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Salem Song October’s losing its dull yellow teeth mother of field mice, queen of chrysanthemum dead flowers clutched in clenched fist in this month of yellow leaves and red sun with smoke wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl It is easy to blame the early dark, the empty cellar, especially when witching hour comes and goes without candlelight we are all so hungry in the market of misplaced things famine of memory, or maybe truth An animal scuffles the forest floor tail tucked into a steel trap the men mistake it for a hairy specter lay down inert and intimate with the dawn bring nothing back but soup bones In the dandelion daytime, children help peddle silver spoons practice bloodletting in case of plague, peeling scabs off skinned elbows singing soft between beestings they get their fill of rainwater and we raise them on ragweed and skipping rope rhymes leave them dreaming alone, three to a bed while we sit in the city center watching the magician’s wife flame into a scarlet flower. Viable Organ After “My Heart” by Kim Addonizio That roll of quarters for the phone call home that three-way mirror in a department store dressing room silver and speckled as the premonition of prophets dream-spangled girl, divine as David that chipped porcelain angel rotting in the rain amongst rhododendrons that list of names stamped in the back of the library book that baby bird buried by the creek bed that funhouse, that freakshow, those twins with two heads— that horror, that headstone, that hole in the damp dark earth— a mass grave for daughters who died with dish pan hands and phantom labor pains, unmarked. The Weight of Skipping Stones Grief takes the stairs two at a time rocks in the pockets of her raincoat, bright pink and borrowed from love, unsure if the next step leads to the river or the road Flash flood warnings sounding over someone’s second-favorite song Car headlights diadems in the summer haze, in this royal procession from parking lot to drug store to stop sign I coronate a Camry, brassy and brave as Diana with its tchotchkes tumbling from side of side of the dashboard, No navigator on, with a wet dog hanging from the window, this is the Princess, bulimic and bewildered I carry it all in my rucksack, because I, like anyone, have a bag and a body to carry it all, still a student, books and browned bottles and broken teeth. I take the stairs two at a time, just as my grandfather taught me, just as my grandfather did before he died, Because time is just at the top, wearing the raincoat of love, her pockets turned wrong side out, all her treasures of pinecones and skipping stones scattered over the foyer, and I gather the sticks and mud and a frog and snail, stay there, so still, on my hands and knees. Laura Ingram is the author of four collections of poetry: Animal Sentinel, Mirabilis, Junior Citizen's Discount, and The Ghost Gospels. Her poetry and prose have been featured in over one-hundred literary magazines, among them Juked and Gravel.

petrology maybe you determined inert at flatline maybe topography never the way you wanted flat water table immersing your mouth pointed nose I studied petrology saw your face in the rock no I didn't no there is another name for this your inch- by-inch erosion without features you are a threat mass lodged so in my throat I can't speak we buried you deep your tongue become marble your brows ossified white of your rendered bone unthinkable our unwavering sentinel where also this registers some level your teeth keep you close now breast of the earth where I unearthly soak in your sublimated sweat acrostic for human-lion relations “If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Like any other polite predator, if a lion could speak he’d tell me of dirty water, rusted blood, near-fresh kills to share with guests. Broken bones his cutlery, we’d dine under the sheer string quartet of flies, lie under the stink of meat, blanketed by the hot breath of dusk. Even if I forgot all but the lust of the hunt, a life spent at the tip of the spear, the drum of blood in my ear it's the nights I’d remember - not heat-haze, not the glimmer of summer gazelling away across the savannah. Liam Burke (he/him/himbo) lives in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land. He is most recently the co-author of 'machine dreams' with natalie hanna (collusion books, 2021) and ‘Orbital Cultivation’ with Manahil Bandukwala (collusion books, forthcoming). His work has most recently appeared in INKSOUNDS, the Daily Drunk, Savant-Garde, the Jupiter Review, and long con magazine, and is forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit.

