By Helen Laser

art by Helen Laser 

Whoever thought to call autumn “crisp” deserves the Nobel Prize.
Imagine winning an award for a single word.
Imagine committing such an act of occult evocation that your body flies to Sweden
where there are umbels of apples
shrouded in blonde maple leaves
sequestered by hollow gourds:
their seeds rattling inside like a birthday party for a balloon child.

By Eileen G’Sell

photo by Marlene Leppänen on Pexels  

I didn’t hear you say Charles De Gaulle and thought you meant the mayor.
It’s true I held your hand like a man. Your fridge, clean as alien
spacecraft, makes me want to mess your mattress. Lie back now while I
pretend to be appalled at the things you think about saying. I love that you
love the name “Lina Bembe”.

By Riley Anspaugh

photo by William Santos on Pexels

The word “albeit”
has been in my mouth all day,
rolling on my tongue
like a Gobstopper. The sun
is warm, albeit slowly self-destructing.
Hummingbirds are beautiful,
albeit too fast to see. I’m in love
with this girl, albeit
she never looks at me.
I’m stuck using albeit
in all my sentences,
albeit I don’t believe
I’m using it correctly.
I mean, when is the last
time you ate a good meal
off a dangling chandelier?

by Erika Mailman

photo by Adrian Bancu on Pexels

It was from another century
It made her feel broken
it hissed of cows and ploughshares

Men who didn’t have time
to talk to their womenfolk
who were sick with shame

if they burned dinner for
no one ate and the cow
was dishonored.

The straw spoke
of how night would claim
them all if the woman

told her desire to make art,
of her dispute with the cast
iron stove,

By Sera Gamble

photo by Huie Dinwiddie on Pexels

I.

he makes a fist.

my world splits:

the truth / the thing

   that makes it stop.

lying is easy

as slipping

into a silk coat.

but we become

what we practice.

who was he before

his father?

By Tamas Dobozy

photo by Karl Griffiths on Pexel

Your locket terrified me as a child. You were an 
old lady then. It swung back and forth as you
bent, pouring tea, knocking against your
breastbone below where your dress, always red,
parted at the neck. I kept asking you to open it,
and you did, out of tiredness. Open it again,
please. Open it again. I had no actual desire to
see the photograph inside. There was nothing
special about it,