Chanter Literary and Arts Magazine - Spring 2023

chanter

(noun): one who sings, or, the part of the bagpipe that plays a melody

Spring 2023

Macalester College Literary and Arts Magazine

St. Paul, MN

chanter@macalester.edu

chantermagazine.com

Chanter would like to thank the following:

Our generous alumni donor

Professor Matt Burgess

Hozier

Jonah, for the babka

Vermont cheese

The unidentified beeping in TMW office

HourCar, for not working

Macalester’s printer double-sided option, for not working

An ant

Five Guys cajun fries

Editor-in-Chief: Emma Nguyen

Literary Editor: Jamila Sigal Vásquez

Art Editor: Ian Glejzer

Submissions Manager: Nguyễn Trung Kiên

Editors: Zoë Roos Scheuerman, Charley Eatchel

Staff:

Avianna Bui

John Bunting

Tim Delventhal

Giovanni Kear

Calla Lee

Colin Massoglia

Jonah Wexler

Cover art: Furore

watercolor

Ayuna Lamb-Hickson

Editor’s Note

As the sunny Minnesota days multiply and flower blossoms dot campus pathways, the time has come for the board, staff, and contributing artists to share this issue of Chanter. In the looming shadow of COVID-19’s impact and all things that come with stepping back into a familiar space after time away, I had the privilege of approaching the process of putting this magazine together in a different light. During our snowy virtual meeting earlier this semester, I was reminded of how grateful I am for the ability to share a physical space that cherishes the creativity that pulses in the Macalester community. There is nothing like feeling the weight of a poem after it has been read out loud or the palpable delight in discovering new details of a painting together. Like many of the flowers outside, Chanter had a new chance to sprout this spring. Between recalibrating to Zoom and each board member navigating a new position, there has been much growth. Despite all of the trials, the continued dedication of staff and board members to create a space that bears witness to the incredible talent of our fellow students continues to inspire me. This spring, we received an astounding over 80 literature AND art submissions; I cannot be more in awe of all the artists and writers who shared their work with us. The success of this magazine would not be possible without you. Without further introduction, I am so, so excited to present this spring edition of Chanter!

Emma Nguyen Editor-in-Chief, Spring 2023

Sonnet Anna Šverclová

after Diane Seuss

It won’t kill me to be sad again for just a little while, I think every winter, as the gray day stretches before me through Wisconsin, I-94 and a series of numbered roads, “Wallflower” by Bob Dylan on the radio like Dad was here, listening to the music crackle in and out of its life, the gas station worker with the fishing lure tattoo who wouldn’t look me in the eye, who sold me the dill pickle chips and 2 diet cokes I had to can when I got to the ward, like I’d have known they couldn’t give her salt, or caffeine, or anything homemade, and it was sad seeing mom again, nothing bad happened, just the usual sad of her begging to leave that place, any place, and me being so powerless, or maybe spineless, ‘cause I’ll never tell her no, and she keeps reminding me of that promise, Remember when you were five and begged me to tell you that we would always live together? And I look around the ward like, where? But I know I can’t say it, I’m trained, back in The Nursing Home they told us The Demented have the right to live in their minds. Don’t correct. Pivot. Sure, ma, and I mention The New Baby and she pulls out a photo album, says, look, I know this baby isn’t real and I pivot, Did you get my letter? No, of course not, they’re still in the process of searching, aren’t we all? And at the end of the hour she is folded back through the door I can’t enter, and I still haven’t answered any of her calls.

When you come to me

When you come to me it’s in the trunk of my car in the Wolfy’s parking lot. With your hair disgusting and melted cheese staining your pants You have never looked more beautiful in your life. A careless smile across both our faces create wrinkles, so we can look as old as we think we are. Because you and I knew everything.

I haven’t been home since we left, but I close my eyes and I’m running to you again. Barefoot.

The way to your house etched along my scar tissue. You smell of oil paint, peppermint, and mold, and if I focus you’re sitting across from me. Your small fingers wrapped in yarn, sometimes I wonder what they would feel like wrapped in my hair instead.

We could have learned how to love together. I taught you to drive. Could you have taught me how to break down and regrow? Brighter and greener this time, sneaking through your window from the apple orchard growing in your back alley.

Today I watched you pass by Wolfy’s. I prayed to God you thought of me, and I could picture you in your mom’s minivan. Smiling despite your best intentions because I come to you.

