RogueAgent

ISSUE 58
CONTENTS

JANUARY 2020


Kate Wright
Stephanie Yue Duhem
Katherine Fallon
Evyan Roberts
Disha Trivedi
Emmett Christolear
Tasslyn Magnusson
Paige Frisone
Terry Tierney
Michele Karas
Natasha Deonarain

CONTRIBUTORS

Kate Wright

CHIPPED TOOTH

I dare my lovers to put their tongues in
my mouth, run slick flesh across smooth teeth
until it catches on tiny crook—hidden
behind bottom teeth, close to tongue. My tongue
has passed this spot endlessly since the day
I discovered it—felt the jagged rip
of my own skin, the sting that followed.
The constant rubbing I hoped would erode
rough to smooth begat nothing but soreness,
raw mouth ragged and inflamed. Go, I say
to the boldest of them, and find it
that place where my mouth hides razors,
but remember, this is the least pain
I will gift you. Touch it and we’ll both taste blood.

Stephanie Yue Duhem

SPROUTING

purple rot rage fruit—
seeds bruised beetles scuttling
into my navel where 
they stick like gravel and 
click like kernels in
a popcorn machine,

unpopped yet stopped
against the glass. a flurry
of unflourishing. as for
me, i can't stop sprouting
purple rot rage fruit—
i'm sorry i'm so-rot.

Katherine Fallon

YOKED

I wrapped myself as if boneless,
like bacon will hug the fig and seep:

decadent, other, yoked. First time
so quiet I felt sound. Lamp so gentle

I could only be lovely. Even to myself.
Believe me, I tried to make it otherwise.

Evyan Roberts

SIGNS OF DYING

at sixteen, proposing broken paper clips 
be tools of excavation, i bored through 
handfuls of skin. figuring,  

i could find that girl breathing 
in my body, existing in my body,
all through elementary school. 

foraging my vessel to feel 
a glimmer of her, as i struggled to 
bleed from my veins. while i seeped so 

easily through sanitary napkins and jeans
with the  gnarled, wet, cuffs. 
no one could get near a smile, 

at nineteen. sitting on bathroom 
granite tops, like ice on my thighs.  
shredding my hips with precise lines 

along thickening stretch marks. ruining 
my body just enough to disgust. because 
anyone who wanted me was filth, 

because they wanted me. 
comparing scars with a girl who had 
five years of misfortune between freshman 

and junior year. we painted nails 
on the dormitory steps, took car rides. 
her driving with one hand and a cigarette, 

me, feet out the window like I’d seen 
happy-go-lucky white women do in movies. 
it wasn't a contest but her scars always won. 

at twenty, grandfather died. 
staring at mashed potatoes, cauliflower, 
a blanket of subdued nutrition. excusing myself 

i let neighbors clear my plate and walked 
for miles with an empty stomach, 
starving to be near him.

Disha Trivedi

AFTERMATH OF A SKI INJURY

slow tap small nap a stranger’s
face where a friend’s once sat
no masks, hold hands, gloves
lost, no moss on the bark of
trees cut grey against the sky look
by nightfall there will be no
trace of where we once raced into
our future the sound of snow is
silent falling nobody can hear
it wish and whisper.

balloon animals sea mammals manatee
knees against the skin I see myself
transforming into some other-creature
Jenny Saville on the screen canvases
stretched like mammoth teeth across
the wall don’t fall too late wake up look by
morning we will have found melons
where I left them growing in garden
patches last September as I keep rehearsing
how to step our fruit
has come to bear.

Emmett Christolear

THE BARBER’S CHAIR

I. At Five, the Girl Gets a Buzz Cut

The barber asks if she’s sure
she wants a number-two cut
and shows her a pic
of Ann Hathaway’s pixie.
She traces the crayon-blue zebra
on the plastic cape covering
her dress. She tells the barber
that she wants it shorter. A stranger
prompts a high-five from her,
but she refuses him.
The barber, in the mirror,
tickles her neck with the clippers.
Her hair blankets her lap,
and she lifts the cape
into a slide. The barber drops
the clippers onto the counter
as she swirls her hands around
her head, dusting the hooks
of hair onto her collar.

