by Todd Dillard

Did you know she liked fire?
The warmth yes but the burning more so.
The delight of a terrible draft
folded into a crane
and spiked into a hearth
some wrist-pale January morning.
She loved the little black clouds
that formed at the parchment’s edge,
then roiled over the disheveled
lines like a stampede dust.
And the smoke drifting out her chimney–
everyone agreed it waggled like a robe’s loose thread
which, if you yanked hard enough,
would unveil Death’s pale ankles
and he would yelp like a dog
dreaming of carriage-sized rabbits.

Todd Dillard’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including American Poetry Review, Guernica, Waxwing, Fairy Tale Review, and The Adroit Journal. His debut collection Ways We Vanish (Okay Donkey Press) was a finalist for the 2021 Balcones Poetry Award. His chapbook Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance is forthcoming from Variant Literature. He is a Poetry Editor at The Boiler.

by Sarah Jackson

Once buried I thought you’d be gone,
tendrils crisp as bone, crumbling like charred paper.
But every night your soft hands find me.
I lie awake, listening tense
for the caress of your whispering filaments,
the first pinprick breaths.
Scared to sleep, then scared to wake
and tear myself free from the mesh of you
stitched to my skin in the dark.
I rise sick, drugged by our exchanges
sugars pushed through me
the things that you’ve drained.
I run and you catch me, leisurely
unrolling your milky fingers,
still speckled with the black earth
I hoped would hold you.
You are a net. Each night
I feel the threads tighten,
our merged memories, thin as hairs,
rustling, latticing
under my skin.

Sarah Jackson’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Translunar Travelers Lounge, and Crow & Cross Keys. She is editor of Inner Worlds magazine. Her website is sarah-i-jackson.ghost.io and you can find her on mastodon as @sarahijackson@wandering.shop.

by Steve Sibra

up to the moment of his death
my father was breathing
he was pumping air in and out
even when sleeping

my mother had a touch
she had otters in her eyes
they swam in oceans of blue

years now they have been elsewhere
someplace beneath themselves
going about the business of worms
forgotten by all but plants and storms

as they dry and go to seed
as dirt fills in the spaces
which at one point were lives
laughter     movement     wisdom
others like me have been above
still filtering the air

still moistening an atmosphere
no longer of use to anyone
no longer drenching a universe
with meaning     no longer feeling

no longer feeding the dog
at four thirty each afternoon
whether he shows up to eat or not

Steve Sibra spent his youth on a small farm in North Central Montana, near the town of Big Sandy. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in numerous journals including Flint Hills Review, Chiron Review and Crab Fat Magazine. Steve’s full length book of poetry, Shoes for Baby, was published in 2022 by Swallow Publishing. He resides in Seattle.

by Kelly Sargent

We liked Elena with her knobby knees,
halter tops and pierced ears
who shared sticky Blow Pops
swiped from the stuffy Madrid market
on dog days when Spanish yayas
grunted stern Nos to girls who asked
to pedal trikes along the grape-vined walls
that fed rats who stayed in the shadows.

It was Carmen who most did not like
with True Grit on her coffee table,
even though her VCR was broken,
and who had punched that toughie in the gut
when he called her little sister retarded
because she could not hear
and talked with her hands.
Stay away from her,
frowning, coiffed grandmothers cautioned.

It was Elena who whistled her way in the stiff autumn air
to the start of school one year,
round-bellied like her mama’s tarnished teapot,
and offered us a packet of cherry Fun Dip to share
as she leaned into the grape vines.
Open-mouthed, we eyed her shocking middle.
She shrugged.
Too many Pop Rocks.

A significantly hearing impaired writer and artist adopted in Luxembourg, Kelly Sargent is the author of two memoirs in verse, Seeing Voices: Poetry in Motion (Kelsay Books, 2022) and Echoes in My Eyes (Kelsay Books, 2024), and a short form poetry collection entitled Bookmarks (Red Moon Press, 2023). Other works have appeared in more than eighty literary journals, most recently including Rattle, Chestnut Review, Eunoia Review, and Broad River Review. Honors include: Firebird Book Award winner, The Rash Award in Poetry finalist, Eric Hoffer Award nominee, Touchstone Award for Individual Poems nominee, and two-time Best of the Net nominee. She serves as the creative nonfiction editor of The Bookends Review. Kelly is on Facebook and you can visit kellysargent.com to learn more about her.