With messy hair in the trunk of my car, eating cheese fries, younger than we’d ever been before.

in heat Nguyễn Trung Kiên

im used to the heat of the sun lifting open eyelids, heavy with citrus scent lingering by my side in my hair, my skin, my mind clouded by strands of scotch , the gentle aching for bite-sized breath slipped through your lips

wrinkled words, hollow bed sheets twisted into promises we made to break

when I close my eyes as you came back to my side only to cover what the sun unearths with unbuckled belts and self-destruct texts, — like an agent on a mission to rescue what’s left of a building they themself set on fire , crept in from the back door taking only what they need , leaving me in the heat as the sun ascends

An Ode to the Transient

Natalie Mazey

Pieces of you are embedded in June so I close my eyes and wait for July to come. But July creeps in slow like honey in my dad’s green tea, like watching your face fall when your mom told you your cat died, my left hand in your right, hers catching your cheek. Because every sunset tastes like Arnold Palmers, and every rainstorm is your hands braiding my hair, us perched on the curb sweaty skin scraping against asphalt faded to gray. Every wish on dandelion fuzz is you, building promises like skyscrapers made of one-way glass, and every car ride smells like cinnamon if I turn the music up, if I turn the air conditioning off, sticky air invading like yellowed honeysuckle, your hand in mine if I hold my breath until song ceases reverberating through speakers. Every time I savor vanilla soft serve covered in cherry slushy, it’s your friends’ laughter mingling with the chirping of cicadas, and every moment I pause on the cracked bench walking home from lily pads and willow trees becomes synonymous with your name.

You are goodbyes at midnight, your neighborhood shrouded in silence, the headlights on my car mimicking stars. You are the best parts of June and the worst of July. You said you’d give me the sun; here I sit, gazing at the moon.

Ochre Andrew Banker

02.06.2023

Drowning Vital fall

runs submerged each artery of imagination at the bottom in the silt is she going to the river?

Each week the raindrops conceive new browns in the mud color of leaf and twisted hair and old beer bottle all crusting at the bottom of my boots and streetlights that warp under the surface of memory, dragged up some nights into hard light shapes, still and silent strange

when dawn came up reluctant late and then only as evidence of evening that evening was real and not a melted fever and not just the strange air in your lungs It is still fall in certain eyes and certain pools where there are no sunken clouds but moons, round, fat like mangos on black streetlamp branches that twist and gnarl up in the sky

Now fall is sunk under the surface of the water and the earth and will sink deep and deep where all the other falls go, layered Layers of leaves crushed and dry down to the core down to the molten autumn heart of it all new fall rises in the fibers of trees and cocoons in green leaves till it can fly on great cracked copper wings fall gestates above us she is dreaming now of orange starlight hung up in slender black infinities in their long strides to the west

Clementine

Lucy Clementine McNees

What an unsuitable middle name. To be of clemency, of mercy, I suppose is not to be of me.

I must contend that while its definition is unsuitable, I must have always loved it must have felt safe in saying, calling out to myself, Lucy-Clementine. Gentle. Unromantic. Childish.

My middle name did not originate from the Latin word meaning mercy, my middle name came from a nursery rhyme, a lullaby, Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine. An unforgettable melody to my parents who weren’t ready to watch me grow into an adult so in my time before self-existence, they gave me a forgettable little word to hold onto and keep me young. This is what I believe. This is why Lucy-Clementine feels safe.

My middle name did not originate from the Latin word meaning gentle, it came from my love of the tiny sour orange fruit. Before I had any awareness of body, I practically ate clementines out of existence dropping scrappy peels on the sidewalk outside my house on Oviatt Street and practicing how to peel an orange in one go. Being a child was holding onto that shell of an orange and not shrinking away in fear at its emptiness. Rather, marveling at its ability to remain whole and beautiful when its insides had been ripped out. Being a child is not to exist in ignorance.

Unless you are incredibly and unwaveringly positive about growth, I think growing up is not an ascent into adulthood but rather a descent into awareness. We lose our ability to forget instead we squeeze the world to its last pulp in search of blame, anything to prove our innocence in a world that discounts guilt anyways. We forget we are forgettable. One day, I forget how to marvel at a perfectly removed orange peel. I forget that to be a hollow orange peel is not to be broken, I forget to marvel at how empty and unromantic and young I am. How much I have yet to fill. Or not.

