by Sam Szanto

In the shade of the yews,
the other mothers,
a few fathers, fewer grandparents
and I stand in silence.
When the bell tolls, the air shifts.
The older children are first out,
running to their families
to be held held held.
Women in catrinas bring out
babies, one by one, carried like organs
to be packed in ice for transplanting.
The babies know us only by our heart
beats. My child is handed to me.
I press my face to hers and rock,
skin to skin, cradling and crying
and kissing and crooning.
She does not have language
but understands music.
One mother lights up a lullaby and
we all join in, tongues of grief
becoming twinkling little stars
of love. The cold space warms with song,
until it is time to leave
paper flowers on the graves.

Sam Szanto is a Pushcart prize and Best of the Net-nominated, award-winning writer living in Durham (UK). Her poetry pamphlet “This Was Your Mother” was published by Dreich Press in 2024; “Splashing Pink” (a Poetry Book Society Choice) by Hedgehog Press and her short-story collection “If No One Speaks” by Alien Buddha Press. She has won the Wirral Festival Poetry Prize, the Charroux Poetry Prize, the First Writer Poetry Prize, the Shooter Flash Prize and the Mum Life Stories Prize. She has poems in journals including South Carolina Review, Rialto, The North, Dust Poetry and The Storms. She has an MA in Writing Poetry with distinction from Newcastle University and is working on a practice-led PhD about absence and attachment in parenthood poetry at York St John University. Her website is samszanto.com and she is on Bluesky @samszanto.bsky.social, Instagram @samszantowriter, and Facebook @sam-szanto.

by Violette Smith

red velvet blonde curls sick as a bitch in heat
Well, I was drinking poisoned water and walking over honeybees,
as any saintly creature might.
Weaned on arsenic and dandelions
Sweet little princess like me!
On a Louisiana oil rig Daddy let a man down easy
All I had I gave, all I had I gave
And that’s just the way of this sad old world
the night was black as ever, Daddy’s hair was flaxen gold
You’re the closest thing to a girl we’ve got
And it’s lonely out here in the Bayou
Let ‘em down easy, Daddy taught me,
but don’t go down without a fight,
‘Cause there ain’t nothing special ‘bout a dead deer
save for the one who killed it.
I come from a long line of quiet beauties,
taxidermied alligators & abandoned daughters
Up late wishing for selkies and mustang ponies,
crying when the old truck broke down
You see, I never made it to Arizona
but I got bloodlines stretchin’ from Maine to California
So Grandpa pulled up lobster traps & crashed convertibles:
I held a fox beneath my dress & let it gut me
Let me tell you ‘bout that wisteria tree, how they cut it down
Men don’t let pretty things rest, darlin’
Vulpine angel, I was getting tougher,
choking down venison and chicken bones.
Little girl made of patience and miracles!
I must always be believed
Grandma took her crosses off the wall &
I dreamt of the dam breaking, a great flood coming
underwater apple trees, her arm in a sling
There’s no point in living if you ain’t moving mountains
No point in breathing if you can’t be done harm
They might write about this sort of thing in the local paper;
snow-capped pines & empty Januarys, Daddy rowed me over lost towns
Sugar, learn how to spot ‘em, (swift river valley, that good ‘ol Irish luck)

Springsteen through the stereo makes us all drive faster
Sometimes I prayed to a God.
There is no such thing as dying breeds.
black racer, milk, garter, ring neck, red bellied, timber rattler, northern water.
Generally speaking, I was quite beautiful.

Violette Smith is a multimedia artist from Massachusetts. Her work is centered around themes of gender, sexuality, desire, trauma, and modern mythology. She is currently an undergrad at Trinity College Dublin studying Archeology and Classical Civilizations. Her poems and photographs have been published in Icarus Magazine, as well as other chapbooks. For more art check out @violett7s on instagram, and @violetteforevernever on tumblr. She also contributes lyrics, vocals and synth to Violet Horror Show, a music collective. 

by Jeff Newberry

Maybe Monk was right.
Nothing is straight-on, all
angles and obliques,
all grace notes. Implied roots.
The morning light has no edges
but somehow covers everything.
A bird on the phone line
sings and others pick up the chorus.
Unheard voices find willing ears
in the ether or on the wire.
The square modem. The boxed
router. Even an old TV’s rabbit ears.
Late fall grass shags the lawns
Pine straw grays in forgotten
piles. Still, it finds harmony.
Picks up the faded siding
of a cul-de-sac house catty-corner
from a sun-bleached shed
in an otherwise empty lot.
A plane’s jet white pen across
blue scores and divides
and everything holds together.
The chords may clash,
the notes coming in irregular
beats. They weave and weave,
surrounding each other.
From étude to symphony.
From rest to pause. Lay out.
Come back in loud, strong.
Straight, no chaser.
Even if you can’t hear
the tonic, it’s always there.

Jeff Newberry’s most recent book is How to Talk about the Dead (Redhawk Publications). His writing has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including Palooka (forthcoming), Surussus, and Sugar House Review. His new book, a collection of experimental essays titled Frames: A Memoir, is forthcoming from Another New Calligraphy Press. Find him online at jeffnewberry.com or on Threads at @jeffnewberry. 

by McLord Selasi

Last night, the sky misplaced a star.
We searched the horizon with our throats
open like nets,
but the dark swallowed back its secret.

Without it, Orion leans:
a drunk at the bar of the cosmos.
The hunter’s belt unbuckled,
his arrow lost.

I keep thinking
the star fell into the ocean,
a pearl disguised as grief.

Or maybe it chose the earth—
entered a stranger’s chest,
and now that person walks lighter,
carrying fire they do not understand.

McLord Selasi is a Ghanaian writer, poet, public health researcher, and performing artist. His work explores identity, memory, and our deep connections to the world around us. His recent works have been accepted for publication in Apricot Press, Trampoline, Rough Diamond, Isele Magazine, Our Poets for Science, Subliminal Surgery, Eunoia Review, Poetry Journal, The Nature of Our Times, Graveside Press, and elsewhere. Tweet him @MclordSela64222.

by Sirrudeen Nahar

It was no fickle thing to swear myself to you. I was unmoving, I rejected a hundred hands just to keep my own laced to the bow, notching arrow after arrow in your name. The Amazons never cut their breasts: they wore binders that circled their hearts tighter than any wedding ring. I know their devotion well, and now I know how easily it spoils. What was I to do? You asked for me, and I let myself have you. How was I to know that someone else wore your skin? Was I supposed to deny you, ignore the moon that guides me to my prey at night? Teach me how to hunt blind. If anyone could show me, it would be you. Part the clouds and give yourself to me as I thought you did. If Zeus believed he could copy your body, your grace, the cold sting of your lips, then prove him wrong. Artemis, I have given my pride and my life for you, and I am owed. If I ask for too much, then spurn me. Send me away to a black expanse full of the nothing my worship has earned. Make me a bright, burning shade therein. Give me a Hell where those who died for love pass each other by as if they’ve never met.

Sirrudeen Nahar (they/any) experiments with different mediums to enflesh the ideas that compel them. You can follow their work on IG and Twitter @sirrudeen and Bluesky @sirrudeen.bsky.social.