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It happens on a Thursday. The morning offers the usual odors: armpits, assholes, instant coffee, and cheap cigarettes dominate, but, also, Diego’s cologne. We stand in a line, but there is no order. When we get picked, if we get picked, depends on whims we can’t understand. Does lighter skin attract? (probably) Will a mustache repel? (probably not) Should hair be gelled or natural? (unclear) We pretend to have control, pretend we’re something more than muscle attached to brown bodies. Diego talks nonstop. Legends of the line. He tells anyone who will listen about Chuy Rodriguez. He was picked up by a brunette and before one hedge was trimmed, he was fucking her from behind, fake tits bouncing against the marble kitchen counter. Same every day for a week and took home a grand on Friday, never touched as much as a rake. And there was Rogelio Sanchez. Got picked up to lay some irrigation and saved a girl from a horse or a horse from a girl or some damn thing, and walked away with ten G. Fucking ten G. But today’s there a new guy. Young, tight shirt, muscles bulging. He reeks of ambition which has no place here. He glares at Diego. “Bullshit. No one’s that lucky.” Diego talks faster. “Remember Esteban –” “Shut the fuck up,” the new guy takes a step toward Diego. One of the older guys, Juan Rivera maybe, speaks up. “Diego, drop it, this guy’s bad news.” Diego shifts his weight from one foot to another, silent for once. He’s a bad worker, but we don’t care. We like Diego and his crazy stories. He brings us hope – and donuts. A pick-up truck cruises toward us – work for two? Someone shouts, a blade flashes. Blood flows from a thin line on Diego’s hairless forearm, the new guy dances away with the knife, and tires squeal. It’s a surface wound, but the damage is done. Our hands are the maps of our lives. Every nick, every scar, every blackened nail, evidence of our labor. Hands that caress shovels, hammers, and trowels but which have forgotten how to touch a woman. Everything happens so fast in this country. Before the blood has dried on the asphalt, there’s a screaming manager, white face red. And when we hear sirens, we flee, like cockroaches from the light. There will be no work today and no return here. Too late to go anywhere but home. We will cross the border shamed by our empty pockets and hollow dreams. Tonight, we will sit together, no meat in our bellies, cigarettes in hand. We will discuss where to go tomorrow. Someone will say there is a new Home Depot we can try. He’s heard the gringos are plentiful there, looking for us, cheap labor. But we worry about what we lost today. The constellation of possibility has gotten smaller. Dreams and legends cannot make this border life sustainable. We don’t expect to see Diego again. We’ll miss the donuts. A word from the author: I write in the hope of better understanding myself and the world around me. I hope I got it right here.

Trampoline tattered safety net ripped sliding off its poles in no condition to stop an errant jumper rusted springs rusted uprights But it still has bounce hedges stopped trying to get around started growing right through But it still has bounce maybe I’ll just remove the net clean up the springs front flips belly flops it still has bounce at the peak of jumps hair floating off your heads laughter escaping lips years go by in blinks The last vestige of childish play to leave this home Everyone has grown Pinstripes for a moment they remind me of my grief as everything beautiful does when grieving orange blocks in the sky separated by the thinnest strips of white cloud I’ve never seen a pinstriped horizon before but I’ve felt this grief for two months now windows down moonroof open COVID mask dancing on the rearview mirror Shit! I forgot about the papers on the backseat collected before soccer practice every day each one a teenage girl’s proclamation to wellness 98.7 97.6 99.1 98.1 97.7 97.6 Fuck it let them blow the blocks of sky morph orange to dull pink as I crest a hill I can’t remember us sharing a remarkable sunset I’m sure we had as kids time spent lying in the backyard grass calling out the shapes of clouds I always saw turtles. My daughter pops into the car picking her up from girls’ group A gathering of teenagers proclaiming their love of God and chicken fingers Check out that sky I know, I’ve been watching full deep pink now the thin white lines now dark thick navy Pink and blue the balloons tied to the dining room chair for tomorrow’s gender reveal party my first grandchild I couldn’t be happier but the grief reminds me as everything beautiful does when grieving How that grandchild will never meet their great-uncle