I can feel my middle name dispersed among the future moments in my life: Clementine is merely an unscheduled event that I will attend at different times, Clementine is young and forgettable, unsuitable for a life of remembering past wrongs and accusations. Clementine is meeting little moments of relief, like the satisfaction of biting into a tiny orange slice and meeting unexpected sweetness.

I suppose I will give myself mercy in preparation for this moment. Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine, You are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Do Not Treat This Poem Differently Colin Massoglia

People are strange when you’re not the same. Who will remember your name if they think you’re deranged?

I get to be lonely when left alone

Life can be pain ful L i v i n g with pain h you try to be kind and thoughtful But think kind of they you’re insane

I do grow strange when treated strangely

Because what I like is not the same because knowing me would be a shame danger they see me as a potential stranger They’d rather I be a perfect

I’m always the stranger alone in the rain only my pain. enraged

I try to change, extending a hand hoping they will understand.

They never ask my name. Eyes turn woeful tongues, wicked When smiles grow ugly I know I’m unwanted. I never asked for this pain to be called strange considered deranged enraged Extra strange Estranged.

Interstices

Skye Newhall

after Mary Oliver

I know now the alphabet of crainn*: each letter a sacred piece of connective tissue leading a unique route between our worlds.

I am woven into this interstice, entangled by limbs like heavy thread. I am held between their roots like an infant; finally awake into this copse of unutterable betweenness. Even now, I hear their call: “Stay awhile, go easy, for you are amongst the trees”

*crainn == Irish word for “trees”

Eve’s Dilemma

Rachel Lock

Do you think Eve ever wandered around the milky night sky, naming white dwarves and constellations as she went? Were her knees covered in the dust of the garden, her days spent tenderly caring for the plants as a deer cares for its fawn? Did she garnish herself with the crowns of the pomegranates? Did Eve ever root her hands into the soft soil and pull forth the vegetation of the land, the pear, the date and the carob?

Do you think she ever weaved her body between the thick leaves of the fig tree, wondering what lay outside the walls of the garden, yelling out, hoping to feel the fiery bonds of human connection? And when her calls went unanswered she settled her body down on the soft bed of the lush garden floor, allowing the grassy tendrils to hug her naked flesh.

Do you think Eve ever thought to herself, laying under the cover of stars next to a man, his ribcage broken, bruised, and bloodied, that a mistake had been made? That maybe her creator had slipped and with one wrong strike of a blade created a world that was never supposed to be. And when the moon was at its brightest and the stars shone at their most brilliant, she turned on her side to face the stranger, his lips blue and breaths shallow, feeling the broad loneliness of their seclusion as she realized she was his only chance of life.

And it’s possible that as she wandered through the garden, searching for poppies and willow bark to ease the man’s pain, she saw the silhouettes of winding streams and hugging vines and felt as though the hills and valleys of this new land were sculpted into the cavities of her brain. The fleshy lips of the land smiled and laughed at Eve as she climbed from the garden’s hips, across her breasts and through the pond of her heart, her face warmed by the friction of the full moon against the velvety sky. The geese stuck their heads into the pond to quench their all consuming thirst, to feel the squirming bodies of the minnows and guppies between their teeth, to silence the bitter croak of the frog. And in the moments where Eve’s body was fully submerged under the surface of the water, her toes tangled in the hair of the seaweed, wolves cried out to their mother moon, longing for Eve just as the weary deer longs for the relief of the stream.

Do you remember the song of turtledove, the beating of hoofs of the young stag against the soft carpet of grass, or the call of the canary, which joined in on the symphony of the garden? Or do you just remember how the hand of existence pulled Eve from the warm waters of the garden’s soul and flung her into a bush of rose thorns, her fragile limbs bloodied and bruised as she crawled back to the cradle of earth where the man lay, clutching remedies in her right fist.

And as she mashed her ingredients on the back of a turtle’s rounded shell, she felt her heart pound against its cage and when she spread the paste on the man’s ribs, she whispered a silent prayer to a god who had long since forgotten her. Maybe as the sun peeked through the veil of night and the man’s cheeks blushed with the returning signs of life, Eve collapsed on top of his chiseled form and cried the world’s first, soul shaking tears. And the carob pods fell from their tree and the bells of the lily of the valley bowed their heads in reverence for what was to come.

Do you think that Eve wept with the willows when the man turned his back to her? When he arose from his sick bed and moved about her garden, as if Eve had never wiped his feverish sweat from his perfectly sculpted brow. Do you think that, as the man demanded her complete deference, Eve mourned for her holy hearth, who had only known her soft touch until the cries of the man rang across the canyons of her independence?