Thank you for taking me on long walks to places I had never been before, for telling me the names of all the plants and birds and native species. Thank you for taking me to the beach at sunrise to do LSD and watch the day unfold like a goddamn miracle and then coming home with me and listening to songs and being so so so close. Thank you for turning me on to new artists and playing songs I had never heard and thank you for listening to the songs I sent you because I was feeling emotional and couldn’t come up with the words myself. Thank you for not freaking out when I said “I love you” first. Thank you for listening while I read Mary Oliver poems while we were driving out in the country that day. Thank you for listening to me talk about my ex and my parents and my job and going on and on about all the losses of 2020. Thank you for listening to me talk about the neglect, abandonment and abuse of my childhood, and for being a part of my healing. Thank you for being patient when I couldn’t maintain an erection because I was too wrapped up in my head to have fun sex. Thank you for not shaming me when I did drugs or for that time when I cried because the apple orchards were so beautiful or for that time when I cried because you are so beautiful. Thank you for letting me gaze at you and for letting me live with my hand on your chest and my face in your armpits and your crotch and your ass. Thank you for all those hours of Trivial Pursuit and silly tv shows and heavy tv shows and even Star Trek and thank you for letting me call Star Trek Star Wars because I thought it was cute. Thank you for going to the museum with me and for showing me that Kusama documentary. Thank you for not worrying that someone would see when I sucked your dick that time in the cemetery. Thank you for thinking it was cute when I called you when you were out of town at Thanksgiving. Thank you for all those hot dogs and seemingly random road trips that always went just where I needed to be. Thank you for telling me about the history of Rochester and showing me all the places where trains used to run. Thank you for always finding cool rocks at whatever shore we were on and for letting me pick the best ones to keep. Thank you for being excited about my cat. Thank you for making sure I always had reefer and for always knowing the perfect moment to pack a bowl or roll a joint. Thank you for showing me how to light the menorah and how to play dreidel and for not rolling your eyes at all when I played you the Indigo Girls Chanukah song. Thank you for the Maine t-shirt. Thank you for rice and beans and eggs and toast and all those cups of coffee. Thank you for sitting through all those long talks about how I am not evolved enough for an open relationship. Thank you for trusting me enough to go that art show and thank you for the perfect sex we had after. Thank you for being there when I finally enjoyed giving head and thank you for letting me put my hand around your dick even when we weren’t having sex. Thank you for falling asleep at my apartment sometimes and for not thinking it’s lame when I high five after fucking. Thank you for being honest with me and for not pretending to be someone you aren’t to fit into my traditional ways of thinking. Thank you for calling me special and for calling me “mister” and for always using that green heart emoji. Thank you for falling in love with me and thank you for sharing the fall with me. -TM (12/23/20)

I tell my therapist that I connected with someone. No, I mean we really, unequivocally, like, went together, I tell her. Now they leave me on read, a prickly silence. It takes me 15 minutes to explain not only what that means But what an anxiety-inducing affront it is. She nods knowingly. It’s happened to us all at one time or another. It’s a part of life. When she opens her mouth again, my mother's voice comes out: “Hey, I told you not to swat at the wasps if they fly around you. Wasps sting you!” I want to appear brave, so I swallow hard, taking with it the tears and unsaid words: I know that this happens. I just didn’t know it would hurt this much.

lease renewal what can we lay upon our hands those husking calliopes, generous mouth that leans to yes & tremor, the fold and flutter warmth when the pressing of if & then stains the silk on empty floors settler spreads of grass become a cavalry of arresting blades stranger, you have managed the unnecessary parts of me- carrying them away in small boxes, wrapped against ill humor, hungry mouths of insects, restless ghosts made of packing tape when I move again, remaining will be the fresh wound of a postal code, guidebooks on must see & must do, wild forage and the nearness of hands the blooms in these guides are unencumbered by sweetness, and so they work plying their work under fixed stars velocity of grief in the ache of my arms, I will know grief sure as winding sheets, wrung in bleach the circumference of your shoulders yet wide enough to arrest sudden flight relative speed is accounting through comparison, my body or your body where products of inertia are numb hymnals to praise what remains, what left the polaroid on the table, eccentric orbits with condolences and light receptors the slick emulsion massaged by photons seizing the arc of your lifted hand you are pointing a finger through the frame describing an event already past, escaped I experience the passage of the only bullet that will ever matter coda passing along through a local park just a stand of birch and goldenrod ringed in sodium flood I discovered the final resting place of a wren and gave pause, in a breath before leaving it broken, to trust instead how a strand of lights along the short axis of flesh shapes a luminous host William is a nurse and scribbler of small notes, drifting southeasterly. Further scribbles @ByThisWillAlone.

