by Josh Jacobs

On the sixth night the hospital chaplain
appeared in my dad’s room.
She wore scrubs and a metal Star of David
ready like a little pry bar in case
he wanted her to examine his soul.

My dad’s bile and other secrets
were flowing through tubes in his nose,
the lines drawn up from his head
to a container above each side of the bed
like a sketch of a family tree
with him as the favored son.

She didn’t know that God
lived downstairs from my dad growing up,
a door never to be knocked on Halloween,
the mute keyhole breathing in
his brother’s death at two, exhaling
nothing in the silent years that followed,
my dad leaving at sixteen
with a desperate confidence
clutched like a briefcase,
his soul to be found anywhere
but in that old building.

Josh Jacobs works at MIT and lives outside of Boston. He won the 2023 Common Ground Review Poetry Prize, selected by Oliver de la Paz, and was a participant in the 2024 Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference. His work has also appeared in Cider Press Review, Pangyrus, Right Hand Pointing, and Verklempt.

by Daniel Brennan

I hear those churched mouths singing: the good lord works, even if
he looks away. His ways, mysterious and abundant when he teaches
the night to howl, or the wind to sing. What haven’t we done for our supper?

Look at this God right here: standing so tall, tree of a man, bearing fruit under
my groaning doorframe. I invite him in, time and again. Who is this
that speaks in prayer so I don’t have to? How he comes to collect his lamb!

My own father didn’t build me wicked, or unconscionably cruel;
it’s a miracle what a boy can learn on his own when given the time.
When given the tools, the language owed, to forge ahead.

Isn’t that what being a father is all about? That or dignity,
the long-tongue flame that kept my father up late so many nights.
But Our Father, slick keeper of tongues, he reaped these fields

as he’s been known to do. He knows how to spot a wheat stalk, those
foolish enough to keen for sun, which becomes the scythe. My own father,
his less than mysterious ways. His prayers I could not ignore.

It doesn’t take much for a man to be cruel, and if you’d believe it:
I figured that out all on my own. After all, what’s a son, if not another
kind of wind grinding its teeth in song when He’s not looking?

What is a father but another kind of night stifling its howl through
vestigial pain? These lessons, see how I wear them like a favorite
suit, or a choir member’s robe. My hands always toward heaven,

even when I should know better. Lessons learned. A father climbing
his home’s front steps, forgetting why he came here at all. The Good lord
works: his serious gaze, his stone hands. Father, son. Hit, then holler.

Daniel Brennan (he/him) is a queer writer and coffee devotee from New York. Sometimes he’s in love, just as often he’s not. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net, and has appeared in numerous publications, including The Penn Review, Sho Poetry Journal, and Trampset. He can be found on Twitter @DanielJBrennan_.

by Matthew E. Henry

After the 2022 dip pen and India ink creation of James Dye by the same name.

creation groans for the time
when it’s not fit outside
for man. when the cities
have been cast down
and all is unblemished
by shrine or cathedral,
chapel or mosque.
where the wild things are
free to sing the original
Language—speaking
in tongues forked and feathered,
smooth and spined,
bristled and boned.
the pined for time
when arks are burned
by creatures basking
in the endless pastures
between the firmly shuttered
windows of The Deep—
unencumbered by
the whirling spheres
within spheres, wheels
within wheels. the locust come
to blanket the sky
with giddy tidings
of gladness and great joy—
the evening of Behemoth
and Leviathan, the night
of The Dragon
and Rachav are at hand.
their rising cries echoed
by myriad others
whose ears are everywhere,
whose eyes are everywhere,
waiting—attuned—for the return
of Eden.

Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six poetry collections, most recently said the Frog to the scorpion (Harbor Editions, 2024). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal, the creative nonficiton editor at Porcupine Literary, and an associate editor at Rise Up Review. MEH’s poetry and prose has appeared in Had, Massachusetts Review, Mayday, Mom Egg Review, Ploughshares, Redivider, Terrain, and The Worcester Review, among others. MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.

by Joel LeBlanc

A voice sings a lullaby: “The animals
went in two by two, Hurrah! Hurrah!”

Noah is drunk in the corner,
grieving the past, he thought the ark

would make him happy.

Naamah is washing her blood-dried
hands in the sink, after stitching up

a sheep mauled by the dogs.

I’m standing not far away, staring
at the old peacock, lifeless in the dirt.

They forgot to feed it.

A year ago it lived in a pōhutukawa tree,
tattooed with monster eyes and

screaming with joy.

Noah tells me to sit still, be quiet,
glowering at me from his chair.

Naamah nervously tells me
to pretend to be happy, to smile.

The flood would have been easier.

I miss friendships, sports, cinemas, going
to school, learning about the world,

and not being trapped with enemies.

I need to mourn the dead before the
world rots inside me, before they

forget to feed me too.

In my dreams I live on a green hill,
with soft dry earth, gardens,

and birds.

I pour coffee on the ground, lay flowers,
scratch epitaphs onto stones,

wooden crosses, the sea.

In my dreams, I speak to my father
in a magic voice that sobers him,

flaying his self-pity into red dust:

feed the horses, check the water dishes,
be kind, stop raising your hand to the dog,

learn to love the work of loving,

sheer the sheep, fix the fences, weed the
convolvulus before it devours us all,

save the goldfish from their green prison,

and don’t let the chickens die alone
in the dust of their filthy coop.

They were gods once.

Joel LeBlanc (he/him) is a poet, freelance writer, reviewer, baker, and herbalist based in Wellington, New Zealand. His poems have appeared in various publications, including Takahē, Poetry NZ, Semaphore, Tarot, Aotearoa Poetry Yearbook, and more. His twitter and Bluesky are @cottageinwood

by Daniel Schall

You’ve seen this war of limbs before. Come on in.
Because no one questions their morals,
of course you imagine the cavemen will kill
tusked mammals and each other, shearing
fat from hair, surrounded by fir and ash,
reclining on a fallen elm—here, observe
sabertooth shoulder hunked in garnet bulges,
seared over those always-fading coals. They speak
through the bumping of their bodies.
Here, spear and snow, flocked with dripples
of sumac tallow, rear-reflector red,
the shiver of our own minds
backing up against the ice age. Ever
been to Disneyland? There, fuzz-glued
animatronics stumble, oblivious to the privilege
of movement, keyholes alloyed in their joints.
Tonight, I could drive home, plunge
my own body in a bed of wax. But here:
eye and hand had to choose
forever. What was I talking about
again? The Director’s attention
must have been torn towards the end
of the diorama, here, where the Artist
increasingly riffed: see Neanderthal
and Cave Human both slopping
into a space-age blender
leaves and chunks of purple meat.
Note the eyes, drawn to the button
labeled pulse—something distant
shucked into the pads of their fingers—
the shape of things begging to be pressed.

Daniel Schall is a poet and teacher living in Pennsylvania. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Citron Review, Midway Journal, Elysium Review, Anthropocene Literary Journal, Philadelphia Stories, Thimble Literary Magazine and other journals. He can be found on Twitter @Dan_Schall, and online at danschallwriter.wordpress.com.