And what of the fig trees, adorned in the glories of Eve’s labors, left to rot under the man’s abandonment? The raspberry, blueberry, cranberry jewels of the garden’s crown strewn on the overgrown garden floors, corrupted and rotting from the inside out, slowly killing the garden’s limbs with infection. Did the man even notice the garden’s gradual demise? Did he notice the way pestilence ravaged her calves or the way that all her rivers ran brown with contamination? Did he notice when the warbler stopped crying out, or when the garden’s fiery fever blazed on? Or did he just pull a pomegranate from a nearby tree, scrape seeds from their shelves and shovel them into his mouth, their blood staining his cuticles.

Who told the chicks to waddle back to their mothers? Who kissed the head of the wolf as tears ran down his snout? Did the man hold the garden as she took her last, shuddered breaths? Did his scorched and weary palms feel her slowing heartbeat? Or was it just Eve, desperate to save her kin from a similar fate of neglect, plucking the grape from the vine and the apple from the tree, so that the children of tomorrow could enjoy what once was.

before hits harder than after; 4:27am

Anonymous

there is something about regret that always hits you too hard too much, too fast regret and then regret and then regret who am i to decide my life what am i doing

but sometimes after is worse than before; 5:59am

Anonymous

i can not sleep your snores a beacon in my ears i wish i was better at no than i want i really wish i was because i wish always turn into yes which always, as i drench myself turns into no what am i supposed to do he is here lending warmth i have never had except for from the friends i constantly long for he is here and i no longer want it but it’s six am and i cant leave anymore the hand to my stomach a possession a need a want a desire an obligation i told him tomorrow morning would be hard, harder than a tomorrow morning he’s ever had. i should probably leave so tomorrow is a never i have to deal with but here i am listening to the snores of a congested drunk man while i hate myself over and over again again over and over, as i long for something other than this me.

I LIVE A LONELY LIFE

Emma Gonzalez Cueto

(things i think of in bed):

i lay at night a lonely night in the presence of absent light,,, and feel alone. it’s nice safely, nicely, i retrace thoughts from the past thoughts being born; where were they conceived?

i live lonely nights in the comfort of my own home; soft blankets of red and grey and the sheets I never change and the pillows made of memories, absorbing all my dreams — of the life i don’t have and the feelings i can’t shake — the sometimes cat and the heart that always aches

when it’s gotten to be too much and I know my thoughts now all too well i choose to go to sleep break away from the peaceful pain of the anxiety that kicks in right before I start to dream to enter a world where anything can happen, and I’d come out unscathed to wake up, forget it all, and do it all over again

One. Two.

Making teardrop tea

Eva Markham Select your finest vessel preferably some kind of special plastic cup From five years old, ideally it would wear a handle, Something strong for you to hold and

Keep it handy: can be kept up on a shelf, or in a cupboard, Maybe better yet, you keep it by your bed, and let Dust hover: a particulate blur, hummingbird, a soft cover Noncommittal enough to depart when you blow, now

Three.

Wait for the storm. Or wait for a wind at least, breeze, Check the trees and make note of the leaves, but you’re well rehearsed And you know when it’s coming Or maybe you don’t, and it sometimes feels sudden, but either way,

Four.

Vessel to cheek. Handle in hand, holding strongly, and oddly? You might find your storm has resigned, maybe changed his mind, Maybe put off by the process, the stockpiling Maybe in making objective collection, you’ve baffled your storm out of being upset so

Five.

Time for decision. First:

You can take your cup back to its sitting position, quit bitching, transition Accept that you’re fine or accept that you’re missing some Critical system, some nerves, or your verve, maybe worms have infested or Second: Maybe you’ve managed to catch just enough

To invite your resident ladybug up In which case it comes to me highly recommended That you tell her, straight forward, the origin, of what you are pouring her Ladybugs are known for their notorious compassion So you shouldn’t feel embarrassed by your tear-for-tea transaction

It’s normal. Like Yogi but affordable. Absorb and Analyze Your Crying through this Five-Step Tear-Tea Guide.