Eulogy As big as his mammoth body is; Pot-bellied and 6’2”, I still think his presence is bigger. Highly Opinionated, Gap-Toothed, Fun-Loving, Fierce-Hugging, Jovial Salt and Pepper-Bearded Teddy Bear. I never saw how people could perceive him as intimidating; The pieces that everyone saw Towering, Mean-Mugged West Virginan who takes no shit I get it, And it makes sense. But all I could ever see was a giant man who loved me. I wanted to come on here and write something meaningful and powerful, Showing him in the light I always saw him in. Shining glory, Perfectly imperfect. I’m struggling to see the words. I think my brain is trying to protect me. How can you lose a giant? Nothing reverts back to normal after a giant leaves. A giant hole in my Lesser-giant heart. I never knew what my father did for other people. But they were always thanking him. Telling me how he saved their asses. And I beamed with pride with every compliment. I think he was selling them drugs, or getting them odd-jobs, or a combination of both. I just knew he was good at what he did. I am trying to be good at what I do I clock in every day, Feed the cat, Kiss my husband, And do the dishes. My lesser-giant heart does not know how to go on. Stay here as long as you can. I want that to mean the age of ninety-five falling asleep in your reading chair I can’t bear the thought of twenty-seven or thirty-two or even fifty-five. When the pain becomes too heavy I beg Heaven to conjure something right and sweet for you Love and medicine in the shape of a blanket a neural function a rib. I wish for you A reprieve in the light The resounding hum of a box fan lulling you to sleep. I’ll stay pleading with God for A pinch of good in this life To see you through the next day. Like warm strawberries soaking in sugar I want to sweeten your sorrow.

On days like today, I want to be held in silence. No romance. Just friendship and hands, holding me firm and tight till all the anxiety locked in my joints vanishes. This might sound crazy but it is true; I am anxious most of the time but never fearful. Over the years it has become very difficult to hold fear in my chest, there's just no room. Once a stranger asked me to explain to them how they could sense I was very anxious but yet so calm - I could not, it just is. On days like today, I stay in bed, cuddle myself, then rock my body back and forth till I either doze off or feel the anxiety become silent. Slowly but steadily it stills. It never really goes away but I have learnt how to tackle it. I rock my body back and forth, but on some days I wish someone else would do it for me. No romance. Just friendship and hands, holding me firm and tight till all the anxiety locked in my joints vanishes. I wasn’t much of an anxious child, at least not until I started to encounter the world in loud and rough chunks. Events, malls, churches, neighbors, refugee camps, the death of loved ones (one family member or friend at a time) then the growing anxiety became more and more aggressive. It feels as though it has always been there: lurking behind my chest while I spent ridiculous hours reading books and watching archived interviews in my mother's office, hiding itself in the joints in my legs while I danced or played street football with other kids in my grandmother's village, just waiting for the right moment to strike. Every exposure to real life must have been a signal for its madness to turn the volume up in my breath, that's where it stays - I just know. I have taught myself how to manage and still my anxiety over the years, but on some days like today, after reading and writing all morning, pitching and negotiating with survival, avoiding sleep and trying to forget my life. On days like this I wish I could have someone alive in their flesh and bones beside me to hold me firm and tight, to rock with me back and forth in silence till my anxiety stills or I go to sleep. No romance. Just friendship and hands. Water. Steady breathing. Conscious distraction. Silence. Music. Smoking. Writing. These are some of the mechanisms I have used over time to measure how long I have before my anxiety leads to madness.

All at sea High up in the crow's nest foam corkscrews below One more minute and the waters will split the great snake's tail slice through with a splintering shriek dash the ship into so many matchsticks The music's loud, the conversation light the swoop and the swirl of it a passing tray of canapes It comes in waves pitch and roll back to the wall another glass of wine and I'll have the courage to speak If I can just breathe keep to my post hold steady against the juddering swell maybe I can beat it back keep my head above water Under my heel I can feel the shift my lips are cracked with salt On the breeze It's cold up here the air is thin I can see the swallows, below me now the brindled shadows the clouds cast over bright harvest ripe fields I can see the ring of birch trees sun through green leaves the old house the rope swing slung over the bough in the yard frayed almost right through but holding out - just I close my eyes and wonder could I have stopped the rot? the subtle stiffening seeping into us with each tick of the grandfather clock lonely in a dust encrusted corner could I have pricked the silence with the right words so that it burst and let out its poison? before we brought the whole thing toppling down with no last minute reprieve no hole in the eaves perfectly placed to miss move away with a light step and a double blink the jinx heavy upon our heads until quite suddenly - with a soap bubble pop! you granted me this choked release the final drop Too late to go back over it now it's drifting with each fresh breath of the wind I float a little further away Longshore drift The sea is a casino and the tides play the dealer inch by inch, wave by wave seaweed, stones, unwary creatures shuffled and slotted by sleight of hand further along the coast Do they ever open an eye, mouth, shell hold out a wary claw or tentacle wondering how they got here so far from the still rockpools of home? You got here before me phone face down on the table you're wearing someone else's smile I scan the horizon for a familiar landmark my vision pitching alien sands beneath my feet

