ISSUE 57
CONTENTS
DECEMBER 2019
D.R. James
Ellen Huang
David Kuhnlein
Michael Chang
Anna Eidolon
Lauren Gilmore
Catherine Fahey
Laura Wilhelm
Emily Carr
Kate Wright
CONTRIBUTORS
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A gray building has more (black or white) buildings on its roof and a blond angel (with pink wings) peering over this second skyline. A group of black telephone receivers tumbles over the right side of the image. They appear to have fallen off the roof, and the black and white buildings seem to be piled precariously. The faded image of a brown building and its reflection appears forms the background of the right side of the image.
D.R. James
YOU IGNITED ME
You ignited me, all my dried branches:
your perch in an aperture up love’s lattice,
your wind rended me kindling, spinning and
snapping and ruining my stalks like slats
blastified, remnants of sadness then set
afire. How cowed by coma commitment
I’d been! But likewise you replanted me,
reinstalled me in watered cavities,
encased my re-emerging sheaves, ashen
indication of demise enlivened.
Ellen Huang
OUR SISTER SYSTEMS
My sister's system
is the blip of thank-god-for
pacemaker heart
layers of surgery, successful
spoons for meds, silver and color
experience of crackling old age
stirred and trapped in a young body
wrapped up in cellophane of invisibility.
Her heart ticks and beats
ticks and tocks, ticks and
talks on, authentically.
My system is
nebulous, not quite witchcraft
but not quite a science yet. My system
is numbness under sitting on my own feet
white hairs plucked with innocent pleasure
a painting of pigmented scars
and neurons of the past snapping
speed-of-light to flash me back to
what it's like to be young and helpless
in the elder child's body.
Yet the chemical reaction you speak of
that makes life all worth it
does not course through me.
Her system is a tangled yarn ball
of haywire dysfunction my online dictionary
doesn't yet recognize, squiggling red lines under
dysautonomia, among others.
Her system is fever,
fog, constellation and zigzagging lines
to the doctor appointments
experimental, cautious living.
Diets and pills like a prodigy witch's cabinet
dressing her body's health in the dark
like an expanding inner wardrobe.
Her tiny body stretches and wins and loses
sometimes a bite means transformation
belly like balloon
the preview of pregnancy
in a virgin.
My system is the situational cloud of
dampness of thoughts that do not deserve
to be called the brilliance of blue. My system
is a head recovering its neurons and trying
store-bought dopamine. My system otherwise is a satisfied lack.
Lack. Lack. My Google searches warrant the question
do you mean a sexual? But with fullness outside,
why would I want another in me? My style is
childlike until called childish
long black hair dying at the ends, washed soft like silk
wild with sweat and tossed like joy
caressed by my own fingers as a child.
My system is genuinely wondering
if I would want another
to touch me in this way.
My sister can dance
despite everything
in a body born destined to be
confused how to fight for her.
She is artistry in invisibility.
Light pink heart sticking to life like mochi
in a dark cosmos with pacemaking satellite
sent on a mission to keep her.
In between days of pain and panic,
my sister finds amazement,
choreographs her own map,
spoonful of sugar after medicinal drug
fashioning love in the world
lace by lace by scissors by lace.
I can feel this world
despite everything
in a body immune to the electricity
between everyone else.
I am poetry in motion,
in between types.
A silver spork savoring supper
despite whatever slips through.
I taste in the light
and don't miss a thing.
David Kuhnlein
WOODEN SPOON
for K
green stalks of lavender in
a field
of it blooms purple on my thigh
I’d let you whack an entire history of
hot white stars
the galaxies in me! & isn’t it funny
how pleasure w/in pain
& not the other way around surrounds
me
w/ pieces of the everyday
how I like you beneath me w/ yr neck
craned in wanting
each hot white pulse in the sky
turning purple night
I trace this constellation back to you
in Westland clouded by the hum
of yr mother’s oxygen machine
as my night
stand becomes an altar to you
wooden spoon wooden mala plastic
hairbrush (whack)
who gets to decide
naughty or nice
do we really want our coffee w/o
caffeine
or love w/o falling
& instead of
orbiting like a yellow moon between us
the way the night sky fills w/ clouds & light
from the city
sometimes nighttime like a displaced
bone
no stars appear at all
that’s when I’ll ask where the pain has
gone
that you’ve so graciously given me
until then I’ll be here in this
half-dark
staring at the changing phases
like the strange
& lovely faces
of that which you’ve impressed
upon me
this little lonely bruise
Michael Chang
MY FROG ALEXIS
Hey what are you running from?
I want to be the one you leave behind
Adjacent to greatness
Face blank and appraising
Eyes brown like autumn
Your body fused to my mouth
I take your moisture
I am radiant, glowing
In Italy, they would go to war for me
In France, they would surrender for me
Cannon fodder
Dime-a-dozen gabacho
White jeans
White Ford Bronco
Put you out to pasture
You are one of many
Sir, this is a McDonald’s
Anna Eidolon
WINTER MEN
Sedna, what is it about
winter men?