Holiday Rosa

God I’m so tired

But I don’t think I can sleep

It’s 4

444444444444444444444

Fuck 4

I wanna ruin myself

I wanna pull out my veins and tie them in my hair

Pretty red braids

A thin red bow

I could wear my ovaries as earrings

A fistfull of guts

I’m going to redecorate my room

Bloody fleshy

But all mine

White red hot

Hot pink pain

I’m going to be Barbie

After I shave off my thighs

And shatter my feet

Mattel might sell me in a little cardboard box

I’ve already got the tits

Twist my leg right around

Like a pencil snapping I imagine

Nothing so insidious as sepsis

Or infection

No this is art

I’m going to literally rip myself apart

I wonder if I’m capable of it

Or maybe I’m just trying to vomit

Maybe I’m trying to make myself so sick I can’t take it anymore

And I go mad

What the fuck is wrong with me

I’m reaching into the pit of my stomach

My knuckles are slowly being digested

Fingers prodding into liver and kidney through my stomach lining

It’s a feat

I’ve shoved my own arm down my throat

I’m choking on my own fucking elbow

Digging for some kind of pain

IV. A Saint Asa Gutow

1. Martyrdom

A tree. Branch, root. I am You, I am watching you From the roof, Looking down on you. I am Your lover watching you, Loving you, loving The rope binding you, Holding you, as you Love to be held, as you Die. As

If I Did not love you.

2. Martyrdom

A tender, tending. Lover, Loving. Noun, Adjective, verb. Living, Saint, Dying. You will not be

If you do not die. You Will be.

3. Martyrdom

Yes. Death.

4. Martyrdom

Be held. Be holy. Behold: You. I. The holy city: She, a wound. You, a wound. You, my wound. I, hers, Yours, only

Bleeding. Only The blood.

All Fours

Adrien Wright

These nights I am on two knees or fewer — one in the desert, one in the mountains. I am a man in a wood with a shotgun and a good eye: one for the hoof, one for the teeth.

For every collector there is a collection: a magpie’s nest, a black hole, miles of corkboard heavy with moth wings in some basement, choked of light. There’s a way these things are done. Nudge the legs down and hold. Twist the arms up and beg.

For every collector, there is someone trying to make a thing look alive. You and this body are in a war that has nothing to do with me. You are trying to drill wells in this body and I am trying to bleed free of this body and my body wants to stop being bombed.

I know how it feels to tell something to stay alive. Feels like warming it in your hands, looks like snow on the airfields. I keep throwing myself into the sky and landing back under the skim of desert. I have seen your freezer weighed by hundreds of moths in tupperware, pulled and stretched, eyes glazed upwards towards the blue light.

Inchydoney

Skye Newhall

after David Whyte

Go now to where you can feel the cool embrace of clouds and the valiant churning of wind.

Go now to where the chilled ocean waves leave aural footprints in the wake of your conscious and haunted mind.

Stand as sure as the ground on the shore when you defy your reluctance to be yourself.

Open to the greater conversation between all the elements of existence: wake into this unutterable now, present to this river meadow and current amidst your sunrise over the waking horizon.

Measure your absence from the world by your presence in the tide; ebbing, flowing…

Bitter Spring Valley Sunrise

acrylic on wood (skateboard)

Ayuna Lamb-Hickson

origami still life

graphite

Asa Rallings

Time Flies

digital photography

Daniel Seo

Summer’s Greens

digital photography

Emma Nguyen

promontory (me & you)

earthenware

Henry Tyson

Maddie Sabin

Samui oil

Kai Tan

Carmen Quintos

One Gladiator vs. An Enigmatic Duo digital

Nicholas Lobaugh

Hound and Bug

graphite and watercolor

Taylor Sibthorp

digital photography

Daniel Seo

Lotus

basswood

Andrew Banker

take this to your tomb (loutrophorus)

clay

Henry Tyson

Inferno #48

acrylic

Noah Hanson

Modern Additions (Saint John the Evangelist and Two Pigions) ink and marker

John Gross

Peeks Underwater acrylic on wood

Kai Martin

Intimate Detail

digital and ink

Nicholas Lobaugh

All the Lovers in Saint Paul

Chloë Moore

after Aracelis Girmay

you are who i love, bringing your dog to the coffee shop every morning, and welcoming touch-starved college students to love her as much as you do,

and later, tacking a shakily written sign to the notice board, announcing her passing,

and i love you, the responders to that same eight and a half by eleven sheet, saying, thank you, and we miss her already, and we loved her as much as you do

you are who i love, making conversation with the people next to you at the front row of the concert before the show starts, talking about this band and the other, saying “see you around,” after the band leaves,