One Friday, when I was seven years old, Mama brought home single packets of cheese. They came packed together like little, yellow slices of love. Growing up, I didn’t often see cheese packets among the household groceries. We couldn’t always afford them, but I was always aware of them. They were in fairy-tale branded lunchboxes at school, across the table from me when I ate with my friends. They were in specific aisles at the Shoprite grocery store into which we rarely ventured. Most frequently, though, I saw them on TV, in strategically placed ads during my favourite shows. I lived with the cheese. It haunted and eluded me. When Mama brought these cheese slices home, I figured there must have been some special occasion. There was none, she told me, she just thought it would be nice to have once in a while. She gave each of us – Buti, my elder brother, Ami, my elder sister, and me – a little, yellow slice of love. They ate theirs immediately, the amateurs. A treat like that was to be savoured, forgotten until such time that its memory delighted you more than it had previously. I practiced delayed gratification daily. I was never allowed to swallow toothpaste, so after every brush, I would squeeze another dollop of toothpaste onto my brush and place it on the windowsill to dry. Then, after school, before everyone else got home, I could enjoy a piece of sweet, minty toothpaste candy. So, no, I would not eat my cheese right away. I would save it. I took my cheese slice, wrung it thoroughly between my fingers – the wringing did for the cheese what the sun drying did for the toothpaste, added a bit more pizzazz – and placed it in the fridge to eat the next morning. The wait would be long, even if only overnight. In the morning, I awoke blissfully oblivious to my hidden treat, only reminded when another strategic ad came on TV during one of my shows. And then delight came. I made my way into the kitchen and approached the fridge. The light came on as I opened it, but the mystery of it did not distract me. That day, it would not be a magic bulb operated by a tiny, invisible wizard. It would be, instead, a halo effect that illuminated my cheese. I stood on my tiptoes and reached for the compartment in which I’d deposited it just before bed. Nothing. I rummaged about, turning over the frozen peas, the sauces, opening the deceptive ice cream tub that contained rice, and even poked the old, lone tomato in the corner of one compartment, too squishy and stale to be touched by anyone. My cheese was gone. My little, yellow slice of love had been stolen from me. Who could have done it? An icy feeling rose inside me, and it wasn’t just the cold front from the still open fridge door, about to set off its tiny alarm to inform me the wizard needed a break. I left the kitchen with my mind racing, singling out family members and analysing possible motives. It couldn’t have been Papa. He only went to the kitchen to make his way out back to the kraal, to tend the sheep. And it couldn’t possibly have been Mama. She knew almost everything that went on in the house and she would have known that it was my cheese. Mama wouldn’t have done that to me. That left me with two probable culprits; Buti, whom I excused because we spent enough time together that I knew he was fair and truthful, and my sister. She and I were always at odds. If she took my cheese, I doubted she’d be honest about it. She wouldn’t help me make the case for Mama to give me another slice of cheese. She probably knew that when she did it. She probably enjoyed it, knowing it would taunt me. Ami sat in our room, staring dispassionately at her phone. I stood near the doorway and thought about how the confrontation would go, recounting to myself how previous ones had gone. She’d deny it. She’d say I was imagining things. It was meant to be a delightful morning, and I was not prepared for that kind of frustration. I turned reluctantly and went back to the kitchen. There was nothing to do but accept that my cheese was gone. I would have to wait until Mama decided to give us more. More… there was more cheese in the house! And… I knew where it was. Mama always let me help her put groceries away. It was because she trusted me. She knew I was disciplined and wouldn’t take things without permission. Buti and Ami hardly ever helped. I suppose Mama didn’t trust them like she trusted me. But was I about to break that trust? I hadn’t gotten my slice of cheese. Was I not entitled to my slice? Mama was outside doing laundry. I couldn’t ask her or explain what happened. I knew how it would look – like I was lying and just wanted more cheese. No, I couldn’t ask, so I had to take another slice and pass it off as mine. It wouldn’t be difficult because I was small, I was fast and I could be really quiet. But what would I say when someone saw me eating cheese? At least one person would know it wasn’t mine. So I needed a witness, someone to corroborate my story without being implicated in the lie, and I knew exactly who to trust. After taking the cheese and wringing it hurriedly, I walked to the living room where Buti had changed the channel to his favourite basketball show, Slam Dunk. I sat beside him and held up the cheese. “Buti, this is my cheese from yesterday. I just took it out of the fridge.” “No, it’s not,” he chuckled. “I ate your cheese from yesterday. That’s a new slice you just stole.” In all my years, I had never felt such a strange swirl of embarrassment, confusion, and betrayal. I sat there dumbstruck, thinking ‘Next time, I’ll eat my cheese right away!’ Rorisang Moerane is a poet and writer from Maseru, Lesotho with a passion for emotions. Some of her work has appeared in an anthology by Head and Hand Press, and she is a big fan of Charles Bukowski.

