Alex Andrade

The River’s Whisper

The river flows without asking permission;
its current murmurs gentle hymns and prayers.
I cannot hear,
but I feel it – deep in the tremor of my bones.

Dipping my hands,
the water brushes my fingertips gently,
quietly witnessing all that was,
all that will come to be.

In the water’s depths,
I see not my face,
but the weight of this world
carried in the tranquility of a mere drop.

In a hushed tone I wonder,
“how far must I go to find You?”
But in the stirring of the river,
I am sure You are here,
where the water meets the rock.

Your presence remains,
quiet but sure,
a blessed assurance whispered in the wind.

 

 

 

Alexis Andrade is a Master's student of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She is passionate about the environment, the passing down of memory, and a large cup of peppermint tea. She is new to the publishing world – but eager to begin her journey.

Barbara Daniels

Why Your Hair Is Falling Out

Maybe you should quit going out
before dawn in the ice and rose light.
 
And stop treating your hair
like an enemy animal, wrenching,
 
pulling. Do you need better tools?
A caliper? The shining geometry
 
of a new comb? You should crawl out
from under the table where you’ve
 
been lying among clawed table legs.
The claws hold balls that touch
 
the carpet like little worlds. And stop
watching surgery on your phone.
 
You can see what’s lifted by shining
forceps and dropped to a metal bowl.
 
Your hand casts a shadow that
seems to bleed on the carpeted floor.
 
Should you go outside to check on
certain collapsing clouds? Every
 
roadkill rebukes you—entrails
dangling, bones split to red marrow.
 
Love is a carpenter. Ask it to start
mending, fixing, tapping in nails.

 

The Lopsided Star 

We’re in a restaurant like the hold
of a ship, the rigging moving,
the shrouds and stays.

A man reads the specials, patient
as a new priest. He touches
the hand of the woman beside him.
 
We hear distant plumbing, soft
creaking as boards shift and settle.
Some people never quite learn  

to read. Does a wire in the brain
get misbraided, forming a lopsided
star? The woman can’t read  

the menu, but she knows she wants
meatloaf. And now a litany
of choices, soup, potatoes, dessert.

Is she like my student who learned
to read in her forties and now
writes only to God? Her letters,  

work receipts, poems. All go
to God. Fixtures in the restaurant’s
ceiling drop slats of light  

on shoulders and faces. We’re
spot lit. We’re golden. I finish
my supper, savor my coffee,  

and step out to the dark
where the O of the moon
shines like a dish of sweet cream.

 

                                                 

 

Barbara Daniels’ most recent book, Talk to the Lioness, was published by Casa de
Cinco Hermanas Press. Her poetry has appeared in Main Street Rag, Free State Review,
Philadelphia Stories, and many other journals. She received four fellowships from the New
Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Todd Heldt

Constellation

The time I set out for Kansas City
with 50 bucks and no plan besides 
she would catch me where I collapsed.
The rain smeared thumbprints on my windshield 
all night. I drove under funnel clouds, and
tornadoes touched down in small towns along
the road, stooping to pluck a field, a barn,
a house and feed them, bite by bite to the sky. 
Flashing cars littered the shoulder, but I
could not stop, pushing ninety and lost. 
I never unlearned that disaster. 
I still love dizzy and drunk, my dashboard
the north star, throwing myself at the wind.

 
 

Todd Heldt is a librarian living in Chicago.

Lindsay Lauren

Lapsha

Flour drifts, a hush of winter in the sun’s throat,
dusting her knuckles, my fingertips, the years.
She kneads with the patience of rain carving stone,
folding, pressing, shaping the past into something
that will hold its shape, even in boiling water.
Her hands know the ritual, the pull and give
a dance of muscle, memory, devotion.
Mine fumble, too eager, stretching the dough too thin.
She clucks her tongue, takes my wrists,
guides them slow, steady, certain,
until the dough yields, pliant beneath us.
We cut the strands, long as river reeds,
soft as whispers yet stubborn as roots.
She drapes them across her bed,
a sky stitched with golden thread,
where dreams and noodles dry side by side.
She hums, and I hum too,
the tune worn soft from years of use.
Steam curls around us, salt clings to our skin.
Outside, the fields lean into the wind,
but inside, we stay—woven into her hands,
pulled taut like lapsha,
never breaking.
Steering

 

 

Lindsay is a clinical psychology doctoral candidate and freelance writer whose poetry explores the intersection of science, emotion, and the human experience. She has contributed to literary and scientific publications. When not writing or working with patients, she can be found running or adventuring with her dog, Butter.

