RogueAgent

ISSUE 59
CONTENTS

FEBRUARY 2020

Sara Barnett
Cameron Haramia
Constance Bourg
Kristin Garth
Adelina Sarkisyan
KB Baltz
Melissa Eleftherion
Carolyn Wilsey
Jessica Sabo
Gail Goepfert
Juliana Gray

CONTRIBUTORS

Sara Barnett

I KNEW YOU WERE THE ONE

I knew you were the one
When we split a chicken cross its back.
I love the dark meat.
You the white.

And we never ever fought.
Except that night
When your voice, it rose like thunder,
Sent me skittling cross the plains like
Lightning—
Running—
Fast as it could rain.
And your arms
Like shoals of eels.
Darting everywhere they could to strike me -
or cop a feel.

You made me found.
Stuck like tar upon a heel in the pitchy electric pines of Carolina.
Sussed out by the enemy,
Thrust upon a gurney,
Then atop your mule
And carried home—
Gunny sacked, threadbare, worn and bleached by sunlight,
An Uprising
From the dusty loam.

These are my bones
For you to rattle.

Cameron Haramia

LEARNING TO FLOAT

I enter the water when
I want when no one
is there telling me what 
arms to want and what body 
shape to not want, no one
eyeing my belly pearing
like Guinness cinnamon 
rolls peering up through record–
breaking microscopes no 
one spying my self–
esteem dropping below 
the washer, weightless my head
rising absent from popping 
ears push it instead 
of priming breathe in 
friendly jellyfish breathe 
out crustacean commands      
manly, be more of a man less of a pu–
shover, less house of cards 
toppled by roiled muscle, riptides of 
testosterone never before 
could I swim aimlessly, tread—
water my oxygen, water my bed
the surface my sheet washing away 
words wishing me less wimpy.

Constance Bourg

THE TRIP UP

Lodged into life
like a foreign object, 

other bodies stumble
over my protrusion.

They blink,
there's always a blink.

Then either apathy or attempted sympathy
—either or looks the same.

To me their bodies are precious,
less of a traitor.

Purposeful,
knitted into the fabric of life.

While mine unravels
their sense of soundness.

Kristin Garth

HOLE

Labored a summer digging a pond,
begun in better times before fortune 
absconds with family, lush bladed lawn
a season ago.  You dug a hole when
you didn’t know the sounds it would harbor —
abandon, despair.  No water, ill wish,
just cascading red hair of a neighbor
you never noticed before. You dug this
hole and forgot what it was for. You tore
down fences, hedges, all boundaries.  Swear
you bear no blame, hostilities toward
the howler who fell.  You weren’t even there.
Trespassed your yard, pit of despair. Not hard
to tell yourself — didn’t want this at all.
You dug a hole. She decided to fall.

Adelina Sarkisyan

SPOOKY

There is snow on earth and in hell the women are starving I’m listening to
Dusty Springfield sing about a boy who is a ghost who is really a
psychopath spooky spooky spooky every time she says the word spooky I
remember my childhood because that was when spooky meant four girls
and a Ouija board and not he’s following he’s touching he’s killing he’s
he’s he’s mother I’m afraid of ghosts yes but loving a ghost is easy just close
your eyes and hold out your hand I guess you could say I’ve a calling the
last man was so unavailable even when we were together I was alone and
so I practice my flirting and so I whisper to the black air of my bedroom
you’re dead and you don’t even know it and the air spells out goodbye and
I am dreaming and eating aghablit and seeing my future husband I am
begging and he is passing through me like a needle being threaded and god
sees nothing of this he is looking up I tell my mother I’d rather die of thirst
somewhere red and eat red like the six red seeds in me they smell like
devotion which is half faith half persuasion and I am too old to believe in
fairy tales but I swear I am never not afraid I am searching for knives and
sharp things and facing corners I am looking into the pupil a deep black
night where I enter where I meet the ancient god beware beware it is
snowing on earth and Dusty is singing about a-winking and I am reading
about swans and horses and bulls and eagles and satyrs and all the ways
men have raped and called it divinity oh god I am praying to the god of
spooky things praying she has no mark praying she is beautiful but not too
praying as she swings like a paper bird but no spirit finds me I find myself
unbridled which means no longer a bride in the fields and the flowers no
longer smell of death and I am in love again a woman plucked like a flower
or a stray hair I say the message of hell is an apology and it seems these
nights have no end in hell all the women are crying who hears them now
who hears the doors of the temple closing a secret only the gods must know.

