Riggwelter #29 by Riggwelter

RIGGWELTER #29 SEPTEMBER 2020 ed. Jonathan Kinsman

The following works are copyrighted to their listed authors ÂŠ2020. Riggwelter Press is copyrighted to Jonathan Kinsman ÂŠ2017.

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Foreword 4 Its Own Impossibility 5 Terrible Beauty 6 Ring of Roses 7 Yurt Boy 8 Dude, where's my skin? 12 Saint of Morrow & of Missing 13 3 Minutes in a Baptist Church in Careyville, KY 14 Laurustinus 21 A Beaching 22 Someone Has Been Careless 25 Possum Dreaming 26 Expectation 27 Swans Reflecting Elephants 28 to god, who never learned how to swim 29 Holler 30 Head Garden 31 A Road Trip Through Colorado 32 Backyard 33 Mate in Twelve 34 Lockdown Buzzcut 37 ghost girl(s) 38 Decolonise 2 40 Ashes 41 Persephone, Early Spring 44 Heaven’s Height 45 In Big Little Lies, Meryl Streep Says To Reese Witherspoon That Some People in This World Are “Wanters” 46 synonym 47 Teens and their Mothers (A Fairy-tale) 48 I’m sorry I’d like to help but my head is literally monsters 51 Portrait of my dad as a woodsman 52 I am trying to talk about you without mentioning your name, so I say 53 Blue Planet 54 Elephant Grief 55 Kathryn No 60 Contributors 61 Acknowledgements 66

Foreword

Hello friends and welcome to the twenty-ninth issue of Riggwelter. We hope that some of you out there managed to enjoy the summer while it lasted, but for many of us this year didn’t exactly have one – but just like 1816, out of the misery of being stuck indoors has risen some truly wonderful art. This issue is all about relationships – lust, romance, infatuation, longing, but also sadness, bitterness, violence and anger. These relationships are not just between lovers but also between parents and children, art and artist and reconciling ourselves with, well, ourselves. We hope they delight, intrigue and frighten you as much as they have done us. Some thanks are in order before we begin. As always, many thanks to our readers, submitters, contributors and everyone that has promoted us on social media or out in the world. Word of mouth has taken a DIY project put together by one guy in his house a hell of a long way. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. And to those of you out there thinking hey, maybe I should start a litmag – do it. Who’s permission are you waiting for? See you in October for spoooooky season.

Jonathan Kinsman (Founding Editor)

Its Own Impossibility

There is always a body between you and the body inside your body the oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;unwanted & the oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;unaltered & the other unalloyed body in-between your body and the body you have coastlines of paradoxes like wildflower buckles and ribboned thunder clouds of unknowing Brandon Noel

Terrible Beauty

What dim light shines on the edge of everything wraps us in staccato warmth, wraps us in its mercy like a small branch cradling a nest of birds - wind-blown, dried grass like scattered seeds spotting the waterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edge - and I am the bird grazing its beak across a rippling river. I am the cold, the moon-shadow, I am the birch-root, the faded stone. I empty myself at your feet, my pillowed grasses, my sprouted stalk. Watch my hawk spiral from deep clouds, watch it swing across the sea, as if to say: here is this terrible beauty, it is yours. Andrew McSorley

Ring of Roses

I saw her snap a man’s finger clean, pull out the bone like a concealed love letter and swallow it, nail and all. I’ve seen her weave eyes by their roots into a comical pearl necklace that oozes black from the point of her shoulder blade. I’ve seen her smile like an electric chair, blow kisses, and take a bow to applause louder than the terror left behind, ringing, ringing, ringing. Kathryn O’Driscoll

Yurt Boy

When you told me that you had a yurt, I started fancying you even more. Yurt Boy was the nickname that I gave you, though I didn't tell anyone this. “He's got a yurt.” And as I walked around the town, I looked at all of the other shoppers and I tried to work out, from their demeanour and the aspect of their gait, whether they also had yurts. It seemed to me that most of them didn't. That night I looked in the mirror and I said to myself, “Tonight, I shall be in a yurt, with my Yurt Boy, and we shall have fun in that twiggy paradise getting to know each other, and if nothing happens, or if it ends badly, then at the very least I can tell people that I have been in a yurt.” “It seems somewhat improbable,” I wrote in my diary, “that a whole relationship should be based on the promise of, and the availability, of a yurt.” That afternoon I knocked at the door of your terraced home. It looked just like a normal street, not the sort of street where someone might have a yurt, and none of the neighbouring houses looked like the sort of house that would neighbour a house with a yurt. You opened the door after a while, and you let me in with a flourish. “So good to see you,” you said, grinning. “Yurt,” I blurted, but then I came to my senses. “I mean, yes, it's great to be here.” “Do come in.” The living room looked ordinary enough, but you could probably tell by the way I was lingering that I wasn't interested in seeing the living room. It looked just like any other living room.

“Can I get you a tea? A coffee?” “A yurt would be fine, thanks. I mean, a coffee.' Why did I say that? I'm an idiot. I don't even like coffee. “Tea. Tea would be great. Haha, sorry, don't know why I said that.” You smiled and invited me to take a seat. Good idea, I thought, because it's probably going to be pretty uncomfortable in that yurt, just sitting on the floor, on the moss and the grass, so I manhandled a wooden chair and raised it aloft. “Not literally,” you laughed. “You're such a joker…” “Oh,” I replied, putting the chair down. “And watch out for the lamp-shade.” Silly me, perhaps we weren't going out in the yurt just yet. I plonked myself down on the sofa as you busied yourself in the kitchen with the kettle and the tea-making paraphernalia. I looked around the living room and it all looked so very ordinary, not the sort of living room where someone who owns a yurt spends a great deal of time. There wasn't even a photo on the wall of the yurt, just a wan abstract and a landscape of somewhere Dutch. You came back into the room with a tray of tea. “So,” you said, “tell me a little about yourself.” You must have known that I was only there for the one reason, so it seemed something of a sham to partake in normal conversation, but I did my best, telling you all about my upbringing and my various jobs and I finished the whole spiel with an ode to the idea of drinking yak's milk in a yurt, because I thought that this would appeal to your aesthetics and your innate sense of taste, Yurt Boy.

But then you just blathered on about your own life, like a normal person might, and my mind started wandering just after you left sixth form, and I looked at the wan abstract and tried to discern the shape of a yurt amid its formless multicoloured squiggles. “And do you know what I did then?” you asked, at one point during your monologue. “Built a yurt?” “Somehow got into the fascinating world of risk assessment and risk management.” “Oh.” And still you droned on. And with a sense of doom I started to wonder if you had a yurt at all, and whether you were just some kind of yurt flirt, tempting unsuspecting middle-aged men into your terraced house with the promise of a yurt just to bore them with tales of risk assessments and risk management. “...with three or four different criteria used to measure the likelihood, and indeed, the impact of certain risks. The first of these, which we call, appropriately enough, high risk, involves possible - nay, probable - loss of life and…” “I'm going to the loo,” I suddenly blurted. “Upstairs, second on the left.” The stairs were fairly steep and narrow, much like, I thought, the slopes of the Himalayas, where one wouldn't probably build a yurt if one could help it. At the top of the stairs the bathroom announced itself with a ceramic plaque which read Bathroom, and once the door was opened, it had all of the usual accoutrements of a normal bathroom including a frosted window, the view from which was distorted and as an

abstract as the wan and squiggly abstract on the wall downstairs. I didn't need to pee, but I went through the whole procedure, then, before flushing, opened the window wide and looked out. The yurt sat there on his back lawn, somewhat smaller than I had envisaged, though real, nonetheless. My heart skipped a beat on seeing it. At first, I thought, no, perhaps it's just a reality big bonfire, the kind of bonfire you see on television, but it was definitely a yurt, and I really couldn't wait to get inside it. His neighbour was busy in her back garden, hoeing the borders. She looked up and saw me leaning out of the bathroom window. “Nice yurt isn't it?” she asked. “Yes, it is.” “Though he doesn't seem the sort, does he?” “Not really, but you can never tell, can you?” “I suppose not.” I closed the bathroom window, flushed the toilet, and washed my hands. I then made my way back down the narrow stairs. I thought to myself, I'll give him ten more minutes on risk assessment, and then I'll ask if I can see his yurt. I could feel the excitement rising within me.

