by Tommy Welty

I want to want to live in hard places,
to map the edge of the city. I want to draw

mountains in margins, illuminate
the nature and nurture of it all and then erase
all our shifting imaginary lines

no more rivers, or seas, or oceans,
no more rusting walls telling us
where we begin and they end

I want the fog to tendril at our feet
and obscure our coasts. Here
there be dragons: Children
grocery shopping alone at the Dollar Tree,

well intentioned adults looming
among the canned beans
explaining the good news of Jesus Christ

and unit prices. I want to name it all

in swirling script: Here, of all places,
I’m so glad you are here

Tommy Welty is a poet from Southern California. His poetry has appeared in The Windhover, Rock & Sling, Ekstasis Magazine, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Instagram: @tommywelty

by Rachel Trousdale

Everyone is wrong about eternity. It ebbs
and flows. Think about the distance
between the earth and the sun; then scale that
to Jupiter; to Pluto; well—that is as the distance
between the belly of a snake and the crumbling
brown dirt it slides upon in the face of the distance
between us and even Proxima Centauri. Think
about the time that has passed since we first
walked upright; since scale first
lapped scale—those heavy-skulled reptiles,
the earliest fish. Even the air
was of another substance then. All our many seas
were then one sea. Even that was only
the time it takes to pause at the stop sign
on an abandoned midnight road on a long drive
(south all night through the pine woods, past the farms,
another hour, another four hours before
you can stop to sleep) next to the time since our
hot liquid earth first started cooling.
How long have I loved you? How long
have we loved these children? How
long will anyone know these words? As long
as men can breathe or eyes can see we can keep
trying, keep pushing, keep making
our many mistakes. If I keep driving
one more hour (as the January night extends
toward that distant little January dawn) I think
you can get us home.

Rachel Trousdale is a professor of English at Framingham State University. Her work has appeared in The Yale Review, The Nation, Diagram, and a chapbook, Antiphonal Fugue for Marx Brothers, Elephant, and Slide Trombone. Her latest scholarly book is Humor, Empathy, and Community in Twentieth-Century American Poetry. She is @rvtrousdale on Twitter and Bluesky. Her website can be found at racheltrousdale.com.

by Melanie Galizio Stratton

Sleep when the baby sleeps, scream when the baby screams. Cry all the time.
What, that’s not supposed to happen? Add liar to my resume.
I’m fine.

Add milkmaid to my resume. Scratch that, add cow.
You’re the milkmaid.
I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.

Where do you go when you sleep? You giggle and you whimper.
Do I smile in your dream? The corners of my face feel like plaster from all the smiling. I’m a model,
a muse.
I’m in an agony of fineness.

Do you see our big dog? He is old and will die before you can recall him.
On my phone I read you don’t see anything.
That’s probably for the best.

Add researcher to my resume. Add the sea.
When I lay my head down next to yours, the boat springs a leak and I gasp myself awake before
I can shovel you out.
You are startled. Your tiny mouth opens and I dive in.

Melanie Galizio (she/her) is an Ohio-based poet, possessed of a curious spirit and deep love of Earth. Her interests span the arts, but she has recently found inspiration in traditional folk music, aural storytelling, and mixed media creative practices. Her recent work has appeared in Cider Press Review. Find her on Instagram at @melanifluous and @melanifluous.bsky.social on Bluesky.

by Julia Wendell

My daughter sends impressions
of one cell, 30,000, then 3 million—
the size of a raindrop, bottle cap, acorn,
credit card, kumquat, peach.
Fist or potato, tennis ball or squash,
I’ve spent a lifetime
examining what’s like but isn’t,
as if a thing has more meaning
by close enough, but not quite.
How much is 37 trillion cells?
A stack of bills
68 miles high.
That’s only one trillion.
Now bigger than a baseball,
coffee mug, rutabaga, leek,
my hand, my breast,
the child of my child.

Julia Wendell’s sixth collection of poems, The Art of Falling, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2022. Another collection, Daughter Days, will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2025. She is Founding Editor of Galileo Press, lives in Aiken, South Carolina, and is a three-day event rider. She can be found as JuliaWendell.7 on Instagram and on Facebook.

by Zachary Daniel

Perfect the art
of guerrilla warfare.

Cast off in paper boats
and surf the coast of drapes.

Amass themselves
like self-assembling snowmen.

Crawl into your mouth
while you sleep.

Ply their hooks
in the tentpoles of tomcats.

Live the dream
of the Jeffersonian yeoman.

Play the Greek chorus
to our domestic affairs.

Wish for children
though all their wombs are barren.

Menace the various rodents
that wait on the threshold.

Crowd each other for warmth
when the first frost comes.

Agree that God doesn’t care much for his creation,
but does exist.

Send postcards to old friends
in indecipherable script.

Launch no missiles,
not even bottle rockets.

Lope away on chalk feet
trailing sticks and match-smoke.

Wait for lovers to arrive
on the five o’clock train of your boots.

Are moved to tears when a sunbeam
alights in their dank corner.

On the verge of sleep, see their lives
as one great contradiction.

Zachary Daniel is a librarian and poet based in Louisville, Kentucky. His poetry is inspired by the natural world, literature, and the metaphysics of the commonplace. His poetry is published or forthcoming in The Pierian.