Masthead

Editor’s Note

Dear Readers,

Water courses through this issue; it drips and pools, ripples and thrashes. Here, water takes on endless shapes: it is family and legacy, peace and violence. At points we find ourselves in want of it—water is missing, withheld, or too thin to hold on to. It’s not difficult to lose oneself to this tide, what Danielle Garcia Tubo calls, “the spinning typhoon of history.”  Our own present, so unsteady like water or sand.

So where, in the uncertainty of our lives, do we find our center? Where do we find these moments of calm? How do we not lose our sense of being, of belonging? These are the waters we find our contributors navigating.

As we came together to reflect on this issue, the quiet winter light warmed through the window pane, while the coffee sat perfectly between bitter and sweet. Even just for a moment, our contributors carved out a calm and stillness in our day, not as escape, but as anchor. Too often these days we find the ground shifting beneath our feet. And it is terrifying. In this issue, we find our contributors reaching out a hand to hold on to.

Throughout Leah Reusch’s work, touch ripples through the flesh, becoming the red hot center around which body, time and history reverberates. For Ari Herrera, the bog is the center of queer possibility, fecund and forward-looking. In Zak Wilson’s “Adrift,” a person floats solo as the water ripples around them, as the desert stretches around them. Exploring his familial ties to Egypt, Wilson sifts through the anxieties of being and identity in a place “you are both drawn to, and isolated from.”

Our contributors show us that a center is not found, but made. It is bodily and warm, it is one’s unmistakable voice that requires you claim it. As Quique offers, “The body can be drank from wherever since ever has nothing to do with it.”

Warmly,
Natalee Cruz
Leon Barros
Editors-in-Chief

HOW TO HELP

Darling readers,

In their Editor’s Note, Editors-in-Chief Leon Barros and Natalee Cruz write, “Our contributors show us that a center is not found, but made.” As we tread the uncertain waters of life—rippling, thrashing, sometimes still—it is through collaboration and care that we find our anchor. This issue, shaped by the creative tides of our contributors and the brilliance of our editorial team, stands as a testament to that act of creation.

We are profoundly grateful to our incredible editorial team. To our newcomers—Dylan Gilbert, Ananda Naima Gonzaléz, Ayling Zulema Dominguez, and Haden Riles—thank you for jumping in headfirst, navigating this issue with thoughtfulness and courage. To our veterans, Managing Editor F.M. Papaz and Lisette Boer, your steady hands and warm hearts continue to guide us, our very own lighthouse in a literary storm.

Together, you’ve helped carve out a space that feels like calm amidst the chaos, not as an escape but as a hand extended—a place to belong, to hold fast, and to find center. For that, we are endlessly thankful.

As we drift into the close of the year, we hope this issue brings you peace and possibility, like water pooling gently in your hands.

Happy holidays, and here’s to a new year of creating, connecting, and centering ourselves in poetry.

With all our love,
Tova, Jackie, and Stephanie
Editorial Directors

28 avril

In doing this we become more like him.

Which isn’t much of anything. 

Our hands like beetles curve into

form. Hmm much better. He will hum 

along like this. Clasping his right wrist

with his left hand. It’s a wonder how 

he gets his pants on every morning.

One bevel at a time. It’s almost 

underwhelming. Once he took the stage.

After each poem he read. His professor 

would read it over so the audience

wouldn’t miss anything. He gave 

his permission of course. He gives

his permission to anyone who asks. 

Here he comes now. Spelunking. Just ask.

He’ll answer. Here’s the cup of water 

you’ve placed me in. I have finally become

a straw. He nods enthusiastically.

20 janvier

Inching along

pushing along. Some

uncomplicated blue.

My battery fortified in my metallic bowels.

Or had the manufacturer fashioned

my cushions. For some simple violence.

The screeching of fresh duct tape. My metal feet

are becoming round again.

On breaking myself. My small wheel got stuck

between the train and the platform.

There was nothing else to say.

My glorious return to formlessness.

6 mars

Dear Xadi

We have captured something marvelous.

There I go again shitting up my words. Captured. No. Not at all.

It’s as if the eyes were closed. The back of the eyes. When glass breaks the sun

into her various frequencies. A language no. A time.

Aunt Rachel said she’d pray for my flu to pass. She had to go though.

They don’t let you talk on the phone during dialysis.

