by LC Gutierrez

In the color-singed folds of daybreak,
you’ll find the cold still living.

I dare you touch a tree and claim
there is something more real.

Seal and bear hearts beat
warm, though packed in ice.

They will swim towards it, not away.
The difference is that they know fear,

not cowardice, that fawn of warmth and comfort.
We are built to go the other way

and so we quiet winds, our walls
withstanding, grow soft in our shells.

Winter draws me to my self
when I refuse to steam my mirrors.

I walk the floors barefoot of a morning
my soul is not a shadow.

Cold and clear from the shower head to mine.
My soul is not a pit inside of me: we are one.

My soul looks down and through the ice
or blazing heat and this is good.

I have floated / in seawater
numb to anything / that wouldn’t have me whole.

To find a frozen place to stop it all
a silent start anew founded

in a suffering that is good.
My body is not a parasite of the soul:

everything that hurts feels better
when it ends. You are not dead

so listen and laugh at the stars.
Feel them sticking to the skin

of your body: that which won’t survive
the soul’s cold quiet hunger.

LC Gutierrez is a Southern and Caribbean writer living in Madrid, Spain. An erstwhile academic, he now teaches, writes, and plays trombone. His work is most recently published or forthcoming in Sugar House Review, New York Quarterly, Delta Poetry Review (Pushcart Nominee), Ballast Journal, Arkansas Review, Rogue Agent and Tampa Review. He is a poetry reader for West Trade Review. His website is lcgutierrez.com.

by John Paul Davis

is a full sixty day later this year
than when it would arrive
when I was a child. Beautiful weather
we’re having, someone said to me two
weekends ago, when I, short sleeves
& bare legs, was walking
through a mild November summer.
Once I stretched a rubber band
too far around a long box
& I could see it get thinner.
Autumn has been like that, lovely
days over & over, too many
& I’m certain the seasons will snap
in two. Today when I could see my own steam
fog the world around me, I relaxed
by three percent. The cold air
like a long-lost lover, touching
me everywhere my skin was visible,
sliding its icy fingers up my shirt,
down my waistband, the flirt,
& I don’t zip up my coat
or tug my scarf tighter, I don’t want
a life that’s just one ride
down a golden escalator
after another. Something in me needs to die,
needs a long moonless night quiet
as a grave & a sharpened
morning wind clean & fine
enough to slice all the way down
to my soul, with the sun
shaking its mane
like always but the pond still ices
over & the air has teeth
but it’s a good bite, a wild bite, a holy bite
& I glory in it, I allow
myself to be peeled open.

John Paul Davis is the author of Climbing A Burning Rope (University of Pittsburgh, 2024) and Crown Prince Of Rabbits (Great Weather For Media, 2017). His poems have appeared in numerous journals including Rattle, MUZZLE, Spiritus, Maine Review, and others. You can find out more about him at johnpauldavis.org, IG/Threads: @john.paul.davis, and BlueSky: @johnpauldavis.bsky.social.

by Leander He

august closes like a wound. it’s tradition now: makemy parents cry every summer by injecting something new,cover myself with body hair and tattoos so that someoneelse will love me. thrice now i’ve let a strangerset of hands touch and prod my skin(the third time i injected T i bruised my stomachfor a week because i didn’t apply pressure, was stupidenough to let it keep bleeding)until a line snakes down my arm in ink. to placatemy grandfather i tell him it is the river from ourhometown, wash it gently with soap and water. i amsorry i blemish easily. when my cartilage piercing bleeds,cut out with a scalpel knife onto silk pillows in rural chinai think back to when i let hands i loved pick idly, leavingacne scars on my back. crescents dotted where fingernailshad lingered. i never knew what it was like to be untouchedin this new body. now my arm bristles where i laymy cheek, and i am growing through every pore,every crevice craving to be held. i puncture my skinto air out the love that coils underneath, play ship oftheseus with my cells and organs. i dream of the daythey put drains in my chest—the blood and excess,collecting.

Leander He is a queer Chinese writer, studying linguistics at Yale University. What he has to offer includes obscure language facts and the occasional poem; the latter can be found in Couplet Poetry and CORTEX Magazine. He also reads poetry for The Yale Review and Hominum Journal.

by Eleanor Ball

I roll my hope down the Mount. Robe my heart
in pleasure. I sink to my knees,
swallow the blessing like honeyed wine.
Unthread my body. The eye of the needle is near.
I show my brothers and sisters my scars, pressing my thumbs to the wounds.
Take this, my body, which is given up for you. For you,
I ride to the Gates at dawn. Make of my body an inkwell:
If I am the rib, if I am the womb, then I am the ear
fallen on blood-spattered grass. Do this in memory of me.
When you parted the sea, I ran for the waves. I craved
the crush of drowning. The freedom of floating,
cradled by the sea, until I beached on the sands of Babylon.
In my palms, the kisses of birds. In my dreams,
I soar above the rippling waves, olive branch gripped in my teeth.
All love is conditional. I believed until the dust settled.
Forgive me, Father, for I fly back to you.

Eleanor Ball is an MLIS candidate at the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in ballast, Barnstorm, Psaltery & Lyre, and elsewhere. Come say hi @eleanorball.bsky.social.

by Wes Civilz

The flaw arose ex nihilo last night
While I was sleeping solo. Like a line
Of bunched hives, there it was. Red, trailing snake-like
Out of one ear and down below my chin,
Helmet-strapping across the windpipe’s tube,
Meandering around the shoulder’s bend,
Folding around the elbow—subterfuge
And itch and slyness—finally to end
In tiny tendrils underneath my thumb.
I camouflage it when I leave for work.
I use a coat of flesh-tone paint and, um,
Feel almost normal. Like immoral artwork,
The winding, painted flaw is hidden soWell you could hug me and you’d never know.

Wes Civilz lives deep in the forests of New Hampshire. He posts writing-oriented videos on Instagram under the handle @wes_civilz, and his writing has appeared in journals such as The Antioch Review, The Threepenny Review, Arts & Letters, and Quarterly West.