Robert Garnham

Dude, where's my skin?

Wine-stained & stupid, my fingers are missile silos & my mouth the abyss; a war of inconsistent truth-telling — my mind, the sober cannibal, buzzed & jumping in the boat. We are not matched, you & I. Can't blame you for wanting a blunter world, can't blame you for running when the edges split my skin. It's getting better, friend, but not well enough to let this heal — overpainting constellations of suns & emptiness, all the glow lost in the chaos of galaxies tipped sideways & hastily covered — whatever color to make this seem normal, seem easy. All this probable disorder, blue & red to correct the shift that has ripped this cage open — metal twisting in the solar winds & wings that beat about your head but never could find a way to get in. L.E. Francis

Saint of Morrow & of Missing Sam J. Grudgings

3 Minutes in a Baptist Church in Careyville, KY

There were words carved into the wooden frame of the back of the pew in front of me. I knew my mother had seen them when we sat down because she had made this little eeeeeeewwww noise, scandalized, and moved further down the pew so she wouldn’t have to look at it. The words said, “This holy bitch is coming down.” I stared at them and wondered who had written them. Church was starting in three minutes. They had to be new, or almost. We hadn’t gone to church last week, but this was always our pew. My family had been sitting their butts in these very spots for years. But in the week that we hadn’t been here, someone else had been sitting in our pew, scratching those words into the back of Mrs. Howland’s. I tried to stare past the puff of white cloud-hair floating around her head, to see if she might know what was written behind her. She did not appear to notice my stare. I always sat in the very middle of our pew, with my mom and dad far to my left and the long stretch of pew to my right completely empty. The preacher shook hands with somebody at the door. “You’re just in time,” he told them. I didn’t look up to see who it was. The words were carved with a knife, I determined, a pocketknife probably. Holy was light, the lines fine and delicate, curving around the O neatly into a perfect circle. It must have taken a long time. The whole service maybe.

We didn’t go last week because Mom and Dad had an argument three feet from the door and decided that they couldn’t go to church angry. So we stayed home, and I went outside for hours, and while I was in my treehouse, someone had a pocketknife and carved the words into the cherry-red, wooden back of the pew. They must not have been caught either, or else Preacher would have gotten Jordie Totten’s dad to sand the letters away. A thrill shot through me. No one knew about these words except for me and whoever had put them here and God. And my mother, but she wouldn’t say anything. Mom mostly pretended that things she didn’t like didn’t happen. Bitch was gouged into the wood, like the pocketknife had stabbed before forming each letter. I wondered who the bitch was. Surely not Mrs. Howland, who was eighty-seven years old and taught Sunday school to the kindergarten class. Someone else, for sure. I looked around, eyeballing the ladies of the church. Mrs. Carey, whose husband’s great-great grandfather had founded the town and who no longer spoke to any of her in-laws, sat three rows ahead and on the opposite side of the church. I couldn’t quite see her from my seat, so maybe it wasn’t about her. Anna Shearing was sixteen and mean, but she only came to church when her grandma was in town, so she probably hadn’t been here last Sunday. And anyway, I wouldn’t exactly call her “holy.” Preacher’s Wife was all long dresses and hands that grabbed. She smiled too hard. Preacher ambled by, touched his wife’s shoulder. She gave him one of those looks that pinched people, stopped them in their tracks and held them there. Preacher sighed and patted her shoulder.

Once, about a year ago, Preacher’s Wife told my parents that I was stubborn and rebellious and needed a firm hand in order to be brought up in righteousness. She said this because I asked too many questions in Sunday school and because I cried when everyone started yelling and because when Preacher’s Wife tried to hold my arm, I bit her and ran away. Mom and Dad had a fight about it, but in the end, they just said I shouldn’t ask so many questions and that if anyone tried to grab me, I could do whatever I needed to make them let go. I traced my fingers over the words, pressing my hands flat when my mother glanced over. I curled my hands over smooth edges and imagined the imprints of words forming on my palms. Down was in all capital letters, except for the W, though I guess a capital W looks the same as a lowercase W. Maybe it was just scratched in small. Dad was coming in late, he’d said, because he didn’t feel like sitting through the singing. “I’ll be in later, Celia.” He tapped my nose when he said this to my mother. My mother’s name is the same as mine, but Dad always called me Silly, not Celia. The words were neat, the handwriting block-tidy. Was it handwriting if it was carved into wood? What was that called? Some big word that Mr. Martinez probably knew. Mr. Martinez didn’t go to church. The piano startled me, and I sat up really fast. My face was all tight, and it felt hot, like I was blushing, or like I’d been crying. Mrs. Lemon smugly pounded the keys. I scowled at her, even though she couldn’t see. Mrs. Lemon taught Sunday school, too, but she wasn’t nice like Mrs. Howland. She taught my class this year, and if she

caught anyone napping, she would hold onto their hair and pull until they woke up. She played piano for the singers. I decided that Mrs. Lemon was probably the bitch. Someone slid into the pew next to me. I heard them shuffling, setting down their coats. A family, I noted from the corner of my eye. A father, a mother, a boy around my age. My mother hissed at me quietly, trying to get me to move further down the pew to give them more space, but I pretended I didn’t know what she wanted, and she gave up. Preacher’s Wife was looking at us. Maybe it was because of the new people in our pew, or maybe it was because of me, but either way, Mom didn’t want to make a scene. Mrs. Lemon started playing the ingathering and I sneaked a peek to the side. There was a boy standing there with his mom and dad. He looked like he was about my age, just about ten. He was looking back at me. He grinned, and his teeth were crooked. He was wearing a tie, perfectly straight. His mom and dad didn’t look at me or Mom at all. They didn’t even look at him. They just watched Preacher’s Wife clasp her hands and sway back and forth while Mrs. Lemon squinted and hit the wrong keys. I scrunched my face when it was particularly bad, and the boy watched me and scrunched too, dramatic, like it was a joke. I didn’t mind. “Hey,” he said, next to me, quiet. I turned my head just a little to the side. He wasn’t looking at me, but instead was staring down at the back of the pew, at the space between where my hands were resting, framing the words carved into the back. I looked down too, at the gouged wood, and then back up at the boy, who wiggled his eyebrows at me. A shiver of something kind of like excitement and kind of like fear ran all over my scalp. He put his hand into his pocket. A glint of silvery metal, a glimpse of dark, polished wood, and then he was sliding the knife back into his pocket

and placing his hands on the pew in front of him. He looked at me from the corner of his eye and I knew that before the end of the service, there would be more words there, carved in looping lines. What would they say? I wondered. “We are gathering,” Preacher announced from the pulpit, and everyone who had just been standing around and talking a moment before suddenly hustled for their seats. I glanced over to my mom, who was standing quietly in the corner of our pew so that nobody else could squeeze in. She was making sure there would be room for Dad when he came in finally. Mrs. Lemon started the final measure and Preacher winced. Then I looked over at the boy and saw that his eyes were closed and his hands were folded. He looked like he was thinking about something funny. I very much wanted to know what he was planning to write next and what it felt like, carving into the wood, and also, now that I knew the author, who the bitch was, but Preacher’s Wife was staring at us again, and I wasn’t sure if she had seen the knife or not, so I folded my hands over the words on the back of the pew and tried to look like I was thinking about God as the last notes of the ingathering music faded out and Preacher folded his hands on the pulpit and said, “Let us pray.”