They make me want to cover the earth
in tsunamis and human blood
and the mealy crumbs of their affection.
Like yours, my hands are no hands
at all. Not your sheared-off
fingers like water anemones
but thin phalanges too weak to fight
back when I’m held down.
Like you, my nest of hair
accumulates the putrefaction of
sinners up there on land
and I can’t get it out
by myself, I’m shaking still
to be perfectly honest and these
clumsy flipper-hands only
twine the sin into tighter knots.
The shamans who dive deep
down to comb lovingly
through your matted hair
and let you be beautiful again,
do they make you forget
your murderous parents? Do they
ever try, you know,
to get with you? Because
I had a quote-unquote shaman
come to me and he laid with me first
and brushed my hair afterward,
which is a subtle sort of
promise, Sedna, yes or no? I think
he was an erotic tourist
out for some strange
since everyone knows that we
lunatics fuck chthonically,
which means better.
And when this one was safely
on shore, he sent down a note:
“You oxytocin-poisoned me.”
Well, babe, you said
you wanted something different.
I picked up my hairbrush
and awkwardly batted at
the fetid knots and the sin-filth
around the prongs, but it didn’t
do a thing and I asked myself:
Who is the contaminant
in this myth, and which one
is contaminated?
Neither? Both?
Frankly, Sedna, I’ll tell you
the truth. I passed the dirt
along to him, the squalor
that adheres to the places where
things come and go into me,
out of me,
like when he poked inside
my wound, found blood, tasted it
and made a disgusted face.
Is it ever like that for you,
Sedna? Do you wish you still
had hands, so you could strangle
a so-called shaman
or two? Or is it just me
hating them, hating the way
they can come and go from their world
to ours and back again, like
they’re doing us some huge favor
while we wait underwater staring
sadly at our mirrors, lonely and used?
Am I right, Sedna,
or am I confused?
Lauren Gilmore
A FLOWER, AN AX
he brings me a spongebob-shaped PEZ dispenser,
a peace offering for my bad day. boyfriend
in a boyfriend sweater. he asks what’s wrong. I say
can I use another metaphor about forests?
a garden where nothing sprouted for so long
I took an ax to the first flower. can I use a metaphor
prettier than the shapes of every woman
on the street with a waist thinner than mine. he says
I love you. I say can I use a metaphor for my heart
as a filter, blocking anything gold from getting in.
hallucinated insults at a crowded coffee shop. can I
use one for the way broken glass in the bricked up alley
(most days) looks kinder than any mirror. I trace
circles on his chest. I say safe safe safe.
we are almost asleep when I confess sometimes I am afraid
he is luring me in to kill me. sugar cubes in water. I want
to dissolve under his breath. disappear into the blink
of his eye. I say stay stay stay. my arms outstretched
like a barricade. or a magnet. I want to take him
to the family plot, where every one else was buried.
point to the spot where I will go one day, ask if he wants
to move in, help me make blankets of soil, of ash.
Catherine Fahey
INVENTORY
Do you feel frustrated?
Do you restrict?
Does walking down the aisle of a supermarket increase your problem?
because of your problem
because of your problem
because of your problem
because
of
your
problem
because of your problem
because of your problem
Does your problem interfere?
Because of your problem, is it difficult to concentrate?
Does your problem interfere
is it difficult for you
is it difficult for you
do you avoid
are you afraid
do you have difficulty
does your problem significantly restrict
do you feel frustrated
do you feel frustrated
do you feel frustrated
do you restrict
do you have difficulty
do you avoid
does your problem interfere
interfere
interfere
does your problem interfere
Because of your problem, are you depressed?
Does turning over in bed increase your problem?
turning
turning
turning
turning over
over
over
does turning over
increase your problem?
do
quick movements
of your head
increase
your
p r o b l e m
?
________
Source: Jacobson GP, Newman CW. The development of the Dizziness Handicap Inventory. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1990;116: 424-427
Laura Wilhelm
ANASTOMOSIS
In the dark your Brailled arms remind me
why we share a bed. In the light I see
your skin is mine so when I say we’re nice
and inflamed, you peel the covers from our legs,
part the curtains and pick at keratin plugs
until our follicles breathe. We pinch then flick
squamous cells aside, watch them pile
by our slippers. Dermal vessels emerge
to writhe and slither through ruddy scales
sloughed off our speckled cheeks.
I scrutinize mottled sheets and twist until
your fingertips can sweep along my spine—
snap the muscle, crack the column, extract
the cord, dislodge the aorta, splay its branches
across the floorboards. I do the same for you
so we can vascularize the room.
You ask me how it feels to come undone
though I’ve begun to bury our sutures;
I practiced the loops so you could see
my hands perform the surgery. With each
hand stitch you pucker your lips until
nylon knots emboss distended walls; our tubes
are tied, your blood runs hot with mine.
We kiss and let dehiscence bring us together.
