rachel’s hand in marriage
Jacob gets Leah instead
Jacob vows to wait another seven

The language is a learning curve
but this only adds to the truth

The ark of the covenant is opened
All the men in the vicinity die

It’s great that it can lay flat when open
so you don’t have to damage the spine or anything

Shereen Akhtar is a London based poet and writer. She has had work published or forthcoming in Ambit Magazine, The Masters Review, Cathexis Northwest, and High Shelf Press. She was longlisted for the Women Poets’ Prize 2020. She is currently at work on her first novel. 

Libby Goss

Yoiyoiyama

Lights in the night, summer’s heat, sounds
of drums, bells in retreat, your hand on mine
as the crowds ebb and weave—let us remeet,
again and again, the day and sleep so far
from our dreaming, the shadows longing
at lanterns overhead.

If I could say something
now about desire (it was not what I had planned)
or what I have made of your love for me,
the distances we come to bereave or stand or
when words can’t count the ways
of our wanting—not the confession, the afterward,
in the bathroom mirror, not the skyline and wine,
a more practiced kind of tender—

the colder nights of waking to different roofs
overhead, the pains we’ve stoked or tried
to redress, not a wish but belief in the ways
to mend, the drift and remeet, then—

Libby Goss grew up in Stow, MA and lives in New York. She has a BA from NYU Gallatin and an MFA from Boston University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the anthology If You’re Not Happy Now (Broadstone Books), spoKe poetry annual, and Five Points.

Rodd Whelpley

Sweeping

You can’t keep house, not well
at the end, but then no one judges
or takes notice.

Or did, until after
I returned from the Methodist basement
with leftover chicken from the lady volunteers.
How, I wonder, did we eat in here?
From tarnished hooks in the pantry,
where they’ve always been, I take
the dustpan and the broom.

Chrissie Frank,
the neighbor girl you always loved,
was there today. All the way from Cleveland.
As kids, that pantry was our principality,
and once, I pulled some bristles, wedged them
in my nose and said to her, Mee-oooow.
To which she said,

Those aren’t whiskers –
Those are broom straws. Years and decades
later, when a son got way too full
of his accomplishments, you’d say Broom
Straws in a Chrissie voice, and that
would level him. There is no bragging
in this house.

But, my God, the kitchen floor.
And this old, diminished thing that cannot touch
the corner crumbs or dust beneath the fridge. Like
it has lost its hair to chemo. But no. Mother,
I much prefer to think we had too many kittens.

Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives near Springfield. He is the author of the chapbooks Catch as Kitsch Can (2018) and The Last Bridge is Home (coming in 2021). Find him at roddwhelpley.com or whelpley.rodd@gmail.com. 

Dawn Terpstra

Bamboo Forest

Light-footed and hushed
we still as in a holy place

Bamboo sings for us,
I say to my adopted sister,
harp-voices rise in leaf-filtered ether,
fairies swirl beyond the path

Sweet ginger flower intoxicates,
pepper-leaf-wrapped betelnut
reddens our mouths, spit
swims between cheeks

We stop near mami’s taro patch,
knee-deep and foot-sucked
beneath pendulous breadfruit,
tuu reach to us with yellowing hands

magic melts into our family’s familiar,
pours through pounded poi
through fish heads she’s learned to pick clean,
we laugh, rolling gelatinous eyes on our tongues

Palauan biib calls like a jungle ghost
singing for our ocean aunties, the giant clams
craned to the surface by foreign hands,
ancestor memories seep through her song

I teach her the words

We are divine and mortal,
ocean and fire,
taro and manroot,
treetops and seaweed,

Will she know to mourn
the deepening silence between us

Dawn Terpstra lives in Iowa where she leads a communications team. She has two masters degrees from Iowa State University and conducted her graduate research over two summers in Guam and Palau. Her poetry appears in current and forthcoming publications, including Briar Cliff Review, Citron Review, Persimmon Tree, San Pedro River Review, SWWIM, Third Wednesday, and Eastern Iowa Review. Her chapbook, Songs from the Summer Kitchen, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. You can contact her at dterp@me.com, on Twitter @dterpstra, and on Instagram @dterp1.

Kate Landers

Sit. Stay.

You had let me run ahead
Thinking I was free and we were having fun
Then you yanked that leash
A harsh reminder that you were in control
And I looked back, not understanding
What I’d done wrong
That’s not the direction I’m going, you said
And pointed another way
Could I go with you?
Yes, but you walk behind me this time
I obeyed
And your way became my way, too
And I forgot that I once was on my own path
All I could see was you walking so quickly
I could barely keep up
Then you stopped
Jerked that leash again
Hurry up! you said
You’re slowing me down
I tried
Tried so hard
You never slowed
You never waited
Just kept getting farther ahead of me
Then suddenly you dropped the leash
And left me there on the road
Left me
And I didn’t know
Where I was
Or how to get back home
Or even who I was anymore
Without you pulling my leash

Kate Landers writes from Tennessee, where she serves on the board for her local writers’ guild, plays roller derby, and takes care of a variety of creatures large and small. Read more of her work at katelanders.com, or follow her on Twitter @OQueKate. 

Libby MacDonald

listen, mother

I shot myself in the head with an airsoft gun
for all a suicide rookie knew
grief would burst out the other side
an explosion for apple mothers
& clementine fathers

my summer fruit in both hands
he said:
hawk your watermelon seeds in the dirt!

gravelly ass
plopped on a driveway reminiscent of
crape murder & big boppers
equal sweat & chlorine taunted by
that 2006 yellow-shirt-with-the-blue-flower photo

while BBs could not
knock on that temple door forcefully enough
to frighten the little bitch behind it

I waited
belly swollen
& blamed the melon

Libby MacDonald loves words. She studied Modern Language at the University of Central Florida where she conducted research examining relationships between colonialism, classism, and English education. She has taught English as a foreign language both stateside and in Botswana. The conflict between providing English education to populations in need and colonial oppression operates as a driving force both in her career and personally. She currently resides in Jacksonville, Florida where she participates in poetry workshops and chaotic art projects.