Esther Sorg

Mephistopheles (before their 1st date with Faustus)

How should I arrive, my love In four or three dimensions fold Leather mask kimono mirror Countenance bleed body shape Meat-suit worn in servitude Ignite conspire indignities lips

my love, should I arrive? my body to your room? belief is to undress excite the man tonight draws favour on your love bruise your fist, my slave

Naked nothing personal be No agency may cancel fire Wake sanity offence besmirch Insult your hungry mouths to Burnished silk kimono loins Unwilling camera’s exposé

obliged a master’s slave that spies when I arrive cheap physics in the room suckle my impure address tigers stalking in the night will piss on you, my love

In ribbon’s harnessed tribute Night drips greedy perfume to Clock-waisted hours conjoin Enchantment needless effigy Opening and fumbling hands Coordinates for treason mark

a floorshow for my love anoint you as my slave kimonos silk when I arrive my tricks delight the room forbidden harshly to undress a wedding feast tonight

Tapes kimono blasphemy in Firelight is willing torment Master sanity clause invokes Take tea with heresy and burn Delicacies like oyster cunts Alchemical well-heeled hump

witness ears tonight bleed anything but love tears up another slave all books when I arrive your bourgeois little room silver pours into my dress

A martyr’s cause for burning All souls disposed of urgently Encampment on escarpment Gaze lowered kimono viciously Cruelty of horseback’d devils Windows draw the night into

tribute paid for in redress support the cause tonight rocks melt before my love up-sleeve the brand of slave extort my sex when I arrive this mausoleum of a room

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll undress you at your books Sate thirst for burning effigies Kimono chair silk stockings call Whatever untapped blasphemy Bitter taste fruit iron chain So how should I arrive, my love C.D. Boyland

shred music in your room ignite trespass in my dress His name in vain tonight conjures the marks of love abhor your bondage slave my love, should I arrive

Laurustinus

Imagine an old-fashioned exchange: some courtship ritual designed round petals in a star-clustered cloud, bright blossoms handed over by a messenger instead of a sad intoxication found one Friday night in Bromley. These blooms say: I will die if you ignore me. Thankful this is clear and there is plenty of time to run. No guesswork; signals plucked from hedges grown beside pub crawl street signs, blasted by exhaust fume neon, queuing on a corner â&#x20AC;&#x201C; dodge the kiss, leave the petals to the pavement. Kate Garrett

A Beaching

It was a pair of anglers, casting for cod, who first raised the alarm that Saturday night. They dropped their fishing poles on the sand and ran up the hill, calling out through the sleeping town. Hearing the commotion, the townspeople threw open their shutters and barked anxious questions into the unlit streets. The two anglers were in a panic and it was difficult to make sense of their shouts, though the news apparently concerned a mass beaching. The menfolk dressed quickly in their oilskins and galoshes and told their wives to prepare the tin baths for their return, for the work would be hard and the night was cold. A mob of twenty they made, near enough, and gathered in the small square, where thick wooden torches soaked in pine pitch were handed out and set alight on a brazier. Few of the men spoke as they hurried down the steep path which led to the cove â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in any case, the wind was too loud to permit conversation below the level of a shout. The uneven steps beneath their feet were as familiar as those in their own cramped houses, but it was dark and the flagstones were slippery from the evening rain; the men grabbed at each other to steady themselves on the descent. Arriving at the edge of the shingle, they halted to survey the scene. At first, they did not fully comprehend what they saw in the flickering torchlight, but the moment of understanding seemed to strike them all simultaneously: their cry was that of a single voice.

The entire shoreline was dotted with small mounds, a few feet apart. Bodies. Impossible to be precise as to their exact number. Some of them were thrashing their silver tails in a hopeless bid to propel themselves back towards the receding waves; others lay motionless, or on their backs, eyes glassy in resignation. The men crossed the heavy shingle then ran towards the rounded forms, dropping to their knees in the wet sand. They all knew the stories that were told in the taverns; they knew not to meet the creaturesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; gaze directly. But the immodesty of the wet breasts and the milky sheen of the smooth bellies forced the menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes upwards: to faces soft and pleading, open-mouthed and sucking for air. What happened next would never be spoken of again by any of them. But even had they dared to speak of it, they would quickly have absolved themselves of any guilt. For how might any amongst them, mortal to a man, have been expected to resist such ancient, godless bewitchment? Afterwards, when they had buttoned up their breeches in disgust, the men began to scour the beach for the heaviest stones they could find. They lifted them high above their heads and flung them down onto the monstrous creatures which had tricked them, until there was not a one left breathing, and the sand at the menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feet was tacky with blood. For several minutes they stood and observed the scene, as if separate from it, panting heavily. Then, one by one, they began to trudge slowly back up path towards the town. When they regained the bluff, they parted and made their separate ways home, arriving to a barrage of questions from their anxious wives.

The men said they were too tired to speak of the night’s events. They stripped off their strong-smelling, bloody clothes and climbed into the baths their wives had filled with kettles from the stove. The women knelt down beside them and set about scrubbing the men’s backs with rough brushes and carbolic soap. As they scrubbed, they saw how the water changed wine-red, and how a slick of fish scales gradually formed on the surface around the men. They saw how the scales clung to their husbands’ legs as they climbed out of the bath, and how, as the men stood to dry themselves, the scales reflected the candles in the room, like moonlight on the tail of a fish. But they didn’t see the tide embracing the strewn rocks down in the cove, or the gulls pulling at the remains. They didn’t see the fine hair fanning out in the spume like kelp, or the bodies being gently raised and carried back out into the waves. Later, in the little chapel on the headland, they knelt beside their husbands, shut their eyes, and prayed for those in peril on the sea.

Tim Craig

Someone Has Been Careless

and now the heron has been hooked; that expert fisher who knew that patience is the best bait. I saw him once, by the park lake in snow, revealed in a photo I took of the sign: No Swimming. His stillness and tones of grey, reflections of clouds on a dull day, merged him into the dwindling afternoon. So it was only after I uploaded the photos that he surprised me â&#x20AC;&#x201C; his lost eye meeting mine, beak flashing silver, efficient and cruel. Just like a fishhook, or the promise of one to come. Penny Blackburn

Possum Dreaming Tina Hudak

Expectation

Julio got a new tube of darkness. A week ago he squeezed the last one dry, rolling it in as tight a curl as manageable to force out the last of the black persuasion. With the new tube he heads out to where he earlier had been working, finding his previous dark swathe and the merely dim border he could make when his last tube began to sputter. Now he can squeeze a bit onto two fingers, thicken the unserving border, apply the dark to the landscape and fixtures, the plants and people and pets. Even the insects and microbes of the air as they go by, come unsuspectingly within reach, are darkened. He works slowly, savoring the process, consummate in his art. His sphere of dark cautiously expands. At times, Julio inspects his work, retouches areas where the dark is too thin, where the swirls he makes in applying the dark come out as recognizable ridges. His dark must be even. People admire the growing dark and they prefer to stay in the dark if Julio has painted them there. If they emerge from the dark, they move non-descript and shadowy about their business, no regaining of the shriven light. Julio assures them they will always be welcomed in the dark, they need no further coating. He begins to roll up the loose of his new tube of darkness, like a tin of expiring toothpaste. He frowns. No tube ever lasts as long as he wishes.