He sat in an all-night diner. A waitress who resembled Bela Lugosi crept then flew towards him. He was reading Ibsen, which he regretted. The weekend was nearly at an end, which, if he had not been dead these past seven years, might have mattered. What is it about the reluctance of ghosts? Some must have thought there was allure in the sucking of a milkshake through a straw, its indelible sounds when you reached the bottom. But it was more and less than that. The perfume of the cheap booth seats, kids talking nonsense, the forever light. Dylan Willoughby is a permanently disabled LGBTQIA+ writer, music producer, and photographer, born in London, England, and currently living in Los Angeles, CA.

The Tequila Shot ~ long lick of the tail feather flick tapering tail like a grass blade glass blade shoot of a cry and a gulp and a green shot salt on your tongue and creature compelling lime wedge green long tail of a glass beaker the tequila shot parakeeter singing like a loon you are a tune to make music to ~ Parakeet Lilypad ~ I lie on the surface as flat as I can my edges hold tension like nothing else I can float on the pressure beneath held by the density of my own suspension, my skin is a place to land bah-bah leaving ripples out wide water and air, bom-bom, I keep beat I am circle and snare ts-ts reeds brush my belly so softly by handfuls, I shiver and hear the soft watersnake hiss at the water line. tell me my rhythm as I float on by ~ Drum Three Musketears Mould iron on the Anvil mass Low through the rumble of the Long handled sound Everything shakes Under my Stare I am Not a victim of the Crash and the Underscore – I am the receipt I am the Steward, I am the strength under it all Swing up, Take your seat And stabilise your shaking limbs Press into my flanks, be held in the Eye of my Sound Victoria Punch is a voice coach and musician. Curious about voice and identity, the limits of language and how we perceive things; her poetry comes from these explorations. Published in the6ress, The Mum Poem Press (guest ed. Liz Berry) and Sledgehammer Lit. Forthcoming in Nightingale & Sparrow. Found on Instagram and Twitter @victoriapunch_

For Butch Baristas and Platform Docs My friend hand-crafts bulldog harnesses the style you always said would look great after you got top surgery. We’ve been lying in bed for the whole morning, drinking black tea because the french press we use never tastes quite right. I wanted to get you something, some gift other than the books that overflow bookshelves, or the poems I write about you, or the dried flowers that take up most of our bedroom walls, but I didn’t know how to properly size a harness, so the oxblood-red leather went unused, or rather used for a different customer, another butch. It’s been hot for days now, ninety-degree sun baking last week’s torrential downpour into the loam, or silt, or— well, you could tell me the soil composition, though you’d bemoan how your hands are too soft now, no longer farmer hands, despite the tomatoes you planted earlier this summer. It’s been hot, and I bought my first pair of sandals but still wore my platform docs on that two hour walk because I know you like how the extra three inches make it so your head rests right against my chest. It doesn’t matter if heels rub away into raw skin when I just want to spend all day lying next to you. And even though you now work for the government, and I sell books and pour wine, we both know how to pull a perfect shot of espresso, how the smell of used coffee grounds can cling to a person for days. Prayer for Justice i sink my teeth into bricks, into concrete push the grit out from between my gums there is always another question always another road that needs taking why must we feed our blood and sweat to these open maws these cavernous stomachs and probing tongues that belong to these worshipers of profit who have sacrificed compassion for an extra ten dollars an hour the tongues that belong to this vile idolatry of dividends we mourn in community or making bread from stolen grain we mourn by providing hot meals to friends to lovers to strangers in worn books and new zines in touch and in prayer G-d where is that fire you promised us where is your justice they speak of tzedek tzedek tirdof why must we always seek what you promise Avinu malkeinu honenu va'anenu ki ein banu ma'asim Aseih imanu tzedakah va'hesed v'hoshi-einu i'm sorry it's just we're dying down here I am caught on film The divine is undisputable how else could we accept the permanence of death. The divine is undisputable because we see it every day, whether we stop to look for it or not. The divine is undisputable because how else can we explain the world. It only takes