Issue 8
“The Early Teleporter: A Successful Use” by Kimberly BMW Wade (40 lines)
Perhaps we are all translated, transformed in
our travels, turned in our journeys, changed
in our exchanges every day. But I am broken.
“Princess” by P. H. Low (40 lines)
that storm was no accident. I raised my hands
& the clouds tumbled in, lightning lashing
the sky’s proud prow
“To Seek a Fairy Sovereign [Diptych]” by Xuan Nguyen (927 words)
There is nothing more beyond the door.
There is no kingdom of gods, no wonder, no more.There is never going to be an Empress of Heaven. There was never before, and it will never be then, I will never find IF, WHERE, AND WHEN, I will never reach HERE, THERE, AND THEN.
Issue 7
“Bee poem” by Margarita Kos (43 lines)
All day the queen has been chattering in my ear.
I cannot complain; I invited her.
Truthfully, I’m too fond of her—her buzzing shakes something deep in me
And I want to respond with my own cry.
“He Tears His Hair and Asks Me What I Want” by Clarice Hare (55 lines)
Not much. Only everything.
Clouds to creek, hollow to
mountains, wren to
eagle, snails to
stars—greenness to
the cosmos.
“a siren whispered in my ear one night” by Ashley Bao (39 lines)
convinced me to connect the constellations on your back
behind seaweed curtains and underneath sea glass lanterns.
the sea called me, with the promise of soft skin and cerulean eyes.
“Lover, You are the Vampire by Martina Litty (29 lines)
empty streets:
I make illegal left turns at red lights.
the moon bursts and bruises:
a plum as the aftermath of violence
hanging over the web of glowing street lamps.
Issue 6
“Bank of Emergency” by Na Zhong (23 lines)
Every day I carry a shoeful of sand to my square office where,
stumbling from edge to edge, I bruise like a baby and
age like one.
“Elegy from the Blue” by Wale Ayinla (26 lines)
ash pours back into the waters, this is the beginning
of grief. the body is part-salt, part-coal, part-grain, and
it sits at the heart of the water.
“Dear Monster Huntress” by Avra Margariti (10 lines)
I know you come around here often,
so why don’t you measure the salt of my tears?
“if Saturn” by Tamara Jerée (27 lines)
during the three-year rain / Saturn birthed
a beautiful new ring that some dubbed the greatest
mishandling of galactic expectation
Issue 5
“Secrets / / Reflections” by Kat Riddell (28 lines)
I never understood the feeling in my stomach
When witches and monsters came
On the TV.
“Galaxyfire” by Josh Pearce (19 lines)
Pale hands beckon like open flame
foxfire on your lips
leads me deeper into your swamp
“The Story of Cyclops” by Zella Christensen (26 lines)
1. cutting a pear
2. the storm petrel does not land until it dies
3. I was a stegosaurus once
3. I floated on a gold sea under a black sky
“Electra” by Y.M. Pang (27 lines)
I’m so glad
you killed her—
my doe-eyed sister
who could not read or dance or carry a worthwhile conversation,
who had no might despite her name
but powered a thousand ships with her blood.
“Black Summer” by Cassandra Rose Clarke (39 lines)
On the longest day of the year
we wait for nightfall, slouching on
your grandmother’s porch, pack
of cigarettes balanced on the arm
of your plastic lawn chair.
“You Are Here” by Davian Aw (48 lines)
in velvet grasp of eternal night
a building wrapped in strips of glass, light
slicing bravely through starless dark
so utterly alone, fragile before shadows.
“Manifest Destiny” by Mack W. Mani (66 lines)
I am the place where
hooves join dirt
where fur and flesh
meet and cut apart
“despair” by Mark A. Fisher (14 lines)
face me Ozymandias
open your stone eyes
this world has changed
Issue 4
“Call to Action In Translation” by Lynne Sargent (17 lines)
Find me a new story to paint
wine-dark, where they comb metaphors
instead of beaches
“If Sappho Met Persephone” by Laura Mayron (16 lines)
I love her more than I have poetry for.
