by LJ Ireton

At this hour, the bluebells sink into the background blue of shipwrecks.
The dead rest under tables,
silent,
everywhere low is stone.
Lichen lies draped, almost graceful,
over the old graves —
Charlotte’s own white wedding veil hung yards away,
The clock is fixed, but behind its moonlight face
flock the shadow congregation
of wings.

Every minute they cry,
so that you look up,
up –
the sky of the sleepers
is screaming alive;
raucous with cemetery rooks
discordant, glorious
blurring
over Charlottes’s unmoving mourning lace;
black on a porcelain bust.

These tangled phantoms fly thick and fearless,
urgent, ebony in the breathing night,
over your head;
The moment you dwell on death,
their lungs wail a life immediate.

LJ is a vegan poet and a bookseller from London. She has a 1st Class B.A. Honours in English Language and Literature from The University of Liverpool. Her debut poetry collection, Lessons from the Sky, was published by Ellipsis Imprints in 2024, followed by Interlude in February 2025 with Haywood Books. Her poetry features in the printed anthologies Spectrum: Poetry Celebrating Identity by Renard Press, 2022, Building Bridges, Renard Press 2024 and You’re Never Too Much, Macmillan 2025. Unclaimed, her digital microchapbook was published by Whittle Press in February 2026. Her poems have been published by over forty journals both in print and online and featured on the BBC World Service Bookclub.

by Harrison Fisher

And gurly grew the sea
–Anon.

Such a large convocation of people
who are sworn to the sea,
those who sailed, steamed, or rowed,
others who manned guns or dropped lifeboats,
who flung or scooped flotsam and jetsam,

who pulled living and dead alike
from calm or rough waters,

some who put gaffs to the monstrous,
suckered arms of krakens, pricking them
off the deck, and others who had
visitant undersea lights
lap them all night long—

they are all here, shaking hands,
stepping into embraces.

And when the captains of ships
that have famously gone down
find each other, as they always do,
they sit together at the captains’ table,

which, in a moment upended,
seems to rise sideways into the air,
captains and chairs aloft,

and down they go through the floor,
heading for the rattle of basement lockers.
Nearby tables hush to the plunge

as the bandleader stoutly urges his musicians
deeper into a cold fantasia,
and the room takes on
notated water.

Harrison Fisher held a NEA fellowship in poetry for 1978. He has published twelve chapbooks and full-length collections of poems, most recently Poematics of the Hyperbloody Real. In 2025, Fisher had new work appear in numerous magazines, including BlazeVOX, Misfitmagazine, Slipstream, Trampoline, and Uppagus. He lives in upstate New York.

by David Hanlon

Yes, I’m in my head all day again.
It’s cold in here—arctic, even.
Every inward road looks identical,
erased beneath unbroken ice.

That’s why I’m shaking.
Any stranger I pass
in my heavy, mud-dark duffle coat
along these color-drained streets
assumes it’s only the leaves
arguing with the wind—
not this inner frost
cracking my bones.

Later, at home, in my too-quiet room,
legs stretched out before me
like split timbers,
I register my old white socks
peeking through the holes
of navy Crocs—

each one a snowdrop,
each one a thought
that survived the freeze.

David Hanlon is a Pushcart-nominated poet based in Cardiff, Wales. His work appears in numerous magazines and journals, including Rust & Moth, Anthropocene, and Trampset. His latest collection, Dawn’s Incision, was published by Icefloe Press. You can follow him on Twitter @davidhanlon13 and Instagram @hanlon6944. 

by Jason Kahler

I wear my father’s winter coat because it fits and the driveway needs shoveling.

The zipper sticks.

Maybe that’s why I never saw him wear it, even in the worst storm, even at the end.

Spread out, opened on a table, the human body is red—yes, red of course—but also white and blue and surprisingly purple;

you can find the pieces hungriest for air by tracing the blush.

No one knows the anatomy of a finger like a nailbiter. Some ruins won’t heal.

I make my fingers bleed.

Overnight they bloom. Hot and swollen, they shine like dewy roses.

Strong teeth, vital gums. I never swallow. It must feel like half-chewed beetles. Carapace and thorax. The poke of each leg in the throat.

I lie.

I hide my hands. Red patterns inside every pair of gloves. And within Dad’s coat pocket, some change. An old envelope with math in his handwriting,

the soft edges frayed, folded paper, folded like wings, folded like feathers.

Jason Kahler is a writer, teacher, and researcher from Southeast Michigan. His work has appeared in Bayou Magazine, Seneca Review, Orbit, College English, and other publications. He’s on Bluesky at @jasonkahler3.bsky.social and sometimes posts at jasonkahler.com. 

by Jon Raimon

this quiet
we spread with rich butter
from the kitchen island

this noise
we down with dark beer
from the pantry

this coupling
we stir and stir
searching

for the one ingredient,
something with o, something with
s, something in the one cupboard

where no one looks, behind the
chia seeds and ancient oatmeal,
behind spicy pickles and

the one box of pasta
shaped like stars,
the shooting, wishing kind

the kind we need tonight
before the silences, star-
less and safe, ruin

our appetite for love

Jon Raimon teaches writing in Ithaca, NY. His work explores grief, family, resistance, and all forms of love. He is part of Spring Writes, Ithaca’s literary festival, and his work appeared in Trampoline: A Journal of Poetry, The Turning Leaf, Book of Matches, Merganser Magazine, Quasar Review, Adirondack Center for Writing, Wilderness, and will soon be featured in The Bluebird Word, Dogwood Alchemy, and Quill of the Goddess.