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.

by Elisa Luna Ady

Elisa Luna Ady is a writer from Southern California. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Adroit Journal, Passages North, Witness Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago, where she recently completed her MFA+MA through Northwestern University’s Litowitz Program and where she was awarded the 2025 English Department Prize for best MFA thesis. Find her on Instagram @lastsiteing and elunady.net

by Noah Powers

My lover is now a termite munching tiny tunnels
through the woodwork of my insides. She’s
paving walkable streets for termite travel
with a word on the phone from six thousand miles away,
she’s establishing communes made-up entirely
of her clones. They tend to my heart. They water it
daily. They build tiny termite projectors and fire light
onto the inside of my eyes in the shape of her face,
all the versions I’ve seen so far and teasers of all those
expressions yet to come. In termite school, they learn
how to gnaw only at the places that bear no load.
When they have to work at a sensitive part of my brain,
they are gentle. Their mandibles peck like quick kisses.
All of the time, she is doing beautiful, incredible termite things.
And yet, every day without fail, I’m on the hunt for a solution.
I visit wizards in their high towers, witches in their covens,
scientists of entomology and anthropology. My Duolingo is full
of languages old and dead and only found on clay tablets.
I’m looking for a way to make her a woman again, to feel
her body pressed against mine like words printed to page.
Meanwhile, she’s composing termite symphonies of our favorite songs
so I can hear them all the time, learning how to tweak the frequencies
to scale. All these efforts crafted from nothing but our love.
However small or selfish. However full of hope.

Noah Powers (they/he) is a bipedal mammal first discovered near the Ohio River in what we now know as Kentucky. Their poems can be found in HAD, Ghost City Review, Rejection Letters, Bullshit Lit, and more. An MFA candidate at the University of Alabama, they currently serve as a poetry editor for JAKE and as the managing editor for Black Warrior Review.