a minute to look for it, to see it in the way asphalt splits as if it were trying to form rivers, or in the infinity of mycelium below feet and dirt. There is a shot in Solaris of reeds, or some other plant, flowing as if they were part of the river. It lasts maybe two or three minutes. It is proof that the divine is visible. In another film there is a shot of wood pulp or maybe asbestos flaking like snow in a derelict factory. Tarkovsky died soon after. The divine is undisputable because how else could we determine what is the river and what is not. The divine is undisputable because what else do we see in the current. Mangrove trees use their roots as stilts in salt oceans. Clouds may move or may not. The divine is undisputable because how else could we know what it means to move or stay still or both. The divine is undisputable because you can perform augury if you open your eyes wide enough and there is meaning in the stars and clouds and tea leaves and bones. One day we will be gone and yet we will not as if we were the clouds. The divine is undisputable because it is in neon lights and the warmth of the sun. Fire eats bones and trees speak. Do not move. Evelyn Bauer is a writer, bookseller, and wine punk living on stolen land in so called 'New England.' She is often found reviewing books, petting cats, and listening to experimental music. You can find some of her tabletop roleplaying games at https://eeveeholdsredbull.itch.io/, her poems in Moral Crema, Corporeal Lit Mag, and Not Deer Mag. Find her on twitter at @neo_cubist

There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath. - H. Melville “Moby Dick” Mary had two suitors, cousins William “Billy” Martee and Matthew “Matty” Martee. The boys grew up in the fishery. Five in the morning they’d push off and trust the Old Man who captained them to take them to the waters where the cod ran in thousands. The nets would be into the water by eight, and they’d pull them in by hand at noon or no later than one. The nets would cut your hands to ribbons, and then the salt of the ocean would fill the cuts, and the old hands had old hands, white as an alabaster Christ, and scaled like Triton’s tail. The younger men, unmarried and conscious of their prospects, wore gloves. Three in the afternoon they’d be back on the docks, the catch to unload and the nets to mend, and each would have a measure of rum from the same small silver cup engraved with a St. Andrew’s medal and each would sing a verse in turn from old sailing songs. They’d be in bed by eight and then, the next morning, up by half of three or four to go out again. Billy said he thought he could live this way forever, and Matty said he thought he could too. Matty proposed marriage to Mary, like he thought he should. Mary, he said, I’ll build a boat and I’ll name it after ye. I’ll be captain of my own ship. I’ll be a bye no more. I’ll be a man worth the havin’. Will ye have me do ye think? All young men’s proposals have the firm capital of a half a bed and a mortgage on the promise of more good things to come. No, she said. I think I won’t. You’re a fine b’y Matty, she said, as fine as any here. But my heart is set on Billy. He’s promised me a house, a home and hearth of our own, warm against the winter, with a foundation of stone, and he’s a man too already aye, fair of hair and eye. I’ve told him yes, I have. I’ve promised already. I’ll have Billy. Matty Martee went off without a further word. What could he say? That he risked something in a proposal declined? Other men suffer as much. They find other wives and are often the better for it in the long, even if they feel worse in the short. Unlucky indeed is the man that hears yes on a bad match. But that his cousin, his friend, his Billy, had got the yes of it and hadn’t told him of it before or after, That it was kept a secret from him, perhaps that was where it lay wet and heavy on Matthew Martee’s soul. A month later the Old Man had them in rough water late in the season and they had a bad time of it coming back to shore. The last wave came up and hung there a moment above them, and the Old Man saw that it was over for them. He said I’m sorry b’ys, I’ve taken a bad tack and led ye to a bad turn. The blame is mine, and no one else’s. The ship tipped over on her port side and into dark water they went, men and catch, rum and Saint Andrew’s silver cup. Matty came up on a piece of the wreck, enough planking to float on, with his gaff in his hand. His purchase was secure and he looked about the flotsam for the other men and there were none but his cousin Billy to see above the water. Billy saw Matty on the last bit of the wreck that held hope of succor and made to swim over but when he got