II. At 18, the Pre-T Transman Cuts His Own Hair for the First Time

He punches the cardboard box
into the small trashcan and dumps
the guards from the plastic
box into the sink, slipping
the clippers from the bubble wrap
sleeve. The left panel of the trifold
mirror cuts his face into Picasso
pieces; his nose and ears squared
and triangular. The barber gave
him a pixie cut again instead
of an undercut. He snaps
the number-one guard on
the razor and flips the switch.
As he crowns his head, the clippers
vibrate in his fist, hair dropping
onto his shirt collar. As he finishes,
he swirls his hands around
his head, dusting the hooks
of hair onto his crayon-pink shoes.

Tasslyn Magnusson

PROMISE, IT’S REAL BUTTERCREAM

Only the best for us, right?
Marble. Chocolate ganache.

I added tiny edible models of men
inside. A special birthday gift. Grandpa.

Dave. Mike. I expect you, Body,
To crunch hard on those fuckers.

Shred their skin and pulverize their cracker bones.
Let’s control the narrative now, okay? It’s time.

Paige Frisone

HANDS

my rings keep slipping lopsided, sloppily they 
turn away from me
crawl away from me
loosen up their love for me
(mine can be gripping)

i keep correcting them, keep
repositioning but they just keep 
clashing, clanging why 

won't they behave for me? the

intertwining metals collide and i have lost all control

am convinced 

Body’s failed on me (bout time)         plateaued on me, has
complete control         of me has 
neither shrunk nor       g r o w n for me

Mom says i keep forgetting
the Calcium, that Ca chemistry
i keep quiet but no, i'm aware and am 
headed for severe deprivation ‘til

hands can’t keep promises
ring size immeasurable 
ever-changing, non-committal
skimping, sliding, skinny
further & further down ‘til 

my lover can’t size me 
can’t commit to me 
cannot 
love me            at all

Terry Tierney

MAN IN GLASS

Studies me, head tilting,
trying to center his gravity,
focus his lenses, frame twisted
to match his nose bridge
bent by an old punch.

Corners of lips turn downward,
one cheek dragging lower, minor stroke
or aging twist of bone and teeth,
gray stubble covering chin and jaw,
hiding his slack skin neck.

Above his beard line solitary hairs
sprout like saplings in a fallow field
among veins and wrinkles,
tributaries of sunken swamps
beneath his staring eyes.

He turns when I turn,
breaking away, image ejected
like a slide show from past summers.
No, that’s not my face.

Michele Karas

WOUND CARE

That night
I began pulling
bandages from a hole
in my chest.

As they emerged,
a shushing
softly abrasive,
a skiff bottom
kissing sand.

The gauze turned
into prayer flags,

unfurling skeins
of parakeet green
and juice of hibiscus,

blue-
flickering flames
of complete
combustion.

Natasha Deonarain

PRELUDE NO. 3

I draw my body on crisp bond paper,
press a sharp graphite tip against its thread,
watch fine crumbs mark
the manifest edge of my end and beginning—
the curve of my shoulders, hips, knees,
the I-AMness of cellulite,
of wrinkles falling from the sky
and onto this crude shape.

My palms are wet and yet they don’t stop,
tracing heat into my breasts, feet,
the small of my back curving out to robust flesh,
the soft slime that drowns
my teeth.

I draw my body with nothing inside—
a thick outline with no flavor, phlegm or humor until
it’s time to color, to bring life to this empty space,
to make vital my vitality, organs,
my knowledge.