Dad already gave me the names of my ancestors. He emailed them to me.

Now I can’t find it. That’s how it be.

Weather etc. I’m on my way Xadi.

Baba’s illness

burns in the back of his diabetic knees. Burns his
laughter. It strokes his hand at night, wakes him to say
that I will be the one to break his fingers. So he paces
the house, listening for his toes. Fatigue overpowers the
azaan. He sits on the prayer mat, recites, Terror cannot
be heard through telephone lines. Calmly, he rocks
back and forth. His clairvoyance, that genius in his
eyes, it says I am why the loitering men in front of
Bangla Bazaar avoid him. Illness whispers to him: any
body can be smashed between a semi- and a freight-
truck. It shows him the ways flames could lick up my
sides and crawl through my nostrils. Illness could find
my eyes, too—
it wraps a wick around my waist and waits.

Isang Araw : Pompano Baked Nightfall

skin fried and simmering / sweet solitude in the sorrowful / of tropicana
palm leaf rafts tutting forward in rippling streams / what is idyllic
is idyllic is idyllic in the unimaginable / hopestress hoping for the ideal
delineation of a language born and bent across salted bodies
too deep to fit its own name in the mouth / gulping down pebbles
slick with laway and tubig / threadhues woven to mean something / rising
into mountains first in hiding then with incandescence / riddled with songs
strung / capillaric heartpounds / each moment erupting forth
from the once dormant diaphragm bowl of arrozcaldo / downward
the two navels / baring each broken rib to the stars / surrendering
the spinning typhoon of history / the history of people / the people who lay
backside to the bamboo raft looking up and out, out, out . . .

keepsake

Nobody got out with their life.

When one bridge burned, the other
asked you to be its mother.

Far-off backcountry
amen, time ago.

Lost child ransoms
tempt the bull thistle.

Clots of lice, open-mouthed
as in glory, fluted.

I fought it off. I beat it
back off me.

The distances
listened and bent the silver.

I was frightened of my heart.
I had never heard of me.

The players, the mating waters
like trellises of flesh bonnets.

Late fruits of the domestic
mystic pelt the parade-goers.

God hovers the surgery
of our molester, helps him to pee.

You are the white bowls
where hidden ribs coil.

The unborn roses bind our house.

Autobiography

The boy whose nose inspired a thousand surgeries
Coddles rosemary in the flowing scrolls of his beard.
A halo of plump gnats keep well
Their steady altitude of Holiness over him.
Divisible, the father goes
Like a plodding donkey, mustard-lipped
And elliptical. Madness adores repeating.
There-there, okey-dokey. Your birth, my hobby.
Dress, they will soon be here.
Voices of birth are uneven, even along
The croaking rivulets of wounds.
Night munches
And the salads are composed expertly:
Red wine vinegar, squeeze of lemon,
Mayonnaise folded in the care of anchovy.
A pair of monks begin singing, the older reading
The hymn behind the younger
With a careful arm draped, meaning possession.
This is the shape I’ve chosen, having lived with Art
For a little less than three green bean cans
And a slutish, mole-pocked bingo deck.
Love alters the shooting range.
You console him with grilled peach toast points.
My dead teacher washed sheep-studded
Nails in the blood of cows watching trains go by.
This is why I buy pictures—
How marvelous to see the cars.
That I turned out to be living
Well, and concealing the lice of old friends.
Romance, I was the fatty heart locket
At the antique store knotted among copper pony coats.
There is a letter kept in a music box there
So passionate in its skill. It can kill.
Demon butterfly feet catch in mud-honey.
Blond hair falls out of the seashell.
And when I woke I knew
How to pick the organ clean as the throat of an Elvis doll.
A crotch of mint makes the Heir come near
What the world will do.

Mitchell Glazier's poems have appeared
or are forthcoming in Poetry Magazine,
Lana Turner, River Styx, Annulet, and
elsewhere. He edits poetry for American
Chordata and directs a creative writing
program for high school students at
Columbia University's School of the Arts.

Grief is coming on like a sneeze

no flu, no sickness

aching tooth bit stone

I am long gone and perfect

somewhere without 

intelligence

little music the rain

vague and sweaty crowds  

the end of things forgotten

the sound of someone destroyed

brakes of a train

drops of vinegar

we keep going

then we disappear

nothing personal

Max Hamilton is a poet living in Ridgewood, New York.

the bog (stilled queer life)

Before we raised it

;

The lot we loitered at

;

Was a swamp. Muddy
dirt patch behind
the Barrow’s theater.