Sreeja Naska

the shape of waiting

it starts with a body dissolving into the neon hum of 
an open sign. we keep pressing on the wounds on our
arms and slip from strangers like sweat. 
it's been a long while since someone left their name
in a conversation. i mean, we are always leaving, aren't we?
even in the way we kiss—like pulling a thread from the 
hem of the sky—forgotten for the next pair of hands.
 
mother said, never waste rice, so i gathered each grain off 
the plate, stacked longing beside the prayers i forgot the
words to. i feel like a prophet with no message, sitting 
on curbs, legs folded in the shape of waiting.
the boys on the corner are rolling joints, spitting cherry pits 
into the dark. someone laughs. someone else forgets
why they were laughing. it sounds like glass breaking,
or maybe it's the other way around. a woman wipes her son's
face with the hem of her dress, salt blooming against cotton.
a father puts his hands on the table & forgets what they're for.

 you say my name, and i don't know if it's a question or
a mistake over another shot of vodka. i say what before i
hold your quiet breath in the back of my throat and watch you
like a child clutching the seafoam that won't stay in his hands. 

two startled bodies in rumpled jeans 
still learning to belong.

 

  

Sreeja Naskar is a teen poet exploring grief, memory, and the complexities of growing up. Her work navigates the spaces between love and loss, the intimate and unspoken, the softness and ache of being human. Her poetry appears and is forthcoming in Modern Literature, Eunoia Review, and Gone Lawn.

Lily Tobias

Trace

 I went in search of the bodies,
among the leaves and mud,

of the mice who died in my apartment,
but find no trace of body or bone.

 Overhead, a hawk circles a hawk,
dark feathers against the sky

 like the contrast in the X-ray of my wrist.
Doctors wrapped it in hot-pink plaster,

 a detail I only remember because of that picture;
me beside my crib, the broken limb heavy hanging,

 a faceless Mr. Potato Head under my other arm like my own baby.
Now, something broken hangs in the air among the hawks, 

an apology in your handwriting,
every wing flap shaping words we want to say.

 I watch one hawk through binoculars
so I will never lose sight of it.

 Somehow, the hawk looks like the photo of us
at Christmas; the curve of your smile,

 me under your wing, your wine glass almost
levitating in the hand I love. 

Lily Tobias is a poet from Fenton, Michigan. Her poem “Strawberry Interlude” was shown at the 2023 Paseo Arts Association Small Art Show and she is published in Rockvale Review, River Heron Review, The Big Windows Review, and elsewhere. Learn more at lilytobias.com.

Angela Joynes

There’s No CrossFit for Loss

Joanie does everything first — bridging from Daisies to Brownies, running track, masturbating under the sheets, getting a driver’s license, a tattoo, and a piercing. Also the first to have sex, and thank God she tells me what to expect.

My sister gets sick first too, the terrible, unfair kind of sick. But even in her final emaciated week in the hospital smelling of jaundice and dehydration, Joanie is still trying to be the gracious big sister to Mark and me.

Joanie closes her eyes, solemnly places her right hand over her heart, left hand on top. With a devilish grin she switches the bottom hand to the top, asking in the nasal, singsongy voice of our childhood optometrist, “Better here? Or better there?” Practicing for her own coffin. What can we do but crack up? Oh yeah, other option: sob uncontrollably, but not what Joanie is going for.

One afternoon, Sari the grief counsellor corrals me in the pastel peach family room. She means well as she places a firm hand on my knee. “Dear, losing your sister will leave the hungriest ache. You must prepare.” Oh yeah, you think?

The chasm of grief is plenty obvious, so with intentions as good and possibly as misguided as Sari’s, I decide to apply CrossFit training principles, as if I’m doing my repetitions on kettle bells, weights, and ropes. Before parking, I circle the hospital twenty reps until I can do it dry-eyed. I practice reading Joanie’s funeral poem aloud ten times twice a day. I visit every neighboring florist to drown in the near rot of carnations, roses, and chrysanthemums until I successfully suppress the gag.

There’s no point in training for the distant future though, like the day two years from now, or one year, when I have to walk into Joanie and Scott’s house and greet a new blond the girls call mom. Or even to train for helping Scott clean out Joanie’s closets in a couple of weeks. No, no need for future torment.

When Joanie dies, my heart stalls in mid-flight. No preparations have helped, certainly not half-assed emotional CrossFit. Every moment over the following weeks when I dare to think things are improving, a barb snags me: random FB posts showing old Lego’s or pink plastic dollhouses we fought over, or snatches of songs we bounced to, or just the sight of a hot dog with the works. Joanie detested that yellow mustard so much.

One day six months on, I unexpectedly collapse simply driving past a block of modern glass-and-brick condos. It’s where Joanie, Mark, and I used to see that squinty optometrist with the bad breath, and all I hear is Joanie’s voice echoing, “Better here? Or better there?” And I think, oh, please, God, it was so much better there.

 

 

Angela Joynes, a Canadian writer transplanted to Tennessee, is disabled by Lupus and Respiratory Failure. She holds a BA, MD, and a Certificate in Creative Writing (MTSU). Words in FLEAS ON THE DOG, SHIFT, MICROFICTION MONDAY MAG, THE ILANOT REVIEW, THE WEST TRESTLE REVIEW, NATIONAL FLASH FICTION DAY ANTHOL 2023, 2024, FICTIVE DREAM, among others.