making promises that we will meet again, not wishes or hopes but certainties, that yes, our paths will cross again, maybe at a different venue in another month

you are who i love, you throwing a birthday party in your front lawn, inviting everyone who drives by to HONK! TOM IS 40!, and tom smiling shyly and playing cornhole,

and tom, i love you too, and had i been in a car i would’ve honked, but being on foot i only waved

you are who i love, drunk in the bathroom and complimenting everyone’s hair, and stumbling out of the fluorescents back into the hallway

you are who i love, taking photos of the river and realizing you’ve caught friends laughing in the foreground, and airdropping the small moment, how the smiles transcend cyberspace

you are who i love, bustling metropolis of neighbors, sharing saline solution and ridesharing, lending quarters for blue gatorade from the vending machine, commenting on the weather, holding doors,

you, who i love, making each day a little more bearable for the ones coming up after you

A Study of Set Theory with my Mother Disjuncted Adrien Wright

Each collected element must exist prior to the act of collection

sets, tomatoes, or Gila monsters

— On this, we disagree.

P BENACERRAF

On the 13th of April 1961, this work was interrupted Here: all the things I am doing instead of calling you: { return. construct. arrange. Gila monster. Gila monster. Gila monster. { You cannot contain yourself, You do not contain yourself. }}

I have your curls. You cut your hair short when I did. I hang to your shelf, corkboarded, I exist before you. I will exist after you tomato tomato The choices made naturally very arbitrary.

J DOFF

Each fall — naturally I shave my head clean of you. In the sink basin {little knives of curl. little monster. little monster.}

albeit a deviant or fragmentary or fragmentary

Mother, your gestures, your mother’s: There is no way to make this break clean. She contains. You contain. I cannot.

G BOOLOS

a family history of dementia

KJ Kieras

or:

when my grandfather’s memory goes, so will another memory of my mother, leaking honey ‘til all that’s left is an empty jar

the first thing he forgot is which jokes he has told before, asking if my grapes are grapes of wrath even when i eat them three times a day

i imagine he got the jokes from her, his breath held in anticipation of the last laugh it’s his way of telling me to remember

let me tell you a story:

she ran away at twenty to the mountains, working as a maid in a cabin a year after the cancer spread through her blood cells her lungs craved open air

i see her against the blue of the sky snow melting on her open palm

what strange grief is this?

i unwrap my grief to find another grief

my grandfather crying at the christmas party over my mom how he stepped off a plane and saw her smiling from the ground, arms full of two baby girls — my sisters.

desperately rebuilding her with the sand of my grandfather’s memory, test running different versions of her laugh; someday, i’ll have to retell the story of her with my sisters in her arms and i don’t think i’ll do it right

he stepped off a grief and saw her smile melting into the ground arms full of empty jars

let me tell you a story: she ran away at thirty, or eighty to the desert, maybe the ocean working in a roadside motel, a gas station that smelled like honey 10 years before the infection spread, or

10 years after the sickness died her body craving a slow-heat infection

i see her on a summer night, in the rain her skin lit up in the glow of the moon, or the hotel sign

i had a mother once or maybe it was just the shape of her — my grandpa tells me she was something special; when i close my eyes to picture it, it’s’ all just honey

she who left the party early she

who went home to rest while my grandfather stayed for one more dance

she left quickly the first time two days for her immune system to burn up now, she leaves my grandfather slowly, in the kindest way she knows how

in a memory blink or wishful thinking my grandfather calls me his daughter laughs, and apologizes with a voice like a sink left running washing a memory clean

someday, in an empty jar, he will dance with her again: spinning her and laughing as her skirt flares out, the taste of honey on his tongue, the rest of us staring in, breath fogging up the glass, his arms empty as he spins around the living room alone

A Meditation on Sobriety

Lucy Clementine McNees

If he turns his head to look at you, you would never know the vase of sticky syrup he holds gently in his hands by that smile. The stack of pancakes posed carefully atop his head, his mind consistently concerned with their stillness. The headache he gets from being around his brother snorting cocaine, the migraine of stubbornness he must lean into while surrounded by sickly sweet maple syrup he cannot lick. Melting in between his fingers and sticking behind his ears, yet all that appears is a cleanly pressed suit of hidden temptation. He has poured some full piece of him into that greater power that sits atop his head, asked it to balance this extreme and stuffing breakfast plate for him, touching and touching but never tasting. With eyes closed, sobriety is easier. All you can feel is the syrup dripping down your neck but it doesn’t exist to the naked eye, just as his temptation appears to no one but him. With eyes closed, brotherhood is difficult. Perhaps they need to switch who is balancing the pancakes, who is serving the sobriety syrup. Perhaps snorting cocaine in front of your happily sober brother caused his hand to shake, a drop to spill, and what sweet child would not lick spilled syrup from their palm?