Ken Poyner

Swans Reflecting Elephants

for Blanca Varela You look so deep in thought, so sure and confident with head bowed in contemplation. Tell me what is in your head because I am all disorder. I was born a swan, but somewhere along the way evolution got the best of me. Darwin chalked it up to adaptation, to survival, and I have heard of elephants swimming, a sight more graceful than anyone could imagine. Can you imagine that? When you answer, talk to my reflection, and I will listen to your shadow. These are our true forms after all. Lisa Stice

* Blanca Varela (1926-2009; Peru): surrealist poet (several collections including Ese puerto existe, Canto Villano and Concierto animal) * title borrowed from the Salvador Dali painting of the same name

to god, who never learned how to swim

you’re pouring too much salt into the water for the pasta / and making a hurricane, something ocean-breathed and vilely weeping / the fish in the pond in the shopping mall feel it coming / and they’re watching the windows of the jewelry store for when the diamonds crash out / because then they’ll be able to fall in love. / and isn’t that just the purpose of it all? / you’re dropping the slotted spoon into the scarred darkness beside the stove / and telling me it’s the perfection you’ve always dreamed of. / and it isn’t. / because it’s not the red paper cranes and it’s not a home for all these misplaced fish / and it’s not something you could ever mold a restless word to. / but it is fins finally brushing sunshine and it is the green of a bruise / and i know you can’t sleep but all you ever do is sit on the rims of volcanoes / and beg them to be fireflies when you look away. / but what you don’t see is that the fish are in the ocean now, enjoying the lights / and the feldspar and the dancing. / and for a second it’s all worth it. / don’t you wish you were once river-slicked membrane? that you could belong here? / really there’s a grace in the fish breeding on highway exit ramps / with the sky unbearable blue in their eyes. / i think you’re missing the whole point here / the way it feels to be so miniscule that you will adore the sea glass and the algal blooms / and not just because you’re lonely. / but while you’re sitting in the attic as the basement floods / and dully draining your oxygen & blood for the stars / the fish dazzle in the currents, glowing regularly / all breathless, pink-cheeked whim Allison Stein

Holler Penny Sharman

Head Garden

There is the fact that the silver birch is closer to paper in its natural form reminder of all the trees decimated by me in the name of poetry and maintaining my sanity I would peel them when I was small I liked to mark things with my fingernails open them up touch I have killed cacti and chopped down trees to give reed banks a chance I have planted trees a handful of times how it feels to have roots in your palm not enough I have no land of my own to plunge my hands in I plan a later garden sometimes the fat leaves of magnolias their decadence and the unreal silver birch. Anna Percy

A Road Trip Through Colorado

Jason once emailed me a poem about garbage and how it collected on his counter, filled with roaches. I read the poem bewildered on a road trip through a snow sea in Colorado, sick and praying to get sicker with only traces of blood on my panties while puking in a gas station in Kansas a day before. Rhapsody of filth, am I the roaches? I texted, or the garbage? Immobile silence; the snow lasted for days. I’ve known this queasiness before: resting tides of unease. No inspiration believes that she’ll become the trash in an artist’s work until she is kneeling westward with ice sculptures on the horizon, praying to get sicker. Jane-Rebecca Cannarella

Backyard Rory Pryor

Mate in Twelve

It's late afternoon. Winter. The others are all napping the day away. Dinner won't be ready for another two hours so I'm playing chess with myself. It's one of the ways I pass the time. The board is set in time-honoured fashion. I'm polite and allow myself to go first. Start with the white kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pawn. Best foot forward, sir. On you go. Good lad. My response for black is not dissimilar. I must admit there's a certain symmetry in my openings. It's a weakness in my game but I'm still managing to surprise myself with a few back row charges from the black priest, a shuffling rook. I wouldn't want to call it so early but black's looking the more adventurous overall. I'm showing some flair. Or inexperience. Too early to say. I'm crafty at times. I'll give myself that. But I can be fooled, I reckon, if I can out-think myself. Patience is what's needed. That and a keen eye. White knight to queen bishop four. Ah, the Winchester gambit. I see what I'm doing. The counter is swift, but a build-up to check will be of no benefit this early. I'm going to have to settle into a rhythm against myself. Take for take I skirmish through a handful of scrappy midfield exchanges. Thus to all foot soldiers. There will be more pawns where they came from, I suppose, but I always play down to where a few pawns in my back pocket become more precious than all the other pieces. Everything settles.

I can have me in five moves. Maybe six providing I'm not needlessly attacking on the counter. Being overly defensive has often been a weakness of mine. If I can just find a way to exploit it, I'll be victorious. Stress and harry. Hit and run. Wait. Black queen is in play. If I'm doing what I think I'm doing, that should swing the balance. I'm forcing myself into a regroup. Not quite a full rout but enough to break the momentum. The first check is imminent. The answer should be obvious but I've caught myself napping. Was I watching that pigeon bully all the smaller birds on the feeding table in the garden? Did Alice the delightful day nurse happen by the hatch into the kitchen? Doesn't matter. I swoop in and with one slide from my queen's knight I've put myself on the back foot. Take that. Mate in three. Let's see how I get out of that one. "Old goat," I whisper. "Alright Mister Saunders?" The lovely Alice calls from the doorway. I can hear the smile in her voice. My reply must look to her like a dismissive wave from the wingback chair. "Suit yourself," and off she goes to natter with the bully warden we all love to hate. This is no time for lechery. Despite the firmness of her twenty-something bosom heaving at the cotton whites of her tunic, despite her cherry red lips, despite the turn of her slender stockinged ankle, just like my Maisie had once. Those dimples! Oh god, I've lost my second knight. The white king is bereft! Oldest trick in the book. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was in league with Alice in a game of dirty tricks. Stupid! I'm picking myself apart! Nothing more than a total defensive collapse can happen now. Unless...

I haven't seen all the pieces in play. I've discounted the pawn by the queen's rook. The plucky last man, up for a medal. A last charge to that promotion to queenhood. That could tip the scales against me. But I'm fooling myself. I'm just playing with the remnant army. Defeat must come. I look at the window. Night has fallen. I am reflected back on myself. The other me smiles.

He bloody smiles. Not just that. He doesn't bloody wet himself in the night. He gets to drive home, to his open fire and his loyal hound. He never allowed himself to become locked up in a place like this. Sod him. Decision time. I would rather concede than allow a checkmate. My king tumbles with a casual flick. I should be happy but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not. The other me is dispatched by Alice pulling the curtains shut and announcing dinner. Life continues to be a condition of endless contests. He'll be back tomorrow.