;

We laid some flowers
in formation

;

Red-orange hibiscus
next to yellowed
lantana. Wilted

;

green stems
from discounted
blue-violets.

;

The same week
we planted the garden
it was snuffed out.
Stomped on by maintenance staff

;

destroyed by the force of a work boot.

;

Then it was
just barren ground.

Then it was
just beloved mud puddle

;

dirt and locust thorns
to raise once again.

;

Our friends and lovers
are buried there.

;

Still

;

we till and tend
to them as they soak up
the violence. This will not change.

;

They’ve threatened
us before with hot concrete.
Wet

;

sinking asphalt to control
garden pests. This has not changed

;

Still

;

we begged the seed
to grow
Risk ourselves to
tend it again and again and again

;

And again we told ourselves we’d stay rooted despite this all

;

We had been so damaged and still
believed this.

;

We kept hopeful
as bog keepers

;

always tending to the flowerbed.

all free nations

After President George W. Bush Addressed the Nation on March 17th, 2003

I

I ask of you, listener of prayer, medicine, blessing ceremonies and chant; take my poetry with salt.

I have a limited amount of knowledge and I roll in its grass.

II

On March 17, 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the Nation in a 13-minute televised

speech from the White House.

At the time, the Department of Homeland Security announced the Nation’s terror alert level had

been set from yellow to orange.

This was the second-highest it has ever been.

III

I want to also note, President Bush gave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons a 48-hour

warning to leave the country or face military action.

In violation of many Resolutions, the United States, as a collective, made a choice to advance

liberty and peace in that region.

IV

Under Lacan’s theory on the mirror stage; once we see ourselves, we begin to question then

create a sense of self.

V

As the umbilical cord falls off, our mothers throw a sense of self away. Should we have carried it

with us in this lifetime?

VI

I feel a disconnection from Zurita’s work the same way I have with you, Self.

As in, I do not speak Spanish but I can cognate it.

Just like the Navajo Language and my grandfather, whom I lost on the night of March 17th,

2003.

VII

He did not die The Night Of, but at 5:00 AM in the morning.

My great Uncle shook me away and told me, bone marrow in his eyes, He died. He’s dead. He’s

gone.

I must have had a night terror that morning. Otherwise I would have found no other reason to cry

before he said died.

VIII

In Joan Didion’s Sentimental Journeys, her essay on the Central Park Jogger case of 1989 where

five young Black and Latino men were wrongly convicted of assaulting and raping a white

female woman, she asks: why are victims of rape often provided protection by keeping victim

identification hidden versus their counterparts of other forms of assault?

There must be a special kind of contract that exists between one kind of victim and their

assailant. This, according to Didion, dates back to the assault of white women in the nineteenth

century where Indigenous people would take women and ruin them.

IX

This is where I begin to decorate hollow words to assert a point and call it poetry.

X

The water ends here. The dams were built. I feel the surge of dirt rot.

XI

If I were to take these women and ruin them, I would be committing an act of Terrorism.

Translation is also an act of Terrorism.

XII

Branch by branch, I wish to perform this act of Terrorism. To give the listener of prayer,

medicine, blessing ceremonies and chant more than salt.

XIII

Trust cannot reside in a field of wheat. Liberty and peace cannot rest between its grains.

Translation alone cannot heal a Nation.

XIV

Therefore, if I turn my back on my people, I will feel an undocking. Superior in some ways.

XV

It is that, I ask you, listener, have you ever experienced isolation in a time of uniting against the

violent?

XVI

In 2003, The United States Supreme Court decided the United State had no obligations

resembling the detailed fiduciary responsibilities. This was March 4th, 2003.

XVII

This obligation was in regards to money damages.

Money damages is a form of compensation that grants a victim of an injury or loss.

Here, the victim was a Nation.

XVIII

When President Bush addressed The Nation, he referred to the United States as All Free Nations.

The Navajo Nation would also be categorized as an All Free Nation.

XIX

As a poet, I wish to respond to this national terrorism threat. In doing so, I do not wish to lump

the ashes of my umbilical cord with the listener of prayer, medicine, blessing ceremonies and

chant.

This translation serves as a starting point for salt.