Newly Resurfaced Miles Libbey

Climbing with four furry toes going flat up to the air And the other fleshy five coming down on the big boulder that was safe from the wolves And the other coming down on top of the earth. Two flat feet propelled me: I leapt And dove into the ground

Feeling my fingers break the surface tension and then my body fully engulfed as the dirt swims past me.

Paddling deeper and deeper with my clawed paws until the ground no longer feels soggy or dirty on my star nose but warm

Where I can make a spot to cuddle into And tuck and twist my segments in to lose my head and tail to the dirt. Until, like the groundhog or the bear in Winter I’m ready to resurface to the world And stand on two firm feet.

Site of Soul

Holiday Rosa

Give me a cross

A veil

Make me holy with these material things

Tell me there was a reason

And that there is an after

And I’ll give you the time of day and All the pieces of my stitched together soul

But I can’t give it up

All the unknowing

All this surety

I want nothing to do with another voice

Which only seeks to fill silence

I reject your god and seek only

finality

I crave your structure your piety

I crave the belonging

The knowing

The community

I crave a silk headscarf

And the blessing of a priest

And the wings of an angel

Give me something to touch in the dark night

Something in a fourth dimension

Someone to hold my hand

Give it a name this thing you trust And convince me that I too Shall be saved

But I can’t give it up

All the woman I have been building

She is mine

And belongs to no higher power

But the billions of years of rock beneath my feet

I belong to no one

But the mountain ranges

And the ocean trenches

I want to know humanity

To connect with this billion strong personhood

To embrace those around me

In a different sense

To cloak myself in some kind of Transient assurance

I watch the nerve endings around me

Come to similar conclusions

Even reject salvation

On the grounds of personal dignity

But I am no deep thinker

There is no wise woman here

I am only a bundle of atoms

I am only a mix of chemical reactions

And leftover energy

A vibrational mass giving itself meaning

Based on unbalanced charges and Deeper electricity

I belong to the Nevada desert

I took life from California fields

And breathed American air

And whence I came

I shall return

My bones will become fossilized something

Or perhaps nothing

I won’t be rock

But I might be soil

I might be

I might be quiet for once

I really am pyrite I think

Fools gold

And your god doesn’t know me

Or at least I can’t see him

Because I have no beginning nor end

I am only what the tectonic plates have decided

And what the pacific tides planned

I crave your knowing

And yet it is a sort of sacrilege to believe in anything but time

Between Me, and Me Brett Dunn

When I dreamt last night, two of me:

I dreamt of me;

I am holding myself, tender and intimate. I smell my shampoo underneath four days of untouched hair, and I see streaks of blond reminiscence from the sad haircut lying between my legs. I am coddling myself close;

I look down at the side profile of a face of closed eyes. I am curled and I am fetal. I gaze at myself, a different body in my lap with arms sheltering, and I kiss myself all over my head.

Kisses of a lover: kisses on my ears, kisses on my eyelids squeezing tight, and kisses along my nose down to my freckled cheeks.

I remember the warmth of my body, warmer than mine. Then my eyes wept until my body in my lap bathed in tears, and my body glanced up to me, long in the pupils.

“Why do you sob at the sight of yourself?” my eyes ask, and then we wept some more until we both awoke, only one body drowning in gray sheets.

queer sex

Noah Velick

everytime

after i have sex with you,

i bask in the post-orgasm dopamine (yours or mine)

then close my eyes and say in prayer: thank you to the queers who came before us. thank you to the people who fought

fucked suffered loved

i do not take you for granted.

we lay together in bed

i notice the texture of the sheets

i notice your thumb tracing my inner thigh like a question mark

i notice that you are still wearing socks

i know what was once at stake to be here with you.

i do not take it for granted.

i do not take it for granted.

i do not take it for granted. amen

It’s in the chirping of the cicadas that I hear the voice of God

Rachel Lock

My friends tumbling out of the body of the repurposed church, bellies full of joy, sounding our own cries of delight into the night Running to greet the Shabbat bride.

