These trees are just one more thing we need to pack before day breaks.

We are free. Like coyotes we run far away. Wherever I go,

I leave notes, tucked into walls. Solitude is something people used to pay for,

they could afford it, but now… Upstairs I search through cabinets for medicine.

The buildings are all worn out husks, starting to slouch toward the ground.

These events are being recorded by a temporary historian.

I hear a voice describing something that might have once been flowers.

I looked into the empty fireplace, I’m holding an empty jar, and I wonder

if night is just one big shadow. We try to create the things we knew,

we’ll find a place for them, we’ll make room for them, and we’ll distract ourselves from the need to eat.

*

David Wojciechowski’s first book is Dreams I Never Told You & Letters I Never Sent (Gold Wake, 2017). Other poems can be found in Bateau, Jellyfish Poetry, Sporklet, and elsewhere. He can be found at davidwojo.com and on Twitter @MrWojoRising.

Who lifts your
spirits?
****************Look at all                   
****************the grass
****************just like you—

defending
the roots.
To escape
****************to flip,
********to zip
****************zap back.

What                is a                   voice?

The Sage
talks about
ways to love
****************to support
****************the edifice
****************this circus

How brief
my mate,
my star—
****************marriage,
****************a love
****************vacuum

I hold you—
I miss you

too                   soon                 we’re                dust                  again

*

Katie Kemple (she/her) is a poet, parent, and public radio consultant in San Diego, CA. You can find her most recent poems on Lunch Ticket (Amuse-Bouche), Anti-Heroin Chic, Stickman Review, and miniskirt magazine.

You’re expiring.
************************Mix up                         your                             landscape
************************your                             fragmented                 self
************************masks                          styles                           differentiate!

You’re expiring.

The President & I need                         details              on everything              

your tiny beans
your brightest blooms
your birthday gifts
your kissing booth
your coziest shirt
your funky finds          

You’re expiring.

Your power is rotating out
better build a better
bacterial trap—

************************at a party          private day camp          $99 tropical destination—
********************************Last chance: you don’t want to miss out!

You’re expiring.

We need a President
to pumpkin spice the revolution
from Vegas to Orlando

A dialogue between 3 friends

“On the issues with—”                                                “All y’all ready for—”
***************************“You’re a menace to—”           

You’re expiring.
********************************Are you American?
********************************Text Back FIGHT
********************************for a subscription.

*

Katie Kemple (she/her) is a poet, parent, and public radio consultant in San Diego, CA. You can find her most recent poems on Lunch Ticket (Amuse-Bouche), Anti-Heroin Chic, Stickman Review, and miniskirt magazine.

Dead
line       enter your self-
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcenter  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxstage                a          familiar face
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxat every age
wake up & smell the
rose bouquets
today at noon
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxGive wings to a dance
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxa photograph
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxexpiring art
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxalert—
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAlert!                           For the word
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxof the day:

Dada,  

wear a story                             
I’m putting together.

I’m asking you to become the first ten pages—

to binge                        to write             to want 
pleasure                        daily                 literally 

Your genome
published
a new discussion:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxdon’t miss out on
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxwhat matters to you

A new view of a

border                          a stream                                   a crossing

Father, the coffee you left was

a small                                      help—                                      good
guest                                        respect full                               inside                                    

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxa                                   dead                                         line

*

Katie Kemple (she/her) is a poet, parent, and public radio consultant in San Diego, CA. You can find her most recent poems on Lunch Ticket (Amuse-Bouche), Anti-Heroin Chic, Stickman Review, and miniskirt magazine.

—Business Insider headline, January 13, 2017

so that
in a field

in the future
in the supposition

of some tent-
ative peace

one can
follow a loose

spray of tulips
or orange

cornflower
or the yellow

suns of
common

daisies’ flung
faces

in from arcs
they gather

in intensity
toward

a single
spot

they get
so thick

there is
no way to

stand there
without

crushing some
when one

stops thinking
to

savor
the scent

something
springish

ambiently hot
what may

or may not
incite

a comparable
gathering

of thought
like cloth

bunching
in a hand

extended to-
ward something

it is unable to
blot

the flowers
speak not

of sustenance
but

the sustained
ma-

king
of the lost

*

Charlie Clark studied poetry at the University of Maryland. His work has appeared in The New England Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Smartish Pace, Threepenny Review, West Branch, and other journals. A 2019 NEA fellow and recipient of scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, he is the author of The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2020). He lives in Austin, TX. 