Emily Carr
R IS FOR RECREATIONAL/REVELATIONAL
KING OF SWORDS
My God Liberty thinks, how do normal
people deal with the mistakes they’ve made. She is running
with a runner’s ripe heat, shedding skins
of herself like the frames of a film. Here
on the edge of town where a bird nest is lodged
in an abandoned television & in both
directions the road thins
& parts, she begins to see the world
from above & to the right, as only
another could—or God. There are dogwoods
& fireflies, that hold a tinge of spring &
seem painful because they might vanish.
A blind woman eats watermelon. Other
people walk around, close to the trees. Wheat
rots under half a foot of floodwater.
Liberty turns her head & can’t see any children—
& yet she knows there are birds—&
can’t hear them either. A satellite blinks: in beautiful
equation. (Auto da fe. Is it you
Kate Wright
SONNET FOR MY SCOLIOSIS
S-bend at the top of back, you string muscles
tight, pull ribs to pinch nerves, twist and turn right
away from center. A few degrees
from a metal brace, you saved childhood
embarrassment but doomed me to a life
of limited flexibility:
unable to touch toes, extend arms straight
above head. Past puberty, the doctor says
you’re not worth fixing—just a deviation
from the norm. And every lover I’ve had
has run hands along curve, startled at first,
then settled in, found something unexpected
in your crook and swerve, accepted
abnormal, held it gentle with their hands.
Issue 57 Contributors
Emily Carr writes murder mysteries that turn into love poems that are sometimes (by her McSweeney’s editors, for example) called divorce poems. These days, she’s Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the New College. Her newest book, whosoever has let a minotaur enter them, or a sonnet—, is available from McSweeney’s. It inspired a beer of the same name, now available at the Ale Apothecary. Emily’s Tarot romance, Name Your Bird Without A Gun, is forthcoming from Spork in 2020.
Michael Chang (they/them) hopes to win the New Jersey Blueberry Princess pageant one day. Michael strongly suspects that they were born in the wrong decade. A recovering vegan, their favorite ice cream flavor was almost renamed due to scandal. Their writing has been published or is forthcoming in Q/A Poetry, Yes Poetry, Typo Mag, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Bending Genres, The Hunger, Heavy Feather Review, Cabildo Quarterly, Neon Garden, Yellow Medicine Review, The Conglomerate, Queen Mob's Tea House, London Grip, Kissing Dynamite, Collective Unrest, Thin Air, Pink Plastic House, Little Rose, Milk + Beans, ellipsis... literature & art, and elsewhere. They are the proud recipient of a Brooklyn Poets fellowship. They poet to feel alive.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Anna Eidolon lived in Montreal for seven years and has been a Pittsburgher since 2015. Her poetry and critical work have appeared in several publications, among them The Village Voice, ARC, Resister, and the compilation In Our Own Words. She was recently chosen as the winner of the Stuart H. Hunt Memorial Award by Chatham University for her poem "13 Coins." Currently, she is compiling a book of poetry entitled Salt Lick.
Catherine Fahey is a poet and librarian from Salem, Massachusetts. When she’s not reading and writing, she’s knitting or dancing. Her chapbook The Roses that Bloom at the End of the World is available from Boston Accent Lit. You can read more of her work at www.magpiepoems.com.
Lauren Gilmore was born and raised in Spokane, WA. She writes poems, stories, and essays. Her work is online in Pontoon and Ghost City Review. Her first full-length collection, Outdancing the Universe, is available from University of Hell Press.
Ellen Huang holds a BA in Writing & a minor in Theatre from Point Loma Nazarene University. During her college career she was Managing Editor for Whale Road Review. She is published in over 30 venues, including HerStry, Tiny Spoon, Diverging Magazine, Ink & Nebula, Rigorous Magazine, and Perfume River Poetry Review. She loves directing skits, swimming in the ocean, burning things in pyrography, and wearing cloaks (not all at the same time). She also reenacts Disney scenes for fun on: worrydollsandfloatinglights.wordpress.com.
D.R. James has taught college writing, literature, and peace-making for 35 years and lives in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. Poems and prose have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, his latest of eight poetry collections are If god were gentle (Dos Madres Press) and Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box), and a microchapbook All Her Jazz is free and downloadable-for-folding at the Origami Poems Project. www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage.
David Kuhnlein lives and works in Detroit. His work centers embodiment, pain, and phenomenologies of chronic illness and has been published in BathHouse Journal, Mirage/Period[ical], and elsewhere. David is the co-editor a Caribbean island/ witchcraft/ gothic romance novel his grandmother wrote in 1979. Find out more about this project on Instagram or Facebook @olasgrandesnovel.
Laura Wilhelm is both the assistant managing editor of the American Journal of Neuroradiology, a peer-reviewed neuroimaging research journal, and the managing editor of Neurographics, a clinically educational neuroimaging journal. She has an insatiable appetite for peanut butter and thinks syntax is rad.
Kate Wright received her BA and MA in English from Penn State University. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University, where her work focuses on the environment of the body. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Up the Staircase Quarterly, Ghost City Review, The Ear, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @KateWrightPoet.