by Scott Neuffer

November 9, 2022
2:32 a.m.
Love, they’ve taken over the school board.
I wander our Nevada home and poke the rubbery pizza
in the fridge the same way I poke the ash-gray sore
on the inside of my jaw. My doctor was right
about politics.
7:37 a.m.
Love, a magpie dipped through the morning light
without a sound. I want to follow it to a new world
where the days are long forever. Tell our children
everything will be okay.

January 2, 2023
5:40 a.m.
Love, did you hear the icicles cracking last night
like old teeth? We are in the maw of winter.
As I guided you in your car out of the garage,
I thought you’d murder me, finally.
Justice is a red-hot engine.
6:47 a.m.
Love, how can we demand anything
in this feeble daylight?
The preachers have gone to the roofs with rifles in hand.
I am here, ground floor, a bag of flesh.

February 4, 2023
4:50 a.m.
Love, it snowed again. I don’t believe in God,
but I worry God is trying to kill us –
a touch of anxiety in the way I sext.
6:19 a.m.
Love, I like the picture you sent me.
What I mean is behind the image is a flickering
dark heart. I’ve seen this heat before,
at the root of the mind. It sputters like a kiss.
As long as I last I give myself to it.
The snow will melt in long glittering drips.
What I’m trying to say is I miss you.

Scott Neuffer is a writer who lives in Nevada with his family. He’s also the founding editor of the literary journal trampset.

by Janice Northerns

Take the land in your hands
and cut along imaginary lines
drawn on a map. Cut deep enough
to fling the past over your shoulder,

a scrap you no longer want to keep.
You’ve been told measure twice, cut once,
but the cutting always comes before
the measuring of what you’ve done.

See how the outline you’ve scissored
is in the shape of a name—your father’s,
your grandfather’s—yours. Steal the deed
in your sleep and know as you register

its edges, the paper is too large
to smuggle into the light. Begin folding
it in half, once for the land your grandfather
sold to make a lake, and again for pieces

parceled to your father and his siblings.
Fold until you are left with just these few
dry acres, evaporating, but impossible
to bend into thin air. Keep creasing

this origami apology until
it is reduced to a hard white pebble.
Slip it into your left shoe. Let every
bruised step recall your ancestors’ heels

grinding into dust those who walked
this ground before locks, before keys,
before deeds. Will time to run backwards,
turning you upside down until

the pebble floats through your blood,
lodging between lungs and heart. Feel
the catch as each exhaled breath coalesces
into the persistent ghost of erasure.

Janice Northerns is the author of  Some Electric Hum, (Lamar University Literary Press, 2020), winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, the Nelson Poetry Book Award, and  a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in Texas and continues to draw inspiration for her writing from her rural upbringing. Her poetry has been widely published and recognized with a number of awards, including a Pushcart nomination. She lives in Kansas and is currently working on a hybrid collection of poetry and essays inspired by the life of Cynthia Ann Parker.

by Mark Saba

A memory that says I was there
even if you didn’t want to be.
Another version of self
that flip-flopped between what you were
and weren’t. A vague premonition

of a better future, even if
you didn’t believe it.
Rings of fire you jumped through,
the burns coming later
dried up into scars.

A checklist that followed everyone
but you. Following a way
that offered spectacular views
of foreign lands, climates
there to nurture unknowns.

And those times you strayed
holding your heart in calloused hands—
blood trailing—you were there
but once, and no one noticed
that you were gone.

A native of Pittsburgh, Mark Saba has been writing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for 40 years. His most recent book publication is Flowers in the Dark (poetry). Other works include Calling the Names (poetry), Two Novellas: A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice, and Ghost Tracks: Stories of Pittsburgh Past. His work has appeared widely in literary magazines around the U.S. and abroad. He is also a painter, and recently retired from Yale University as a medical illustrator and graphic designer. Please see marksabawriter.com.

by Jared Beloff

follow the line
from the mallard’s bright foot

pointed skyward to its wing
tucked, head searching the calm below

confident as a diver and nothing
amiss—ignore the bitter fruit’s

protuberance, the shade of a table,
contrast of the kitchen wall’s ochre

or the great open wing
feathers ruffled, held by the hollow

bone, ligaments like thin twine
stretched beyond the thigh,

one leg left open
as if searching for purchase

or a reminder, even now,
of life’s cruel arrangement.

Inspired by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin’s painting.

Jared Beloff is the author of WHO WILL CRADLE YOUR HEAD (ELJ Editions, 2023). He is the editor of the Marvel inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses (Daily Drunk, 2021) and has been a peer-reviewer for Whale Road Review since 2021. His work can be found at Night Heron Barks, Barren Magazine, River Mouth Review, The Shore, Contrary and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @Read_Instead and see his website jaredbeloff.com. He is a teacher who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters.

by Natalie Marino

A mess
of vagueness,

you are also
anything

you want to be,
a changeling.

You are a fortune
of fish,

a dying king,
an escaped

dove’s wing.
You hold

the moon
in your pocket

and camouflage
shy stars.

You are a young girl
with roses

murmuring
to the sky.

You grow
into a nimbus

and foreshadow
angry water,

making the rivers
quiver.

Natalie Marino is a poet and physician. Her work appears in Atlas and Alice, Gigantic Sequins, Isele Magazine, Plainsongs, Pleiades, Rust + Moth, The Shore, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, Under Memories of Stars, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (June 2023). Her Twitter handle is @NatalieGMarino and she is on Instagram @natalie_marino. She lives in California.