KB Baltz

DIRT

Over morning coffee
I pick dirt from beneath
short fingernails
and bandage blisters
born of pre-dawn toil.
Against the wall
lays a shovel;
clods of wet soil
cling to it
and I am thankful for
the burial.

By lunch
the smell of fresh loam
has dissipated
and I am lonely
without you.
I trace the lines
left by your love,
wondering what will
take root in
the fissures of my flesh.

By supper
you have slunk back in.
Bloody hands
streaked with dirt
wrap around my throat.
You pull me down with whispers,
“Do you think
you could ever
make me
not love you?”

Tomorrow,
tomorrow
tomorrow;
I will dig free again.

Melissa Eleftherion

SECOND SUTURE

here               i                       story

centuries of                          helpful                      girls

the

            disease of                             

                                    platitudes

the pigeons

                        in

                                    power

a          rotting                                             

            fairytale

twist the                               head                                                   off

a good little hero

Contagion                its own         

death            

                                    narrative

This is a remixed poem.  Source text: McGuire, Seanan. Indexing, 47North, 2013.

Carolyn Wilsey

CHERRY-HEADED CONURES

A snarl of green lights up
the skyline of downtown 
San Francisco, wings flecking 
buildings silver with sound.

Their fleeting kite bodies dip 
where skyscrapers cut the wind.
Our heads go diagonal to see.
Strangers attending 

this mystery finding form 
in dozens and dozens 
of parrots, grappling 
then suturing into the cast 
net of their flock.

I can almost detect air 
as it’s thrashed apart 
by bird wings, their urgent joy 
finding a way into my chest.  
This, right here, is the exact love I want.

Jessica Sabo

REQUITAL

As a girl
forgiveness came easy –
came through bended knee
and confession screens
came through murmured Hail Marys
until my lips became chapped from
convincing myself a clean room meant           I           was      too.

Later
forgiveness came with force –
formed from blood and flesh   (my     flesh)
formed from red-rimmed sink drains
and my face hollowed from
alcohol and the dark run home.

On summer mornings
it was gentle—
storm clouds and rain-pelted lawns
softened from the blows of fat drops
or canvas shoes drying on the floor grate while
the coffee machine whirred in the kitchen
its hum, deep, matching
my skin folded into a paper crane
burrowed among the bed sheets.

In winter
it was a blizzard with thick clouds of ice
coating fields of cotton
the snow tickling my nose
as I leaned into the wind.

Now,
it is my naked body in front of a mirror
a road map of
razor scars and stretch marks, faded tattoos,
piercings that refuse to close.
It is here I am
learning how to say mine without stutter
refusing to apologize for taking up (too                     much) sidewalk.
Learning to fill the space
reserved for all my apologies.

Gail Goepfert

HALLOWED GROUND
—for Dr. Bajic

Her words were manna.
I love the eye
she said, and I loved
her in that moment, this doctor
this ophthalmologist,
who saw some part
of my body
as holy.

I want to fall for my body—

to love the contusion
where right shin banged the side
of a pontoon boat,
the twin bulges at C5/C6, L5/L6,
blepharitis—
inflammation of the eyelashes,
who knew, the left leg
out of lockstep, the talus bone
in my left ankle that’s forgotten
how to flex, the right thumb smashed
in the cedar chest,
the tip sewn back on, or the scar
in my scalp where wall
met flesh and cranium, the burn
of the coccyx that keeps me
vertical or horizontal—difficult to sit,
that remorseless knot
by the right scapula, the jaw
that resists the toughness
of celery, the assemblage
of ever-tight muscles
gone rogue, command-central,
the brain that keeps shuffling
the pain-playlist.

