by Matt Stefon

Red sky in the
morning behind
all those clouds. The
Shakers sleeping

on the trembling
hill, hopefully
warmer than the
thousand-odd trees

shivering in the
morning out the
window. On this
side, still in bed,

my wife and dog
dreaming—God—have
no need to know
I’m writing this.

Matt Stefon lives and writes north of Boston. His latest chapbook is Beyond the Spaghettiville Bridge (Alien Buddha Press). He’s likely forever stuck on 463 all-time wiffle ball home runs, and that’s okay. He can be found on Twitter/X @Matt_Stefon, BlueSky @MattStefonPoems@bsky.social, and Instagram @mattstefon.

by JLM Morton

The walls are playing
with light, just before
twilight, colour of ripe
wheat at Lughnasadh,
the space between
shadows, dog alert
for the fox on the road.

In this time of lean
harvest, just for
a moment, the quiet
song of us beats
in the wisteria,
lambent leaves
on the ceiling.

The gladioli are the reddest
they’ve been all day,
vulvas lit by descending
sun, you, the grip
of my thighs
a vase, calling in
the dusk.

JLM Morton is a British poet and writer. Highly commended by the Forward Prizes and longlisted in the National Poetry Competition, she is the winner of the Laurie Lee and Geoffrey Dearmer prizes. Her first collection is Red Handed (Broken Sleep Books, 2024). Find her online at jlmmorton.com.

by Angela Janda

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.
– Joan Didion

I was in the condo in Red River,
the one with instructions on all the walls:
Turn on / Turn off / Don’t move dial / Empty
upon departure & the youngest was napping
& the oldest was below the dull brown deck
in the swimming pool with his father & I was reading
Joan Didion in the king-sized bed behind the living
room couch & it had been crawling up inside me
the whole trip & at Chapter 17 the recognition was a full
circle, was an egg in my mouth, how in all the years
since the divorce I’d never grieved it, not properly
or improperly—not at all. & when I came
upon it, when I saw the width of my regret, I wrote
him a letter & would have walked south away
from my sleeping baby through the Sangre de Cristos
to deliver it to him, would have taken his face
into my hands so gently that the touch itself
was the transmission, so the touch itself
was what I’ve lost my chance to say

Angela Janda’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, Rattle, HAD, and elsewhere. Her work was a finalist for the 2024 Jack McCarthy Book Prize. She is on most social media sites as @angelajanda (@arjanda on Twitter). More information is available at angelajanda.com.

by Josh Gaydos

Knowing not one of us will see a third jubilee
the prophet instead watches the planes land in Athens,
shade splits the olive tree, trunk splits the clay loam

Knowing the ache in her chest won’t wholly heal
the mother instead watches spokes spin the cul de sac,
her children laugh out the airy road, pedaling snowmelt

Knowing that man could not fly home in flesh
the seamstress instead watches him crash the stolen wings,
embroidery beads, gray stone and marrow

Josh Gaydos (he/him) currently resides in Washington D.C. He is an editor at South Broadway Ghost Society. Josh has been published in Barren Magazine, DIAGRAM, Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine and Roi Fainéant Press. Follow him on X, Bluesky, and Instagram @jgwrites22.

by Jimmy O’Hara

I am the moth watching from your window,
hustling the night shift to collect shiny things;
steadily orbiting round and round then clinging
to the porch bulbs and flickering cellar lights,
my ornate fur staring back to lure and warn.

I am the spider weaving myth into the fold;
the furtive mirage never further than ten feet;
the shadow crawling into your mouth by night,
considering you eight different ways as I lunge
elusively past the patterned webs we are casting.

O the shy, the inward; the dear wallflowers;
the owls perched, watching ever peripherally;
those who observe and absorb, quietly merging
with a wider magnitude—we, too, keep this world
turning. Our work tilts the spiral axis of seasons.

We are the nightmare static freezing you still;
the top-hat phantoms grinning from bedposts
and ceiling corners; wicked aces of spades
waiting for your poker faces to drop
so we can move into the surreal.

We are the bioluminescence glowing
from the revived foliage of tomorrow;
that ancient signal the sea turtles trust
with their nests and lives; the blinking
miracles that June fireflies stir ablaze.

We are the silent fungi keeping the trees linked
and in motion; reserved morticians decomposing
your vitals, converting organ to rich nutrient grain;
the lunar undercurrent lighting an entire kingdom
beneath the layered forest soil and her secrets.

Jimmy O’Hara is a gay writer and editor based in Philadelphia. He often focuses his poetry on memory, spirituality, animal rights, natural systems, and social conscience. His works have been published or are forthcoming in Pictura Journal, Eunoia Review, and Literary Veganism. Jimmy is on Instagram @slimjimjam and you can reach him at jpohara4@gmail.com.