The pinkness of liver, the blackness of
air inside collapsible tiny sacs where things disappear into me;
and then a choice to make mistakes by
leaving something out or
putting something in
where it doesn’t belong;

a choice to act out all my choices—

Color fills my belly, paints my toes.
I color my hunger, my grasp,
my wish to soothe and stroke. I color
my fist and frenzy,

my fear; 

a stranger going insane,
conducting this soundless orchestra
that pleases no one, arms flying in a thousand
different directions. I color
until my body becomes the breadth, width and depth
of this page
and I burst with color.

Issue 58 Contributors

Emmett Christolear currently lives in Boston, MA., where he is a student. Aside from work and classes, he enjoys museums, reading, and exploring the city. He was raised in Alabama, has a thick accent, and loves the words “y’all” and “reckon.” Emmett has been featured in Screen Door Review, Black Napkin Press, and Aura.

Natasha Deonarain is a medical doctor and lives part-time between Arizona and Colorado. Her poems are published or forthcoming in The Raven’s Perch, Door is Ajar, Crack the Spine, Juked, NELLE, Rigorous, Packingtown Review, Thin Air Magazine, Dime Show Review, Prometheus Dreaming and Canyon Voices Literary Magazine.

Stephanie Yue Duhem is a 1.5 generation Chinese-American poet and educator living in Jamaica Plain, MA. Her work appears or is forthcoming in PANK, Glass, Lunch Ticket, Radar, and Red Wheelbarrow, which named her a winner of its 2018 contest, judged by Naomi Shihab Nye. She is also the author of a picture book titled Robby and the Ice Cream Truck. She can be found on Instagram and Twitter @academoiselle, or at sydpoetry.com.

Katherine Fallon’s poems have appeared in Juked, Apple Valley Review, Colorado Review, Meridian, Foundry, and others, and her work will be featured in Best New Poets 2019. Her chapbook, The Toothmakers' Daughters, is available through Finishing Line Press. She teaches at Georgia Southern University, and shares domestic square footage with two cats and her favorite human, who helps her zip her dresses.

Paige Frisone is a writer and poet stationed in Boulder, Colorado. Originally from Chicago, her writing pursuits began at Butler University, though she finished school at Naropa University with an integrated contemplative psychology focus. Her work evokes gripping and visceral reactions to complex psychosomatic experiences. To counter her inquiries, she's usually moving by the lake, barefoot in the grass or soaking up the sun with deep gratitude for all.

Michele Karas is a New York-based poet and writer with roots in Southern California. Recent and forthcoming publication credits include Mid-American Review, Northern Virginia Review, Rust + Moth, and Pretty Owl Poetry, among others. A 2017 Squaw Valley Community of Writers alumna, Michele holds an MFA from CUNY City College of New York, where she was the 2016 recipient of the Jerome Lowell DeJur Award in Poetry. 

Tasslyn Magnusson received her MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Broad River Review, in parentheses, Room Magazine, The Mom Egg Review, The Raw Art Review, and Red Weather Online. She was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize in poetry. Her chapbook, defining, (dancing girl press) was published in January 2019.  

Evyan Roberts (she/her) is a queer, fat, black, femme who is deeply committed to intersectional feminism and #blackgirlmagic. She lives in MD and is currently pursuing a Masters in Social Work where she intends to keep working to promoting equity for sex workers and trans folx. Her writing has appeared in Ithaca Lit, Not Your Mother's Breast Milk, Rogue Agent, Kissing Dynamite, where she was the featured poet for August 2019, and elsewhere. Find her on Instagram at @writing.femme .

Terry Tierney’s collection of poetry, The Poet’s Garage, will be published by Unsolicited Press in May 2020. His poems and stories have recently appeared in Typishly, The Mantle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Front Porch Review, Jersey Devil Press, The Lake and other publications. Lucky Ride (Unsolicited Press), an irreverent Vietnam-era road novel, is set to release in 2022. His website is https://terrytierney.com.

Disha Trivedi currently divides her time between Scotland, New Zealand, and Northern California. Her poetry has been published in The Big Windows Review, Rumble Fish Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her prose has been published in The Women’s Issue, an anthology edited by the Harvard Advocate.

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.