within his hand’s reach Matty pushed him off with the butt of his gaff. A second time Billy put out his hands up to his cousin. Again, Matty pushed him off. A third time, this time with the sharp and the hook, and Billy spoke before he sank beneath the water. You have undone me Matty, he said. You have undone me cruel and unfair. May Hell swallow you whole. When they sank, they were within sight of shore, but the wind and current and the stir of Leviathan in her sleep in the deepest deep took Matty away and back out to the bottomless black water and away from the eye and ear of home. When the ship didn’t come in the mothers and wives went out to the docks to watch the other men push off to search for the missing and then, when those men were gone, the women walked the shores. They were widows to a wreck, and found not so much as a scrap of cloth to bury. They were the heiresses of the sealers of the Newfoundland, its men left by the Captains Kearns to be frozen to death on the ice out on the hunt, and the Southern Cross, it’s men unfound, and other ships less famous. Sometimes there were remains to mourn, but mostly just memories. Still, they walked the shore. Mary walked with them, but she said nothing to any of the others about her two suitors, the cousins Martee. What was there to say? Finally, darkness came as it must. The cycles of the earth and the sun are eternal and were set by the creator when he first spoke a word upon the water of the primordial, and they stop not by the wishes of widows. When the darkness come to midnight Mary heard a voice outside her window. It was Billy, come up from the sea, and he was not so fair of hair and eye. He was strung with kelp and run rough with a dredge of sand, his skin scoured by ordeal and made the white of the old fishermen’s palms, and his eyes were already gone to the small creatures, who move fast in the darkness and the light alike. Mary, he said, Mary will you still have me? Matty has undone me he has, pushed me from the wreck with a gaff, and I have perished. He left me as you see me here. My God Mary, he said, they’ve even taken my eyes, the small, fast things. All this from the barb of Matty’s gaff, and him without a word of why. Mary, will you have me? Mary took him then, out of love, and he lay with her in her bed in her mother’s house like a man with a woman. In the morning when Mary’s mother came to wake her, she chided Mary, not for Billy, who was gone, but for the kelp and sand in Mary’s bed and the salt of the sea on her clothes still wet from the spray from when they’d walked the shore, for that is what Mary’s mother presumed. Only Mary knew that it was Billy, dissolved forever now, gone and run in rivulets back to the sea. A Portuguese trawler brought Matty in a week later. They’d found him and him alone, on his plank with his gaff, the day after the storm, afloat on seas so calm they seemed made of glass and you could see so far into the deep you thought you could see the glimmer of stars like as to the firmament above, the two things being not unlike one another. They didn’t speak much of English, and he none of Portuguese, but they were men of the sea and ships and by the laws they governed themselves by they took him on up and brought him on in to harbor and Matty had nothing to say to anyone but that they’d tipped over within sight of land and that he’d been the only one to come up from the wreck and he’d lived he knew not how, except by providence. A week since his return come up and went by and Matty made his way to Mary’s house and asked to see her and her mother in her mother’s kitchen. He spoke slowly this time, and carefully. This harbor is short a boat and crew, Matty said. I mean for the next boat and the next crew to be mine. I’ll build ye a house, he said. A house with a stone foundation, whitewashed, two stories high. A home and hearth for you, and for me, and for our children what come after. Mary, will you have me now? Mary would not speak so Mary’s mother made her answer for her. Yes, she said, yes. Mary will have ye. Mary looked at the floor and nodded. Yes, she will, her mother said, looking at Mary, and not at Matty. God only knows what moved the mother to accept the proposal on her daughter's behalf. Perhaps it was no more than it was a good match. Maybe too, she knew time is short for everyone, shorter than they think. She herself was the granddaughter of one of the sealers what went down with the Southern Cross. She knew of the woes of the sea, and that there was no stopping what may come. The end of it was that her daughter and Matty were wed two score of days past the sinking of the Old Man’s ship. There was a proper ceremony in the church and there was a