And the swaying of the shrouded people could almost put me to sleep but it’s the first cold night after a hot summer and my dad wraps me in his tallis safely cloaked in a holy cocoon of love.

Do the trees know their leaves will grow back in the spring? Or do they mourn the death of their beloved each fall? And who takes care of the scapegoat when he’s sent to the woods? Does the goat return

to the barn of his master, his back weary from the weight of our sins? Or does he wander into the arms of Azazel, cold and rotting in the thick wilderness. Does his heart ever let out an extra beat when

he feels the cold night’s prayer on his cheek? Or perhaps he bleats a prayer of hope as he loses his way in the thicket. All I know is the first cold plunge into a spring on a humid

summer’s day the burn of hot tea on impatient lips the way the land fits perfectly with the sea And the cicadas, crying into the night for the warmth of their love.

A Poem For My Grandma And Her Sweaters Eliza King

My grandmother’s love language is gifts, I think. When we made the drive down to see her once a year she always commented on how I’ve grown. How tall and beautiful I’ve become. And then she’d pull out a tape measure, a pencil, a paper to mark down my measurements. She’d tell me to lift my arms, push my shoulders down, stretch the tape from my shoulder to wrist.

A few months later, a package in the mail would show up. Inside, wrapped in pale pink tissue paper would be a sweater, handmade with the measurements she so carefully took the last time she saw me.

I didn’t see her enough when she lived close. I never had to wear the sweaters when we visited. And I feel bad. All of her love for me poured into her hard work, manifested as something to keep me warm. The distance between us she tries to fill with sweaters and love, to protect me from the cold and the life she knows can be cruel.

She knows that fathers leave, has seen it happen with her father, her husband, her son, but she also knows they can come back. Love can ebb and flow like the tide in the salty ocean that separates her from childhood.

But the sweaters never fit quite right. Beautifully made, with intricate stitches and flowers, gardens of stars on the sleeves that wind into constellations of petals and leaves on the body, encasing me in an awkward hug that doesn’t fit the careful design. Because my shoulders are too broad, my arms too long, it is too short for my torso. I am not petite like her. I tower above her with the height from my mother’s father. The space between us grows each time I see her.

I do not wear her sweaters that illuminate the distance between us. Too many cities to count between mine and hers. I have not heard her voice in years, only see it in broken English on the computer screen when we exchange emails once a month. And the love she pours into her sweaters seeps out into the dark corners of my closet.

Free Sheep

Zoë Chinander-McFaul

A sandy Prussian blue relief, rolled and inked on a scrap of newsprint. I worked late on the night of your birthday. The ink lodged itself under my nails. A proof

is a print — a test of your first lino cuts. I see, the sheep is constrained in a rectangular world: moon, mound and melting snow. It is happy to be bound

by edges. I wanted to be free-shaped after you. No longer barened onto newsprint (you printed me on a leaf) but scraped past your edges, ink lodged under your nails.

But unlike the sheep, stillborn forever on a scrap, I can’t bear to be an afterthought.

My Home is a Graveyard

Natalie Mazey

My home is a graveyard

Built to mourn the living Post-it notes planted on kitchen cabinets Act as headstones painted blue.

Lilacs wilt on granite countertops

Amongst mail growing up like weeds, Invasive and persistent A reminder roses — here — once bloomed.

We scrape photographs from walls Like moss clinging to tree bark Then bury the living in boxes shut with packing tape.

We change the locks To keep out the ghosts

Forgetting walls cannot stop spirits from passing through.

We start over without an end Watching ivy scale brick walls Slow at first, then all at once.

I watch as time molds a home into a house As five voices fade to three.

I watch as white lies are tainted red in my sleep.

I pray my pain has taken root here That it will only take leaving to let go So I exit the door with eggshell paint peeling And exit the two-car garage with a code My fingers haven’t memorized And say

Goodbye

To the ghosts and the walls they occupy. No one teaches you to mourn the living But I’ve found it’s a game of playing pretend. So I run away — No.

I run towards —

Something alive,

Something growing, Something new.

on the mountain

Zoë Roos Scheuerman

I went snow-blind, somersaulting between bone-white earth and dust-pale sky, the whole landscape looking like God had run over the mountains with his car, no differentiation or dimension. My only lighthouse was the aurora, undulating like the forfeiter’s flag. A flash of orange, like a traffic cone. The feet of a puffin, who for a moment sits on the same rock and then flew away.