by Adele Evershed

CW: Contains sexually explicit language.

In our summer
we made love outside
like the great romantic poets
Byron or Keats—those wet-dreaming rebels
my back pressed against ancient bark
a rough reminder that outside marriage
this was once thought unholy
there was a scent of something feral in the bushes
or maybe that was just you—glowing with sweat and sap
we were always a whisper away from being discovered
and I imagined that was why
I never climaxed
(although you had no such trouble)

In my winter
I know I need creature comforts
to make me come—
a warm womb of a room
lit with the old romance of candles
maybe a deep throated singer promising
to fly me to the moon
the quickness of a tongue
and the slowness of fingers
laying me down stone by stone
like a place of worship
the deep slow build
of an ache as old as Eve
until out of that liminal space
a piercing so sweetly agonizing
I forget myself and call on God
(although I no longer believe)

And maybe that’s why
I’ve always trusted winter more

Adele Evershed is a Welsh writer who swapped the Valleys for the American East Coast. A Pushcart-nominated poet, her work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Comstock Review, Literary Mama, and Modern Haiku, amongst others. Her poetry includes the collection Turbulence in Small Spaces (Finishing Line Press) and a forthcoming collection, In the Belly of the Wail (Querencia Press). Her flash fiction includes the novellas-in-flash Wannabe and Schooled (Alien Buddha Press) and A History of Hand Thrown Walls (Unsolicited Press).
Find her on X @AdLibby1, Instagram @ad_libby, and BlueSky @adlibby.bsky.social.

by Alexa Fermeglia

Here is the falcon,
here is the falconer.
You are not the prey
that does not know
what’s coming next,
or the bird singing its
death song
learned though its thousand years.
You are not the sky,
its heavy bowl of blue
unblinking,
the net through which
the hot sun beats down.
You are not the hare,
who hears its heartbeat
six and eight and ten times faster
on its last run
above ground.
You are not the wind,
and for god’s sake
you are not the sun.
You are the witness,
pricking your ears
toward a cry,
your skin shivers,
silence.
You wait again to hear it.
Maybe you were mistaken,
maybe it was
something else.

Alexa Fermeglia is a poet and visual artist based in Budapest. She is the founder and organizer of the Budapest Poetry Collective, a member of the Panel Literature Association, and the co-founder of HEXA, which produced the poetry podcast, Just Below the Surface and the zine/performance project, Pieces. Her work can be found in If We’re Talking Budapest, The Inklette, and Tast. Zine. She is online mostly on Instagram @blink.t.w.i.c.e.

by Grant Clauser

First it’s the dryer’s rubber belts
burned through and finally snapped
that gets me down on the floor,
my father’s old tools scattered about
as I try to understand how things work.
And then a week later, the washer
rocks off its hinges like a wolverine
chewing its leg free from a trap,
and one by one, things break down,
need fixing. This chair leg loose.
That outlet sparking when we need
more light. Pipes leaking. Cold
creeping in where the insulation’s old,
and more things waiting
broken in the garage and shed,
bedrock cracking under the foundation
and the kidnapping and the killing
one thing after another while we learn
she was a poet, he a nurse,
the gear teeth of the great machine
cracked from grinding down rocks
and now even the tools to fix it
look small, hardly up to the task.

Grant Clauser’s most recent book is Temporary Shelters. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Terrain, Kenyon Review, and other journals. He’s an editor for a national media company and teaches poetry at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania.

by Becki Hawkes

I pretend I am a leaf. Obviously
I am the most beautiful leaf in the world.
My bones are strings and all my cells
are flayed to blood and gold. First
we must do the boring bits
where you gaze up at me. Soft, soft
against the light. I buy plant milk
cappuccinos from the hospital Costa,
visit every day, keep you lullaby safe
in the warm wet boughs. I am so good
at hospitals and late-night calls
and no-commitment
kneeling. I am so good
at being a distraction and at
falling. Being trampled
underfoot, under wellies, under you
hurts at first, but really
it is just another turning.
Parts of me
will be eaten by such kindly, faithful
worms. Parts of me
will stalk your wedding photos, years from now
and see if I still pity, care or break.
If it’s all three, I’ll shut my eyes

pretend I am a leaf.

Becki Hawkes lives in London (United Kingdom). Her first pamphlet, The Naming of Wings, was a winner of the 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize. A Best of the Net nominee, she has had poems published in Ink, Sweat and Tears, Rust & Moth, The Shore, Lunate Fiction, and The Madrigal, among others. Becki is on Instagram @beckihawkes.

by A.D. Harper

The wildlife that comes to my house at night is unknown to the books. Maybe
I have the wrong books. Maybe all nature books are a lie. Maybe the creatures
do not exist and someone is slipping me hallucinogens in my tea but who?
Maybe my sight which is getting worse is playing tricksy games and what I
think is a long striped tail attached to a hybrid of a fox and a badger and a cat
is actually a piece of cable. I don’t know. I would phone the police but it’s not
an emergency, it’s just irksome: I used to think wildlife guides were complete
but here are the apocryphal in all their surefooted glory. It’s not a matter of
darkness, the security lights switch on when they are near. And the webcam
picks them up. I’ve asked the neighbours but they shake their heads and look
away, which is concerning. I’m worried these animals are part of a cult and I
am going to be their victim. Or, more happily, their king. I will proclaim
to them, the unhallowed ones, the off-the-books, the secrets on the lawn.
I’ll tell them our sideways logics will prevail, they have inherited the moon.

A.D. Harper’s poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Rhino, The Shore, and Rattle, among others. He lives in England and can be found online at adharper.com and on Bluesky as adharper.bsky.social‬.