roast beef dinner in the hall, with tatties and neaps and all the fixings and a fourth plate for every man who wanted one. Matty took her home then and carried her across the threshold and into the bedchamber, where Mary told him that come what may, she’d never lie with him of her own volition. She told him what Billy had told her when he came up eyeless from the sea, about Matty and his gaff and the hardness in his eyes. She told him that since Billy had come up from the water to lie with her, she’d not had her monthly, and that Billy’s child was filling her already, and that if should she choose to let people think it was Matty’s come early, Matty should count himself lucky by her grace. Matty held his silence then, and he did abide by her discretion. They slept in the same bed for sure, Mary sleeping without dreaming, without moving, and Matty sleeping hardly at all, acting out a pretense like a mummer. Six months later the baby came, and Mary’s water broke like brine and there was seaweed in it and it ran cold too, colder than the heat of her body by far, and a little boy followed, a baby made all of salt, eyeless, cold and scaled like old fishermen’s hands and without a heart to beat, a simulacrum not possessed of life. The midwife took the sad thing up but she could barely lift it in her arms, such was its weight. Ah, she said. A salt baby, born of some wreck and made from some misery, would that I had never seen such a thing. She left Mary with her mother and set the salt baby like a statue at the foot of the birthing bed. Matty then, he came in and took the baby away. He took the hard stone weight of him down to the sea and set him in the shallow water to wait there for the ebb tide, there to be reduced to nothing while Mary cried in her room with her mother silent by her side. It took three days for the salt baby to disappear into the sea. None of the small and quick and mean came up from depths to hasten the dissolution, for the child was all salt and as solid as a rock and besides, what need do the legions of the sea have for one more ration of salt? So, three days of tide. People heard of course, from the midwife’s tale. Credit goes to those who did not come to look, and shame falls upon those who did. Matty shipped out with an oiler out of Boston they said, and from there no one knows where he went, only that he never came back. Mary poor girl, they say, sometimes before storms she’ll walk to the shore in her very best dress and dare the sea to take her, to come up and get her if that’s what it wants, but it never does and even the roil of storm, the green foam on the black water, calms around her feet and in her footstep’s wake and that is her Billy, the last and least bit of him the salt in the brine, keeping her alright, her bare feet in the water all of the all of their hearth and home.

I. The Incredulity of Thomas An index finger points the way from beneath the altar at Santa Croce Church in Gerusalemme, Roma. Postmortem examinations record the appearance to be blackened at the tip to the first knuckle; ashen grey for the remainder; absent of nail; and an irregular, saw cut along the webbing. Like a fat cigarette that’s been snuffed out and soaked... I ponder this relic and imagine it in a clear, Petri-like dish, resting as a dial in a compass: coming to life with a shudder, spinning wildly, and settling its accusatory point on all passersby, incredulous with doubt—of its existence. II. The Virtue of Catherine The patron Saint of not only Rome but Italy and, eventually, all of Europe—Saint Catherine of Siena lost her head, literally, having been beheaded upon apprehension while doing papal espionage… rare for a woman in the Middle Ages. Her virtue had witnesses speak of levitation during prayer, stigmata, even the Eucharist flying out of a priest’s hand directly into her mouth. Her head rests on a pillow in Saint Maria Sopra Minerva Basilica in Rome. They say her body ghost walks through the maze of pews along the transept, nave, and apse, in search of her holiest of crowns. III. The Incorruptibility of Anthony Within a reliquary on the altar of The Basilica of Saint Anthony in Padua, there sits the wet and incorruptible tongue of the very man. This patron of lost things—and noted orator—might be at a loss for words as to what he, himself, is missing. Dying from Edema in the year 1,231 AD, he was exhumed 32 years later in reinterment in his current resting place. While the Christian world makes pilgrimages and prays for his intercession in finding things or people lost, he—too—calls out for the return of what he needs to answer them. Keith Hoerner lives, teaches, and pushes words around in the Bible Belt of Southern Illinois.