I want to be smitten.

Teach me, doctor, to love my body
the way you love the eye.

Juliana Gray

IN WINTER, I MAKE MYSELF READY

The wheel of time grinds down the sun.
I follow it down, practicing,

folding my troublesome body
into a compact package, small

enough to fit inside a trunk,
a refrigerator, a roller bag,

perhaps a narrow satin box
my visitors can lean toward

and whisper over dye-stained blooms,
“She looks just like she’s sleeping.”

Issue 59 Contributors

KB Baltz was born in a Cosmic Hamlet by the Sea, a month early and sideways. She has been doing things backward ever since. When she isn't writing, KB can be found screaming into the void while finishing up a BS in Fisheries. Feel free to ask her about Megladons or halibut. You can find some of her other work at Inquietudes, Gnashing Teeth, Trembling with Fear and Burning House Press. 

Sara Barnett’s fiction and poetry can be read in the following literary magazines : Arsenic Lobster, The Ginger Collect, The Hungry Chimera, Harbinger Asylum, and many many more. Abroad, her pieces “O, Phylira!” and “Lay Loosestrife” appear respectively in the UK’s Anima Poetry and Here Comes Everyone. Look for her online at IMDb.COM, Audible.com as well! Born to California, raised in New England, Sara writes, performs, and records from New York City.

Constance Bourg lives in the Flemish part of Belgium, where she volunteers at her local library and social food market. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Frogpond, Haibun Today, Plath Poetry Project, Blanket Sea and an anthology of poems about illness by Emma Press. She always says that she lives a "part-time life" because of a chronic illness called ME/CFs.

Melissa Eleftherion is a writer, librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & nine chapbooks, including the forthcoming trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa now lives in Mendocino County where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna and more. She is the author of fourteen books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press), The Meadow (APEP Publications) and Shut Your Eyes, Succubi (Maverick Duck). Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie) and her website http://kristingarth.com.

Gail Goepfert, an associate editor at RHINO Poetry, is a Midwest poet, teacher, and photographer. Her first chapbook, A Mind on Pain, appeared in 2015 and a book, Tapping Roots, from Kelsay Books in 2018. Get Up Said the World will appear in 2020 from Červená Barva Press. Recent publications include Kudzu House, Stone Boat, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Bluestem, Open: Journal of Arts and Letters, SWWIM, and Beloit Poetry Journal. More at gailgoepfert.com

Juliana Gray’s third poetry collection is Honeymoon Palsy (Measure Press 2017).  Recent poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Chattahoochee Review, Dunes Review, NELLE, and elsewhere.  An Alabama native, she lives in western New York and teaches at Alfred University.

Cameron Haramia is a California-born Hoosier, who can be found on the dancefloor. He’s danced his way to Memphis, México, and marine animals. Haramia’s poems have appeared in Rabid Oak, Construction Literary Magazine, Leopardskin & Limes, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, & elsewhere.

Jessica Sabo is an LGBTQ+ writer, artist, ballet dancer, and advocate currently residing in Orlando with her wife and two senior rescue pups. Jessica’s work centers on topics of gender identity, mental illness, and trauma. Her work can be found in Anti-Heroin Chic, Adelaide Literary Magazine, and ChannelMarker Magazine. Her first collection of poetry is forthcoming.

Adelina Sarkisyan is an Armenian-American writer based in Los Angeles. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and appeared in various publications, online and in print. She is the Poetry Editor for Longleaf Review. Find her on Instagram @adelinasarkisyan and Twitter @etherealina.

Carolyn Wilsey’s "Cherry-Headed Conures" describes her encounter with the mysterious flock portrayed in the book and documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. She has an MFA in creative writing, fiction, from Emerson College. Two of her poems were recently published by Pretty Owl; her work is forthcoming in The Virginia Normal.