XX

Here,

I will question and create a new sense of self.

I will make a decision to advance liberty and peace.

I will attempt to grieve with my Nation

Unite against the violent

Unbury the umbilical cord

Unhouse the terror

XXI

I hope that my person, my people out there, can hear me and allow me the chance to be

vulnerable,

to be a part of history and to be more than a stump in its belly.

POEM WITH NO DOGS IN IT

poem with no [ ] in it

the forgetting

The Glitch

for nes - sunflowers

aren’t they lovely, needing no marrow

other than texan gravel? it’s all over & now

romantic gestures: the phone will ring, it’ll be friends!

the eggplant in the fridge exists, glossy, isn’t it a miracle

the table keeps stretching for everyone who walks through the door? blistered shishito pepper,

cantaloupe, goat cheese, toasted sliced almonds, zucchini flower, pink salt & oil.

evening volts & blurs behind your curtain & won’t you

write me if you see them growing in new york?

you who are, are you not always

& is it not everywhere you are in secret?

thick-stalked & green: time to eat your pie

decant, roll & brim

easier, aerial & brief.

bearings

Overheard conversations involve

yard work and sweet hearts and

visiting friends on respirators.

The house on the graveyard’s edge

Accepted Offer sign. Everyone’s

regaining their bearings. Glad

gravestones? Howell, how well

they know you. It’s always the time to laugh.

More garden than ever, Swire swore.

Peter and Matilda apart only three years; Mary Abigail

and Abigail Beth and Baby Son to Addlow and Bertha, May 24th, 1904; all

in good company. This is no small matter

(no small matters in spring). My first hello

today from a stranger. Kind, even,

the stones falling into each other.

I believe it: someone’s singing.

west on fairchild.

—these silver boots in orange leaves and I’m / going to call Ned who loves

me & she answers but is with Norm in NY & I say / bright apples! to both

of them & love them because they are together / and every part of Ned is

precious & her body is / precious & her toes blanch in winter so I’ll send her

socks (two pair) & I call Diana & she doesn’t answer because she works two

jobs & loves Halloween & has the most / gorgeous (I love her) cackle / & I

call Emily who is anxious and forever / moving & used to dance with me on

sidewalks / in Boston! & doesn’t answer because she’s waiting for an

answer / back—I love her endless / leaving, my ankles down Fairchild & my

father calls & what does that mean, baby—“Imposter Syndrome”?”—& the

leaves are gold here

Abby Petersen is a poet living in Minneapolis, MN.

Perseverance

gratitude room

WATERED SONNET

A bodied river. Sleep embodied dead float down a body like it. River,

if I am also physical, is that the picture. Do we really find it scary. Maybe sleep is all the body

wants. Maybe I’m too quick to admit it. Is this separate. Is it touching is it feeling mine with a

body not mine like a metal heavy earring - shining, tugging the head downwards by the gravitied

lobe - or is it mine. If metal, I can understand the winter freeze. Prefer it as a body or prefer it as

part of yours. Does it sit on a bodycore like a stone. Does it big stone on the soft belly. Oh this

sitting on the soft. Ahold, walls pressed against the beauty lies. Behold who’s firm; a real

tougher. A chewer. A chewingsation piece. Name it Everything. Give it him’s. Make him hot.

Find him slicked. Make him mean to Make it real. Want

to find the house. Find it. Take the bath. Drink the bathwater. That's no sleeped river

water. The body can be drank from wherever since ever has nothing to do with it.

The mouth, no special place. The bathwater, water. The water, pained. Find it. Pain

is a constant swimming. Pain is waterproof! Is that what holds us, Pain. If I’m still, can Pain be

holding can it carry can it water if I sleep if I’m still I’ll dream to carry and be rivered.

Life on a Lake

second sundays

glass grass

Ashley-Devon Williamston is a storyteller, cultural
anthropologist, and child of the South currently
based in Brooklyn, NY. You may find their other
poems and interviews with poets in Ginger Magazine,
Dinner Bell Magazine, warning lines, The Rumpus,
The Infrareelista Review, and thestorytellerad.com.

Stairs to the Moon

Stairs to the Moon traces Zak Wilson's first impressions of his mother's birthplace, Egypt. It is the entry point of an ongoing exploration of what it means to piece together fragments of place you are both drawn to, and isolated from.

 THE SIREN

THE ERMINES

THE PEARL