2-1/2 cups plain flour: mother-in-law Vera 8 tablespoons butter: Dan, my husband. 1-3/4 cups sugar: “Let’s host my sister’s engagement party!” said he sweetly. 1-1/4 cups whole milk: our new kitchen. Said: “Let’s show it off!” 2 large eggs: Kayla and Kyle, bride-and-groom-to-be. They won’t last. Breakable. 1/4 teaspoon salt: Vera will rub it in at the party: “Ever gonna give me a grandbaby?” 1/2 cup lemon juice squeezed from her sneer. 2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder: my surprise. It’ll get a rise. 1/2 cup diced figs: fresh, gooey. To close mouths—including Dan’s—that may hang open. The flour and the eggs blend, pour on the sugar as butter opens the door. The mixture takes in the milk and our kitchen, sniffs: “Too white.” Bake that at 350˚F for 15-18 minutes. Cool, say: “My bun in the oven will take longer.” Sprinkling “Bitch” and/or icing sugar optional. Serve and enjoy. Karen Walker writes short fiction in Ontario, Canada. Her work is in Reflex Fiction, Sunspot Lit, Unstamatic, The Disappointed Housewife, Retreat West, FiveMinute Lit, Sundial Magazine, 100 Word Story, The EkphrasticReview, and others.

At the hardwood flooring outlet, the sales rep is an older gentleman (although should we always assume gentleman just because of the older that precedes him?), and because I'm a woman, when I select my hardwood planks, Al hands me the flyer. The flyer itself is quite a thing, a "what year is this?" pause in my shopping excursion, the parentheses hanging in the air incredulously over my head. The flyer’s header screams “What puts greater force on a resilient floor?!” in bold, forty-point typeface, and a multiple-choice graphic selection sits below: The outline of what is labeled a “two-ton car,” the likeness of which I’d guess is a Lincoln Town Car. The dark silhouette of an African elephant, tusks prominently displayed. The third choice is clearly the most offensive to good ol’ Al: the frame of a woman, her face a featureless rounded oval, her body cloaked in what appears to be a trench and a wide-brimmed hat. She is carrying an oversized briefcase in her left hand, feet clad in offensive pointy-heeled shoes. “Stilettos are back in vogue,” the flyer continues, “but women should be warned.” I know the woman offends Al by the way he grips his blue ballpoint pen, the tip chewed into plastic splintery edges, and circles her right shoe just above the caption that reads: “a 125 lb woman.” And I know she offends him by the ensuing lecture that is bestowed upon us by Al, our gentleman flooring rep. Rather, I should say he bestows it upon me because he never glances in my husband's direction. He tells me of the dangers of the stiletto, the most offensive of footwear, the clomping and stomping of which women pound the oak or walnut or teak, manly briefcase in hand and intimidating hat protruding. How dare she walk in such a way, with hard, confident footsteps and a face with no eyes, nose, or smile. I think of how Al commented when I entered His Store that I should be smiling, what a fun day picking out flooring for the missus! Was my husband smiling? I wondered, but didn’t say, choosing instead to smile, the submissive response a woman learns. Of course I oblige, with my upturned lips; a woman should be smiling as she selects the floorboards upon which she will cook, and clean, and birth babes. I imagine the phone calls: Al perched at his desk, surrounded by samples in rich browns and mahoganies and the occasional gray, bobbing his head as he says "yes ma'am" to the panicked woman on the line, gesturing with a finger to a nearby customer that he’ll just be a moment longer, phone cradled between his shoulder and chin, the woman’s shrill cries piercing his ear drum like a stiletto. “I’ve advised you of the dangers,” he would have continued, as if discussing the consequences of climbing a rock wall without a harness, of skydiving without a tandem partner, of chasing a tornado in a beat-up Chevy. He would remind her that she’d signed the Stiletto Waiver, her name scrawled above the dotted line, as mine would soon be. And I wondered, are the husbands required to sign, to confirm they have discussed it with their wives? Yes I am a stay-at-home mom now, probably look like a stay-at-home mom now, all LuluLemon leggings and messy bun and husband at my side. But once I was what Al might call a "career woman"; the rare bird of a female corporate executive, whose shoes scratch and dent and leave tiny, angry impressions in Al's precious, pristine planks of pine, the weight of her arrogance pressed into heels. Yes, my husband is the earner of the oatmeal raisin bread loaves now, I’m just here to pick out the pretty flooring. But I want to tell Al that if it wasn’t for me, if it wasn’t for the decades of my labor, we wouldn't be in the position to select these planks of my choosing; that if I hadn’t stomped my way up that invisible ladder one sturdy rung at a time, we’d be going with laminate. But all I say to Al as I sign his waiver with a smile is, “I don’t wear stilettos.” Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland. She delights in traveling, boating on the Chesapeake Bay, and hiking with her toddler. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Coffee + Crumbs, The Phare, Sledgehammer, Capsule Stories, Versification, The South Florida Poetry Journal, Cauldron Anthology, The Elpis Pages, For Women Who Roar, Remington Review, and The Hallowzine. Annie is working on a memoir about mother/daughter relationships; you can find her writing on Instagram @anniemarhefka, Twitter @charmcityannie, and at anniemarhefka.com.