“Sparrow’s Medication Guide” by Jordan E. McNeil (196 words)
Do not give your worries to other people, even if they have the same condition. It may harm them.
“The Last Girl” by Karen Steiger (72 lines)
As you probably already know,
I was the only one of my friends to survive
that night.
Sometimes I feel like surviving
was the easy part.
“Pledge Week” by Alexandra Seidel (37 lines)
We, the Sorority of the Cloven-Hoofed Foot,
are looking for girls to join us!
“Phantom” by Aigner Loren Wilson (49 lines)
Prickly back tendrils
alert me to your presence
at my bedside. I pull the blanket
up over my shoulder like a lover
after sex or kissing me
goodnight.
“It feels good to love her” by Anastasia Jill (11 lines)
I bought her a pair of gold earrings that writhe when she walks.
They bring the caramel curve of her neck.
Issue 3
“Past Far Gone” by Toby MacNutt (97 lines)
I left my past long ago
on the backwater planet
it had grown up on, showed myself out
and left by night, locked up,
as good as threw away the key.
Didn’t have to run: there was a ship.
Old but fast enough. Hers.
“Leda’s Womb” by Alix Bosley (20 lines)
The egg waxes, the yellow white
of moon marrow, of stretched skin,
opaque with the dull stain of life blood speckling
the outer shell, enveloping the hard white.
Issue 2
“Only the Trees” by Marina Berlin (79 lines)
A storm blew down
the tree your bones
nourished, through the
roots.
“two am” by Kiara E. Bell (28 lines)
Driving down the highway
at two a.m.
I felt my heart stop
When I looked over and saw
Pale yellow
So round and full
“The Metaphysics of a Wine, in Theory and Practice” by Brandon O’Brien (94 lines)
whereas many more presumptuous
theories suggest an interpretive dance
in five deliberate movements (Marling &
Batmanglij 2017) or else a general physical
denial of body through writhing-as-dance
under strobe-lit dark1,
the newly discovered academic consensus is that
multidimensional transcendent astral travel
is only possible through
wining
“Sealskinned, Crowned” by Hester J. Rook (38 lines)
I pour myself in
full and thick
like the syrup left from poaching pears
rich with cinnamon
star anise in my hair.
Issue 1
“Mirror, Reflect Our Unknown Selves” by Tlotlo Tsamaase (65 lines)
I recall lying next to my sister, saying,
“Those with machine lungs don’t know how to exhale love.
Why do they come here to us?”
She peeled off her face and said, “I’m tired of living.”
Encouraged, I peeled mine, too.
“White Herons” by Lana Bella (14 lines)
Love is a canvas with salt stains
on the wrist, hard wind nursed in
serpentine surfs, tuft of herons
turned white knitting rain to sails.
“the lagahoo speaks for itself” by Brandon O’Brien (24 lines)
you think I is the monster?
nah—I is just a funeral procession
with canine teeth.
“if ink could flow backward” by M. Darusha Wehm (30 lines)
separating what is from what could be
I’d erase all the borders
I would melt the walls
edit history for you
Issue 0
“The devil riding your back” by Nicasio Andres Reed (29 lines)
ten years old when the ocean spat beasts and they
walked the world with strides the size of cities and i hid
i coward-cowered from the noise of it and the dark
until they crouched into mountains and slept left us
shaken shabby in their footprints, peering out.
“Speaking language” by Betsy Aoki (29 lines)
I am not speaking English now.
The lightest word will alter our trajectory.
“Jupiter of Jupiter” by Lora Gray (37 lines)
Two seconds shy of
seven days,
clockwork heart capricious,
you haven’t spoken
since February or Ganymede.
“White Bread Mother” by Kate Lechler (26 lines)
My white bread mother is sliced thin.
She sidles from room to room on feet of soft crust.
Sometimes I don’t hear her when she approaches;
I am reading something, I look up and
there she is, staring at me
with her blank preformed face.