Peter Haynes

Lockdown Buzzcut

This is the time of kind-hearted dispensations when kids hold scissors two-handed, garden shearing a father’s hair - open mouthed in concentration, squealing at the mists of water spray. When time comes round for the game to end and mother takes the clippers, it’s been weeks since they’ve touched. Her fingers furrow the pattern of his follicles and he’s a mole, flinching through old locks. She thinks she wants to press the whorl on his hairline where a cowlick used to be until they connect - or he disappears. Entrusted with the molluscs washed up on the wold of his skull, she thinks she wants to stoop and taste the earth on his neck. She trims around the ears, grades the edges and his shoulders slacken. Both of them gulls at the plough. Their flight an act of faith. J.L.M. Morton

ghost girl(s)

It does not matter where we are going when we look like this Floating like pollen over Boston sidewalks We like when they stare Our perfume carrying with the breeze We glide past streetlights hollow homes hollow men Their vital organs gouged out with a spoon and folded neatly in a plastic bag We pass through them because we are the breeze bottled in a plastic shape In knee high boots we pass through train stations swing on metal poles until we lurch forward Forward is the only way we are pulled to the party where he waits We speak in hushed whispers inhale the perfume on our wrists until we are filled with one anotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s scent We smell like a bouquet of youth and the hollow men breathe us in at the party where he takes my hand passes through the bodies rocking like a current It does not matter where we are going when we drift as ghosts of ourselves blended into each other We evaporate into the bodies drunk on adrenaline on their own self obsessions They mirror one another arms thrown over their heads in worship His body relaxes into mine and I wonder what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like to be consumed to be lived in like a beehive and savored like honeycomb

I have lost the others in the swarm of my obsessions I wear him like jewelry melt him down and slip him around my neck for family dinners weddings christmas parties carry him in a burlap sack like my vital organs In the end we bleed the same when I peel back his layers to reveal a skeleton of a scholar He is still dancing and I have already passed through him. Athena Nassar

Decolonise 2 Camila Gallego

Ashes

ashes, ashes, we all fall down Two months ago the seed of a lie began to form inside of your chest and over time it grew into what you thought was a tree but was actually a forest that was actually a fire So you hid the fire between us in our home never breathing a word only spouting smoke because you are the type so afraid to fail that you would burn down our house around you stand in the ash and curl your toes into the soot until your feet were painted in charcoal rather than ask for help I used to write love poems this is not a love poem instead I would write a spell to turn back time to conjure heavy mist that turns to rain in time to forage through the rubble to find a lump of something that looks a bit like we used to then wash it off and use it to make something new The day your lie enveloped us I didn't cry I'd been up all night crying already over someone else's debris

the day after when I'd had time to run my hands over our foundation to check for cracks the stress made me so afraid I got hives on the soles of my feet on the palms of my hands I ended up spending two hours in a Benadryl sleep finding the courage to look into your eyes to re-learn the words

I love you This is not a breakup poem This is not divorce wrapped in pretty When I was a child I explored the world by crashing through it using my body for controlled demolition a scabby-kneed collection of bruises and yesterday's blood When I'd go to my mother covered in garden dirt and elbow scrapes crying rivulets down my filthy cheeks at the injustice of the world hitting back she'd shake her head say

you've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die and send me back out into the sun as much wrecking ball as person soothed by the balm of her words

let this poem be a peck of dirt let it quash the urge to ignite rub it across your ribcage and the next time your heart loses flame into your panicked mind remember that in the midst of every fire there is something worth saving and sometimes that something is a part of you Jay Douglas

Persephone, Early Spring

She is dizzy, cold, exposed, it is a long time since she has been this oxygenated. Particles rush up her nostrils and she drops to her knees, running her hands across the earth. There is an infection here. Green bursting through, she feels its growth and in a panic, begins to tear it from the roots. A vision of underneath the surface because of what she has been exposed to comes alive and she sees what is to come in the soil, seeds springing forth joining together to make one body. Poets are too quick to call this a constellation, it is Leprous patches here and there, it is a slow-growing bacteria, if left to run wild it will encompass all the empty spaces, melting the thin sheen of March ice. She imagines herself as statue covered over slowly with moss, lichen furring her lips, separating a fingernail from its bed, invading her internal organs, slowly strangled by vines around her windpipe. A bud pokes and prods at her navel, burrowing inside and she gasps. A voice from before says:

This growth is natural and good, it is part of a cycle but this feeling of fullness cannot be held comfortably inside her chest, it rises and she retches. She is used to feeling empty, needs to feel empty, was punished before for no self-control, no emptiness. She contracts her diaphragm to force something out and bile spills onto the cracked earth; an aftertaste not unlike pomegranate. Elizabeth McGeown

Heavenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Height Jacy Zhang

In Big Little Lies, Meryl Streep Says To Reese Witherspoon That Some People in This World Are “Wanters”

while the Pacific ocean crashes in the background I want to live somewhere like Monterey to stand on a deck barefoot pulling a grey cardigan tighter around me thinking oh, I shouldn’t have had that affair, and oh, we really shouldn’t have told all those big lies or those little ones either yesterday I bought a prayer candle with Emma Watson’s face on it it had a “positive energy” and a sticker that said GIRLS SHOULD NEVER BE AFRAID TO BE SMART I think GIRLS SHOULD NEVER BE AFRAID would have sufficed mostly I think I want to be freckled and pretty and look like I can afford La Mer face cream every girl I’ve ever wanted to kiss wore a lot of stacked silver rings sometimes I think I’m incurably morose other times I think I should just spend more money Megan Baxter

synonym

I plant a garden with the doubles of myself let it grow in total symmetry so that when we pluck my core from the ground it will count as an annual bloom let reflection not operate in the visual, but the non-linear. let the moment halves meet be synonym for enlightenment let me be synonym for alive in the scope of long-term memory in the grime under next yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fingernails Amanda Pendley

Teens and their Mothers (A Fairy-tale)

Coach said we had to go to the forest to exorcise our demons. We picked up our water flasks, anoraks with extra folds for the beings growing between our shoulder blades, and first-aid kits. “At night,” he said, “your mothers will try to break into the tents; don’t let them tear the demons out of your flesh. They leave horrible wounds.” There was barbed wire and motion detectors to prevent mothers bursting in. Curfew was at 9. My limbs stopped functioning. My feet landed at an angle, and the sides of my feet hurt. My jeans were too tight, and the seam cut into my body when I sat down. My demon was complex. It spread and fed out of the beaks hanging out at the ends of my arms. I didn’t want to get rid of him. Coach said: “In the old days, people couldn’t see demons. Didn’t believe the evidence. Now we know how to ferment the right plants to fight off demon transparency, and we know how to use the forest.” We stayed in the tents for three nights. Ryan’s demon was so heavy, we didn’t know if he’d make it. Coach unpacked steel crutches and a wire frame for his back. Lucia’s demon was several small beings. When they sucked her blood, she turned towards the wall. For three nights, mothers wailed outside, and stones were being crushed in the yard for demon-feed. On the fourth morning, coach made us weak tea, marched us to the woods and yelled.

I ran until it got dark and stuffy and my ribs hurt when I breathed. The forest stank around me. Demon stench: vomit, hospital junk, petrol. Hairy trunks of firtrees, planks driven into them with nails, trash. I’d been told I’d know how to give my demon what he craved and let me go free, * They put barbed wire and booby traps around the tents. We wailed until white hairs stuck out of our heads. On the fourth morning, they ran into the woods. When the children enter the woods, you hear cries. Not theirs. That would be too much. This time of year, the trees are full of sap, and it’s bursting through the bark, and because there are so many trees, it sounds like cries. Also, the light is broken in spring, so the forest seems to be moving. Walking towards you or away from you, it is hard to tell. We have become tree-like, our arms out-stretched, our hands all knuckles and claws. We console each other like trees that whistle in the wind – “it’s nature… hormones … gets better … didn’t we survive.” Hairy trunks of firs, dirty nails, someone’s drunken laugh, smoke. I can’t remember how I got through it. If I remember, all will be well. Mary-Lucia is wobbling through the field; AnitaRyan is crying by the ditch. I try to remember for them too. Except the way time coiled around you then, you can’t remember. The world hurt once, then shrunk to a pebble in my shoe, a bad thought in my skull. What I remember is that as the demon suckled it jerked through my skin, the way I could feel him at the base of my skull and it made it hard to breathe, so I knocked my head against the tree trunk and cut my arms with the broken sticks.

