by Vic Nogay

if you could reach inside my body
through the pupils of my eyes that open
and close to the light like windows, i would open

for you, tear down the blinds, blind
my eyes in the morning sun so you could see,
so you could climb inside, touch

my memories with your fingertips,
pull them out, set them free,
hang each one,

deftly, on the low limbs
of an oak in the summer
by the river, to bleach out in the sun.

a toad perched on a rock
by the water and a dove swimming
in the leaves of the tree will pretend

not to watch
you leaf through me
like a sacred relic.

there will be no
museum or sterile box
for these.

shade the trees with memory,
honor me with sun
light—even if i burn.

Vic Nogay is a Pushcart Prize- and Best Microfiction-nominated poet and writer whose work appears in Fractured Lit, Barren Magazine, and Lost Balloon, among others. Her micro chapbook of poems, under fire under water, was published in 2022 by tiny wren publishing. She is an Associate Poetry Editor for Identity Theory and lives in Columbus, Ohio. Find her online at vicnogay.com

by Charles Hensler

Every day you fall
from the same bridge. Each night
you swim farther upstream.

Houses and gardens in silhouette, the scent
of wood smoke rising, the water heavy
between the trees.

Was that a heron or a flag pole; a shimmering
willow or someone waving from shore?

Is it only the senescent light of stars
arriving weary, or a fragment of frozen moon?

How were you able to weather the guests
who came early, and stayed? There were too many to know—
their urgencies and trembling hands, their clarinets
that wouldn’t play.

So far upstream in the feathered dark
past the shore, the fences, the cottonwood—

is the house you find the house you knew,
the light your light in the window?

Charles Hensler lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Shore, One Hand Clapping, West Trade Review, Pidgeonholes, Parentheses, ballast, boats against the current and others.

by Kyla Houbolt

Butterflies go still in flight.
Tying neat bows in the once alive air.

I never know what shape
the birds will draw
as they arc across the sky and you think
oh scribbles but what if
it’s a code, and the birds saying
if only there were more of us
we could complete the message
and open the stars.

And I could dance on this cupcake.
Let me just go down the mine
with sharpened feathers and diamond eyes.

There’s beautiful Sarah, immersed in her sea
of pain, not drowning, emerging for a day or so
to feel the sun and then again
pulled back under. Look
how white the cliffs are today how
they glow. Singing all the way.

Sarah, say the birds in their secret
language, we’re trying
to open the stars.
She is back down in her boiling
and does not hear.
I’m putting a knot in the universe
so I won’t lose my place
when I die.

Kyla Houbolt is a poet and gardener currently living in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Her chapbook Tuned is available from CCCP Chapbooks. But Then I Thought is forthcoming later this year from Above/Ground Press. Surviving Death is forthcoming from Broken Spine, along with a re-release of her first chapbook, Dawn’s Fool, both expected in November. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet, and many individual pieces published digitally can be found on her Linktree.

by Corinna Board

After the shock of discovery,
I’m drawn to the body –

larger than life, broken –
a predator beaten at its own game.

I’ve never seen a buzzard
this close; its wings are splayed

like an angel; mackerel-striped
feathers intact, the rest is a mess

of plumes, dampened by blood
now rusted to a deeper hue.

The head is hidden under leaves,
only the hooked beak is visible;

clamped shut, useless.
I’m glad I can’t see its eyes.

Wood anemones have seeded
themselves around the dead

bird like a handful of stars,
as if the sky, too, has fallen.

Corinna Board teaches English as an additional language in Oxford. She grew up on a farm and her work is often inspired by nature and the rural environment. She has been published in Spelt, Anthropocene, The Alchemy Spoon and elsewhere. Her debut pamphlet is due this year. Find her on Twitter @CorinnaBoard or Instagram @parole_de_reveuse.

by Ray Ball

ˈdan-də-ˌlī-ən (noun) 1: a small, bright yellow flower that flourishes whether the environment is harsh or bountiful with seeds more tenacious than hope. Make a wish and blow them away, lighter than feathers dispersed by the slightest of breezes. 2: a noxious weed poisoned by suburban dwellers determined to control nature, conquer the outdoors. Mr. Capulet and Mr. Montague are out at dawn every summer Saturday with grudges, weedkiller, and lawnmowers. Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Capulet compete in the annual garden show, pack nutritious lunches their children don’t eat. 3: a flowering plant of the Asteraceae family. Sister of Daisy. Sibling of Sunflower. Daughter of the late Cretaceous period. Stamens and antlers joined. Copious producer of nectar. 4: Monks-head; Milk-witch; Faceclock. Friend and nurse-maid to the apothecary. If only Juliet would have taken such a tonic instead of that dulling draft.

ˈdan-də-ˌlī-ən (adj.) 1: a dramatic shade of yellow as in the color of teenage crushes written on cheeks. Leo as Romeo, yes. Claire as Juliet, even more yes. I was too afraid to tell my friend that she looked like Claire. Not as we wept. Not as we studied Shakespeare’s comedies, like As You Like It. Histrionic hue as in everything feeling so keen and sharp and jagged like the leaves the plant is named for: lion’s tooth. My heart had been wounded by the claws of a lion.

Ray Ball currently lives on the land of the Dena’ina, where she works as a history professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She is the author of the poetry collection Trinities (Louisiana Literature Press, 2023). Ray’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Free State Review, Glass, Orange Blossom Review, and Waccamaw. Ray has received multiple nominations for Pushcart and been a Best of the Net finalist. She is senior editor at Coffin Bell and assistant editor Juke Joint. You can find her on Instagram @runninghistory.