For the love of Physics Oh my little vector, how I follow thee -hither to thither- thou art better than any scalar. Your resistance decreases my current initially, but my momentum carries me through to my maximum EMF. You accelerate my velocity, charge my capacitance, Oh, my solenoid you incline my potential energy. You intensify my electric field summarise Coulomb’s law. Better than the apple are you for this Newton No longer am I inert- I accelerate towards your force and try to exert an equal but opposite love upon you The death of the dragonfly Chasing its fluttering little clear wings, we never realise when it leads us from the grassy lakeshore to the dark cave lands. So mesmerized by its disproportionate body- so very illogical the image could have been captured from a child's imagination, we follow it. It appears to be so unattainable so shiny- so bright- but, when captured in a glass bottle it looks like any other common flying insect. Disheartened by its mediocrity, we release the prisoner of flight back into the merciless air, only to mindlessly search for happiness by trying to capture the seemingly shiny dragonfly once Gold and Silver I can be your silver: -showy, gaudy, ostentatious, gleaming, glistening, sparkling- for all to notice. You can be my gold: - solid, strong, and sturdy uncompromising, incorruptible, classy- for all to envy. Flaunt me around your finger as we dance toward the silver gleaming moonlit path. Me grasping onto your golden shoulder anticipating the golden sun of morrow. Let us be entangled – confused as to where your light ends and my darkness begins. Forevermorelet me be your understated silver and you, you can be my timeless gold. Shiksha Dheda is a South African of Indian descent. She uses writing to express her OCD and depression roller-coaster ventures. Sometimes, she dabbles in photography, painting, and baking lopsided layered cakes. Her writing has been featured(on/forthcoming) in Brittle Paper, Daily Drunk Magazine, Door is a jar, Luna Luna Mag and Versification, amongst others. She is the Pushcart nominated author of Washed Away (Alien Buddha Press, 2021) She rambles annoyingly at Twitter: @ShikshaWrites. You can find (or ignore her) at https://shikshadheda.wixsite.com/writing/poetry

I Loved You Differently but I Loved You the Most Remember that summer workshop when I alone defended the whole of your second draft? My zeal even made you, its creator, wide-eyed and frozen in your seat. You knew I was the quiet one among our peers and always abided by the path of least resistance. But my gut feeling said that you were going for the music of the alliterations since you’ve long shied away from the antique charm of end rhymes. (Note: By “antique,” I mean, “immemorial and immortal” -- and why not write in that scheme again?) You knew that one word less and the poem would be off-key and could no longer sing. For you, my impassioned feedback: “Let us not go for concise until it is no longer nice.” (If ours was a barbershop, every customer would be leaving as a skinhead!) Remember that summer? Anyway, you don’t have to. By the way, I still . . . Never mind. My Buyer’s Hesitation over Gifting You a Bike After three attempts at taking your own life, with the last one almost final, you asked me to buy you a bike. A bike! I could only imagine the happiness it would give you! To ride around the park in lieu of walking around the ward! Yes! A bike! But . . . how fast can any driver of a speeding car react in case you attempt to test the strength of your two-wheeled vehicle against his four-wheeled metal? A bike. Yes, I know the joy of riding one. I can already see the unbearable beauty of you gliding by; your bronze hair billowing to the passing breeze, your smile ethereal as the afternoon sun. But . . . Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines is the author of the poetry collections “Metro Manila Mammal” (Soma Publishing, 2018) and “Outsourced! . . .” (Revolt Magazine, 2021). Shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021 and thrice nominated for the Best of the Net, his poems appear in Philippines Graphic, DIAGRAM, Small Orange, Radius, Matter, Eclectica, Better Than Starbucks, and elsewhere.