What I remember is how in the quiet hours, the demonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s belly gurgled, and his tail tickled against my spine. Teacher said: â&#x20AC;&#x153;You need to exorcise the darkness within you.â&#x20AC;? But evil can also be good, and darkness can be soft when all other things are hard. Those quiet gurgles were the closest to comfort in those days. What I remember is sitting on a rotten tree stump in the dark. * And I saw lights: big like saucers, and small like the stars you see when you flop on the bed, and your body strains and tears itself with forced hunger. Your body, bursting and stretching, smelly and bloated, invisible, a lump around your soul, a dirty mouth around your thoughts, but somewhere, there are voices in the next room and a song on the TV. You let the demon eat. But you hang on to that song, stick a part of you on its rear end, let it hitch a ride. Because if it circles through twenty layers of gunk and darkness and returns, you will welcome it. Then all will be well.

Roppotucha Greenberg

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sorry Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to help but my head is literally monsters (Cover Image) Sam J. Grudgings

Portrait of my dad as a woodsman

after Bob Hicok My dad has read every poem I’ve written about him. He’s spread them out over his desk like wolf guts on an old woman’s bed sheets, found them full of bruised shins and growing pains and hoods pulled down hard against driving Cornish rain. The poems are never about the gentle way he loves the forest or the timber hitch of muscle in his shoulder blades. My dad wonders why, in my poems about him, he’s never waving hello from a hilltop at dusk. He wonders why I’ve made him a beast of burden: a man weighed down by the word father - a man with bark-hardened hands, rather than the soft ones he used to raise me. My dad wonders when my teeth got so big. Christopher Lanyon

I am trying to talk about you without mentioning your name, so I say

after Mary Jean Chan Walk the path with me, between blackberry bushes, up chalk curves where bracken arcs the steepening earth. I’ll hold the gate open until I’m certain you’ve passed through. We’ll crest the bowl of the Downs, push on into windblown trees, where, as a child, I would complain of aching feet, want to turn back. This time it will be my turn to ask you not to stray too far from where I can hear your step land behind me or I will have to call your name listen to the long grass whisper. Joanna Nissel

Blue Planet Alan Murphy

Elephant Grief

CHARACTERS: LAINIE: 24 years old, a graduate student and aspiring writer. ALLEN: 24 years old, Lainie’s boyfriend, also a graduate student. MS. COHEN: Lainie’s mother. RABBI: Elderly. Probably Jewish. OPENING: The Cohens’ house. New Jersey. The attic. Day.

Muffled conversations and dishware clinking downstairs. A door creaks open, a switch flips, and lights brighten on an attic bedroom. It is the room of a young boy, maybe ten years old. The bed is stripped, and neat piles of clothes line the wall. The reception downstairs loudens for a moment, but we hear a door shut and the conversations are muffled once again. The stairs squeak as LAINIE, dressed for a funeral, ascends. She pauses at the top, taking in the room. ALLEN: (offstage) Lainie? Can you let me in?

LAINIE sighs. She exits, and the door opens and closes again. The stairs creak as the couple ascends. When they reach the top, LAINIE sprawls out in the center of the floor, staring at the ceiling. ALLEN snatches the yarmulke from his head and stuffs it in his pocket. As he plops down onto the foot of the bed, he wrestles with his tie, pulling it tighter before wiggling it loose. LAINIE: Allen? She lifts her feet in the air.

ALLEN drags himself over. He pulls off her shoes and returns to his perch on the bed. LAINIE: (cont’d) Do you still think I’m attractive, even with painted toenails? She wiggles her toes in the air. ALLEN slides to the floor. ALLEN: Of course. LAINIE: (regretfully) I don’t think I’d find you as attractive if you painted your toenails.

ALLEN smirks. He crosses to the far end of the room and opens a small window. ALLEN: You know, your brother was–

LAINIE: He would’ve been so—

(beat) BOTH: You go.

LAINIE rolls onto her stomach. LAINIE: Nothing. I was just thinking how bored he would’ve been. At the service. MS. COHEN: (offstage) Lainie? Are you up there? You’re not moving anything around, right?

LAINIE drags herself up and yells down the staircase. LAINIE: No! We’re fine, Mom.

There’s a mirror in the room, and, noticing, LAINIE quickly rushes to cover it with a sheet from the bedding bags. She collapses on the bed. LAINIE: (with conviction) Make me cry. ALLEN: Make you cry? LAINIE: Say something horrible to me.

ALLEN looks out the window. LAINIE: (cont’d) I think I’m a bad person. ALLEN: You know that’s— LAINIE: You cried. You only met him once. ALLEN: Twice. Thanksgiving, last year.

LAINIE sits upright, still on the bed. ALLEN continues looking out the window. LAINIE: Are you going to use any of this? ALLEN: Lainie… LAINIE: Because you can, if you want. You know I can’t. ALLEN: No. It doesn’t need to be for anyone but yourself. Sylvia Plath mostly—

LAINIE rolls her eyes and falls back onto the bed. At that moment, we hear a bird shoot through the open window and flutter about the room. LAINIE and ALLEN recoil in shock and follow it with their eyes. ALLEN: (cont’d) Fuck! ALLEN springs forward, shooing the bird back toward the window with his hands. It flits about the room, outpacing him. We understand the bird to have perched somewhere in the room. It lets out a chirp. ALLEN: (cont’d) (starting toward the stairs) Maybe the rabbi’s still downstairs— LAINIE: To what? Bless it?

LAINIE’s anger melts, and they chuckle. We hear the bird flitting about, unprovoked for the moment. MS. COHEN: (offstage) We’re putting the food out! Coming down?

LAINIE: (yelling down the stairs) In a minute! We have a bird situation! MS. COHEN: (offstage) Bird situation? (to someone else) She says there’s a “bird situation.” ALLEN: We could turn out the lights? Help it find the window?

LAINIE nods. ALLEN reaches for a switch by the bed. The room goes dark, except for a shaft of sunlight emitting from the small window at the far end of the room. It slants downward, hitting an empty spot on the floor. We hear the bird hop around and chirp as the couple talks in whispers, unmoving. We cannot see them. LAINIE: (half to herself) Can you imagine the world going black like that? Your head in an oven? ALLEN: “Dying / Is an art, like everything else.” LAINIE: We’re not getting married, right? ALLEN: (caught off guard) We’re only 24. LAINIE: Right. We’re just having fun, right? We’re just having fun.

We hear the bird leave its perch with a sudden burst of flapping. A small object darts across the shaft of sunlight, moving away from the window. We hear LAINIE and ALLEN flinch, and ALLEN flails into the middle of the room. He stumbles back and falls into a small dresser. ALLEN: I’m okay. MS. COHEN: (offstage) Lainie? We heard a crash.