My lips are pink, like a piece of meat, I’m smoothing my face with the back of my hand, it’s so smooth it’s actually suspicious.  Not hiding anything, not at all, what if we only know what isn’t hidden?  Not thinking come and get me, there isn’t any point—everybody knows you’re not responsible for what you’re not even aware of, aren’t you?  It’s true we often know more than we’re willing to admit, we know when we would have, there’s no reason to pretend it’s suspicious when it actually is.  When I touch my lips I’m  counting the lines on my lips, letting my lips relax, I think they’re sweeter, and also softer.  Some people are suspicious of softness, but I like to press my lips in order to soften them, rubbing on some colored gloss to remind myself there’s nothing wrong with me.  Bowing my head to look more closely:  I’m often suspicious of my intentions, I mean I don’t intend to, but I don’t intend not to, intention isn’t even an activity.  If it’s not suspicious is it even interesting?  When I feel suspicious I hold myself in, turning to the side until I’m just a sliver like the interior of a silhouette, it’s hardly worth mentioning—sometimes I think this isn’t who I am, as if it’s somebody else who’s suspicious, isn’t it?  When it’s late I turn on the lights like William James to see what the darkness looks like, pulling apart my lips and speaking out of the corner of my mouth, I’m not one of those people who’s looking for a better offer.

*

Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.  He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, New World, Raritan, and other magazines. 

I’m not even getting up, not looking up or lifting up my head, or turning my head, there isn’t time.  Not even opening my eyes—as long as your eyes are closed you’re not even thinking about what you’re going to see or what you need to do about it, not turning on the light to see what you’re not looking at, or getting up to look at something, I mean it’s not a museum.  Not waiting for anything:  reluctance is a waste of time, as is impatience, run and stop, run and stop.  Right now I’m lying down on the floor, pushing up my hair and resting my face on the ground as if I’m punishing myself before anybody else gets around to it, or before anything goes wrong, it saves time later on.  Sometimes I need to hurry and then I need to wait, hurry up and wait—I don’t know if it’s a good idea, what if it’s your only idea?  Isn’t everything the opposite of its opposite?  Not holding my breath or filtering anything out, there isn’t time.  Of course, it’s important to use all the time you have, it’s the best use of your time, not even hesitating, when you hesitate people think you don’t care or you’re hiding something—hiding something you don’t care about.  I mean it takes time just to move from one room to the next, like a kind of decompression, I’m not thinking if it happens or if it doesn’t happen, I don’t even have time.  I’d actually like to speed up, I’m trying to speed up, but it takes too much time.  Everybody’s caseload is increasing, largely because there are more cases, I’m picking things up, picking up where the others leave off:  when I need more time I’m not even sure where it’s coming from.

*

Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.  He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, FIELD, New World, Raritan, and other magazines. 

Here in the Heartland, El Dorado is a Cadillac,
Cadillac is to blame for everything that has ever happened
in Detroit, and Detroit doesn’t like to think
about what an economy is for, and in this way
Detroit has a lot in common with the Theban Legion,
principled, uncalibrated, preoccupied
with something other than taxes or the proper position
for a pizza stone, whether enthusiasm survives
ambition, or what I should do with my endless supply
of anytime minutes, whether I can revoke my love
for friends with terminal interests or remember what I wanted
to say here about Charles Ives’ bad, bad heart.

(The sorry verities, ah, the sorry, sorry verities.
But “quotations are,” how to say, “fatal to letters.”)

*

Benjamin Paloff‘s books include the poetry collections And His Orchestra (2015) and The Politics (2011), both from Carnegie Mellon. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Conduit, New American Writing, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, and others. Twice a fellow of the NEA, he is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Michigan.

I am hopping like a crow hopping
like a child for candy.

I am sustaining
utterly unromantic injuries
in, and entirely through
neglect in the operation of,
a true luxury
automobile.

I am an interval:
the orca turns gorily on its trainer
just moments after
it has finally understood
what “trainer” means.

All government is provisional,
and what’s the difference?
If we just end up back at politics?

If I’m whittling myself down
and have a ways left to go?

*

Benjamin Paloff‘s books include the poetry collections And His Orchestra (2015) and The Politics (2011), both from Carnegie Mellon. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Conduit, New American Writing, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, and others. Twice a fellow of the NEA, he is associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Michigan.

***

Bethany Yates (she/them) is a queer social worker who utilizes intersectional feminism and art in her practice with clients who experience childhood trauma and societal marginalization. While she does not identify as an artist, she utilizes art to process the world around her and to cultivate healing within herself.