The door handle jostles at the bottom of the stairs. LAINIE: (yelling) It’s fine! (to ALLEN) Should I try a bird song? ALLEN: Do you know any bird songs? LAINIE: No. (beat) (softly) You can use this, if you want. It’s probably too close for me. (with a touch of resentment) And you cried. ALLEN: I’m not using it.

ALLEN pulls himself up and flips on the light switch. LAINIE sticks out her feet and wiggles her toes. ALLEN lunges toward the bird. LAINIE: What if I were missing some toes? Or didn’t have any?

ALLEN’s eyes are still locked on the bird. He approaches it slowly this time, looking determined. ALLEN: (exasperated) What? He pounces again, and we hear the bird flutter toward the bed in a panic. LAINIE ducks and lets out a small yelp. She rolls to the head of the bed, sitting crisscrossed.

LAINIE: (speaking quickly) You know how elephants cry? Like, really cry and feel emotions and love each other. And how they visit the bones of dead elephants and touch the skulls with their trunks and cry. And when an elephant’s partner dies, they’ll just die of heartbreak. They’ll just cry and cry and fall down and not eat and the other elephants crowd around and say, “get up, bud, it’s hard now, but it’ll be okay” but that elephant doesn’t give a shit because she’s already made up her mind! Heartbreak’s gonna be the way she goes out, like a Romantic poet or Johnny Cash or the weird ghost chef in Ratatouille. And so somewhere there’s an elephant sobbing its guts out and making this really beautiful moment for a bunch of elephant researchers and here I am. (Looks at the bird mockingly, which is calm for the moment) Here we are.

Someone taps on the door. LAINIE: (cont’d) (almost hyperventilating) They basically sit Shiva. Did you know that? A baby elephant dies and the mom covers it with leaves and sits there for days protecting it. And years later they’ll go back and—what are you doing with that?

ALLEN has taken the sheet from the mirror. He’s forming it into a makeshift net, eyes still locked on the bird. LAINIE: (cont’d) No, Allen! (as she covers the mirror with another sheet) That was there for a reason. It’s a rule. ALLEN: Whose rule?

More tapping at the door. RABBI: (offstage) Elaine? Your mother said you need my help? LAINIE: (hissing) His rule. (sweetly) Thank you, I think we have it under control. LAINIE and ALLEN duck to avoid the bird, fluttering about again. The sheet over the mirror falls down. LAINIE: (cont’d) Why wouldn’t you use this? Is it ‘cause you’d feel guilty? You shouldn’t. I was the one who gave you the note on the story’s “emotional core” in workshop. You’re writing about two siblings, and Jesus Christ. I just think you could use some of this, or maybe put your own—

ALLEN: (stopping his pursuit of the bird) You need help with all this, and maybe it’ll help you. To write something that’s real for once. (beat) It’s not normal! You need to look in the mirror and figure what the fuck’s going on with you.

ALLEN takes some wild, anger-fueled swings at the bird to no avail. LAINIE: (softly) Was that the horrible thing? ALLEN: (panting) What? LAINIE: (taken aback but not angry) From before. I asked you to say something horrible to me. Was that the horrible thing?

ALLEN: Isn’t it what you wanted to hear?

ALLEN snatches one of the tennis rackets, still concentrated on the bird. LAINIE: Don’t—

ALLEN swings violently about the room, hitting everything in his path. One miss hits the light switch, and the room goes dark. LAINIE: (cont’d) Allen! Stop! As LAINIE starts running across the room to the stairs, there’s a thud as something hits the ground, followed by a crunch and a shriek. ALLEN has stopped moving, and the room goes silent. The lights come on. ALLEN is standing by the switch, still holding the racket. LAINIE is by the stairs, facing out, but her bare foot is splattered with blood. The body of a bird lies in the middle of the room. We hear the door burst open, kicked in with force. There are no noises of chatter or dishware. MS. COHEN: (offstage) He better not–

RABBI: (offstage) Let me–

LAINIE: (calmly) I’m okay.

We hear Ms. COHEN and the RABBI stop at the bottom of the stairs. A few beats, and ALLEN strides over to the open window. He slams it closed. Blackout. Jake Scott

Kathryn No

Sometimes the needle lands - crackle-pop feedback catches your attention with a song that makes you listen closer than you have for years thrills you with surprise swells wrestles clock hands to a standstill pierces balloons of feeling you didn't know you'd hidden; stirs a blizzard from every drip-scare ice slide reaction paints potential – pantomime-style - shakes clumsy old bones spills vivid paint pot heart arcs scrapes the word “hope” in the mess you've made.

Chris Singleton

Contributors

Megan Baxter is a writer based in the South West. She graduated with honours from Bath Spa University with a degree in Creative Writing and is now working towards an MA in Writing for Young People. You can find her @megbaxterwriter on most platforms. Penny Blackburn lives in the North East of England and writes poetry and short fiction. Her publications include pieces online in Bangor Literary Journal, Atrium, Black Bough and Ink, Sweat & Tears and in print with Paper Swans Press, Poetry Society News, Broken Spine and Maytree Press. She is on Twitter and Facebook as @penbee8 C.D. Boyland was born in Coventry and now lives in Cumbernauld, near Glasgow. He has been published in magazines like Gutter and The North, and anthologies such as New Writing Scotland. His debut pamphlet User Stories came out in April 2020. Described by one reviewer as “smart insights delivered with uncluttered fluency”, User Stories is available now from the independent, Edinburgh-based small press Stewed Rhubarb (StewedRhubarb.org). Jane-Rebecca Cannarella is a writer and editor living in Philadelphia. She is the editor of HOOT Review and Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit, as well as the author of Better Bones and Marrow, both published by Thirty West Publishing House, and The Guessing Game published by BA Press. She occasionally drinks wine out of a mug that has a smug poodle on it; she believes that the poodle is the reincarnated spirit of the television show Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Originally from Manchester, Tim Craig lives in Hackney in East London. In 2018 he won the Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction and has also placed third — and been commended — in the Bath Flash Fiction Award. His short fiction has appeared in the Best Microfiction Anthology 2019 (ed. Dan Chaon), the New Flash Fiction Review and in the BIFFY50. Jay Douglas is a trans/non-binary and queer poet hailing from the rolling mountains of Appalachia, where they spend too much time not writing, not enough time writing, and just enough time cuddling cats. When not writing, Jay enjoys repairing typewriters and playing video games. Jay's work has previously been published in Red Flag, Cahoodaloodaling, Words Dance, and Rising Phoenix Review. L.E. Francis is a recovering arts journalist writing poetry and fiction of varying length from the rainshadow of the Washington Cascades. Find her online at nocturnical.com.

Camila Gallego (she/her) is a Colombian art historian and illustrator. Her work takes on traditional drawing and painting media while exploring archetypes, mythologies, power systems and themes loaded with references to pop culture and colonial art. Find her on Instagram @camilagallegosilva and at camilagallego.com. Robert Garnham has been performing comedy poetry around the UK for over ten years at various fringes and festivals and has had two collections published by Burning Eye. He has made a few short TV adverts for a certain bank, and a joke from one of his shows was listed as one of the funniest of the Edinburgh Fringe. He was recently an answer on the TV show Pointless. Kate Garrett is a queer, autistic writer, editor, witch, and mama of five. Their work is widely published online and in print and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Born and raised in rural southern Ohio, Kate moved to the UK in 1999, where she still lives - currently in an off-duty vicarage on the Welsh border. Roppotucha Greenberg is the author of a flash and micro-fiction collection Zglevians on the Move (TwistiT Press, 2019) and three silly-but-wise doodle books for humans, Creatures Give Advice (2019), Creatures Give Advice Again and it's warmer now (2019) and Creatures Set Forth (2020). Her published stories and her many rejections can be found at roppotucha.blogspot.com Sam J. Grudgings is a queer time travelling poet from the South West of England, haunted by ghosts of the future he came back in time to prevent. He now has to live out the End of Days same as you and he is very sorry for not being able to make this a better timeline to live in. He also paints prophetic visions and occasionally whales Peter Haynes lives and writes in Birmingham, UK. His work has appeared in Unsung Stories, Reliquiae Journal, Spelk Fiction, and elsewhere. During the mid-1970â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, calligraphy introduced Tina Hudak to the arts while she was pursuing a graduate degree. Working at a major Washington, D.C. hand calligraphy studio set her on a path, gaining extensive artistic education in hand-papermaking, bookbinding, letterpress, and letter carving. Through the years she has been fortunate to work solely as an artist and learn from outstanding teachers. After 20 years as a school librarian she returns to art and writing. Christopher Lanyon is a poet, mathematician and PhD student based in Nottingham, UK. His poems have been published in Abridged, Strix, Finished Creatures and Bad Betty Pressâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Alter Egos Anthology, among others.

Elizabeth McGeown is a poet from Belfast, Northern Ireland and has featured in publications including Banshee, Abridged, The Blue Nib and Ink, Sweat & Tears. As a spoken word artist, she has been a finalist in the All-Ireland Poetry Slam for four years in a row and represented Northern Ireland at the 2019 Hammer & Tongue UK Slam Finals in the Royal Albert Hall. Andrew McSorley is the author of What Spirits Return (Kelsay Books, 2019). He is a graduate of the MFA program in creative writing at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in journals such as The Minnesota Review, Blue Earth Review, and the Lindenwood Review. He lives in Appleton, Wisconsin where he works as a librarian in the Seeley G. Mudd Library at Lawrence University. J.L.M. Morton is a poet and hybrid writer interested in the interplay between language, musicality and visual culture. Poet in Residence at Waterland (a lake in Cotswold Water Park), Associate Producer for Paper Nations (Bath Spa Uni) and co-founder of The Outposted Project, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s currently getting Dialect off the ground, a new initiative to support writers in rural Gloucestershire, England jlmmorton.com Alan Murphy is the writer and illustrator of four collections of poetry for children and teenagers. Dublin-born, he lives in Lismore, county Waterford. His books have featured in books of the year articles in the Irish Times and been shortlisted for the CAP awards for independent authors. He has also contributed to several childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poetry anthologies in the UK and America and has published poetry for adults and visual art with a number of journals. avantcardpublications.com Athena Nassar is an Egyptian-American poet and essayist from Atlanta, Georgia. She is the recipient of the 2019 Scholastic National Gold Medal Portfolio Award, an honorable mention in the New York Times Student Review Contest, Lake Effect National Poetry Competition finalist, and Tom Samet High School Fiction Competition winner. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Best Teen Writing of 2019, DIALOGIST, and elsewhere. Currently, she is a feature writer for Five Cent Sound and Atlas Magazine at Emerson College. Joanna Nissel is a Brighton-based writer. She was the runner up for the 2018 New Poets Prize and has been published widely, including Tears in the Fence, The Fenland Reed, Eyeflash, and Atrium. Through her role at Paper Nations, she works towards making the writing industry more representative and more accessible.

Brandon Noel (He/Him), lives in North-Eastern Ohio and has worked as a machinist for the last ten years while writing on his breaks and brief moments of down time. His work often focuses on working-class life and has appeared in Door-Is-A-Jar, Recenter Press, Empty Mirror, The Esthetic Apostle. He is a contributing poetry editor for Barren Magazine. He has two self-published poetry collections: Mongrel (2015) and Infinite Halves (2017). Brandon turned 34 last December and raises two daughters, aged 12 and 6, with their mother. Twitter: @The_Mongrel Kathryn O'Driscoll is a spoken word poet, writer and activist from Bath who talks openly about her disability and mental health in her wide range of poems. Aside from performing poetry across the South West; she’s also a Bristol slam champion who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, at multiple UK National competitions and on BBC Radio Bristol. She has a first class degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. Amanda Pendley is a queer twenty-one-year-old writer from Kansas City who is currently studying Creative Writing and Publishing at the University of Iowa. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Homology Lit, Vagabond City Lit, The Hellebore, Savant Garde Literary Magazine, and The Shore. She often finds inspiration in Lorde songs, movement, and Harry Styles’ suit collection. Anna Percy was born and educated in Norfolk and has been writing for performance and publication largely in the North since 2004. In 2010 she co-founded the feminist collective Stirred Poetry. Her third collection Jumping into Waterfall is to be published by Flapjack Press this September, her work encompasses love, loss, losing your mind, post-pastoral and the surreal. After years of impersonating a Systems Engineer, Ken Poyner has retired to watch his wife continue to break world raw powerlifting records. Ken’s two current poetry and four short fiction collections (just released: Engaging Cattle, mini-fictions) are available from Amazon and elsewhere. Find him at kpoyner.com and barkingmoosepress.com. Rory Pryor is a writer from Tehachapi, California currently making their living at a rare and antiquarian bookshop in Boston. They enjoy photographing hair and lizards. Jake Scott is a writer based in Chicago. Penny Sharman is a published poet, photographer, artist and therapist. She is inspired by wild landscapes and what makes us all tick! Her work can be purchased through her website: pennysharman.co.uk. Penny has a pamphlet and collection and is awaiting publication of her second collection to be published by Knives, Forks and Spoons Press this September.

Chris Singleton is a spoken word artist from Leeds; a member of Wise Talk Collective, past winner of Say Owt Slam and Northern Slamhouse, headline act at Born Lippy and associate artist of Leeds Playhouse, Red Ladder, CAST in Doncaster, Mind the Gap and Leeds Libraries. His debut show, How to Be a Better Human, tells his story of how grief and loss can make us better at empathising and connecting. Esther Sorg lives in the U.S. in Ohio in a bedroom in a basement. She is beginning a masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Library and Information Science in Fall 2020. If she's not reading, she's thinking about reading. This is her first fiction publication. Allison Stein is a poet based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has previously been published by the Eunoia Review, Soul Talk Magazine, Doghouse Press, Parallax Literary Journal, and more. When she isn't writing, she enjoys sitting in her backyard or making collage art. Lisa Stice is a poet/mother/military spouse. She is the author of two full-length collections, Permanent Change of Station (Middle West Press, 2018) and Uniform (Aldrich Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Desert (Prolific Press). While it is difficult to say where home is, she currently lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter and dog. You can learn more about her and her publications at lisastice.wordpress.com, at facebook.com/LisaSticePoet, and on Twitter @LisaSticePoet. Jacy Zhang studies English at the University of Maryland and interns at MoreWithUs - Everyday Jobs, a job search website. Her photography has appeared in Green Blotter and Laurel Moon and is forthcoming in The Lumiere Review, the winnow magazine, and Cobra Milk. Besides school, she practices wushu martial arts and worships Jesus with her campus fellowship. You can find her on Twitter at @JacyLZhang.

Acknowledgements

J.L.M. Morton was invited to read ‘Lockdown Buzzcut’ as part of the Ledbury Poetry Festival 2020. ‘Heaven’s Height’ by Jacy Zhang first appeared in the Spring 2019 edition of Laurel Moon.

ISSUE #30 COMING OCTOBER 2020