Olivia flings open the door and retches onto the pavement. With a trembling hand, she wipes her mouth and stumbles out of the car, around her pile of vomit, and onto the grass. Sinks to her knees in the damp earth, takes deep, shuddering breaths. She blinks her vision back into focus. Something is in her eyes, stinging, blurring her gaze. With the back of her hand she rubs it away and glances down at the blood, fresh and warm, smeared over her skin. When she sits back on her heels, pieces of shattered glass fall from her hair, and Olivia suddenly becomes aware of the throbbing in her head, the sharp ache in her ribs. A vague memory: her body in the air, slamming against the car’s center console. A few yards away, a squirrel darts up a tree trunk. Between her knees, a worm squirms through the dirt. A cloud shifts across the sky, blocking out the sun for a few seconds before moving on its way, and the sky brightens once more. Life continues around her, oblivious to her situation, a reminder of her insignificance. The knowledge is soothing, helps her focus. She is hurt, she is alive; she needs to be calm. Olivia looks back at the car. The front passenger side is crumpled against the base of a tree. In the reflection of the gray steel she can see the horizontal gash across her forehead, thin lines of blood trickling down her temples and over the bridge of her nose. All the windows have been shattered, and through the open spaces she can see Regina’s body, still upright behind the wheel. The driver’s side is completely crushed, caved in on itself like a piece of crumpled aluminum foil. Scratches of red paint drip like blood across the door frame. She notices the skid marks that mar the pavement. There haven’t been cars on the road in weeks, not since people started boarding up windows and bullet casings littered the autumn foliage. Apprehensive and a little wobbly, Olivia stands and inches closer to the wreckage. Regina’s seatbelt is still on, but it’s done her no good. A trail of blood, not quite dry yet, runs down her neck, which is twisted at an unnatural angle. Her eyes are still open. There is no chance she can open the door, so Olivia reaches inside, avoiding the jagged glass that remains in the window panel. Fingers shake as she presses them against Regina’s eyelids and drags them down. The urge to vomit rises in her again. Stepping away, leaving Regina in the car that is now her coffin, Olivia is greeted by the eerie silence of the empty highway. There are no street signs, no mile markers. She has no idea where she is. There is a voice inside her head, competing with the growing throbbing at the base of her skull, that urges her to keep moving. Her thoughts are jumbled, but she tries to make sense of them. Home. Regina was taking her home. Why are you helping me? I’ve seen what they do to the other survivors. You’d wish you didn’t make it. Olivia lugs herself down the street, feeling like a block of cement is strapped to each ankle. Her mouth is dry. She can’t remember the last time she had anything to drink. She received her fluids through IV in the hospital– only it wasn’t a real hospital, she remembers now, but an airplane hangar turned triage center, frantically constructed when the real hospitals started filling up. And the doctors. They weren’t real doctors, either. The pounding in her head grows stronger with each painful step, and a white-hot burning blooms behind her eyes. She stops, keels over, retches again. Her legs give out, knees hitting the pavement with a crack, barely managing to bring up her arms to break her fall. The impact rips open the skin of her elbows, scratches the side of her face. The gash on her forehead splits open again, blood pooling on the asphalt beside her. Olivia lies there, half-awake and in agony, existing in a place where time both refuses to pass and moves faster than she can conceive. Vibrations rumble the ground beneath her. An engine roars in the distance, steadily growing closer, louder and louder until it abruptly stops. A door creaks open and heavy footsteps crunch their way towards her. Help me. Save me. Take me home. A large, rough hand pushes her tangled hair away from her face. The touch is familiar, and another memory surfaces: the same hand clamped around her mouth, muffling a scream. Two fingers press against her neck, her pulse beating pathetically against them, and then Olivia is rolled onto her back. In her mind she fights back, writhes and bites and shouts, but her body offers no resistance as two arms come up beneath her, under her legs and around her shoulders, and she is lifted from the ground. She smells the mix of sweat and spice and gasoline that she knows– Jay, his name is Jay– and feels the brush of soft fabric against her cheek as her head lolls onto a hard, muscled shoulder. Not bad, Jay says. This is the furthest you’ve gotten. Hot leather sticks against her skin as she is propped up on a seat, her body a ragdoll to be posed on a whim, no longer controlled by her mind. Head against the window frame, Jay’s hand on her shoulder to steady her as she slumps forward. Tires squeal. A stinging wind whips against her face. Please take me home, Olivia thinks as she is driven back the way she came. I’m tired of this. I just want to go home.

Sprite I imagine: shrinking so small to fit inside of a rose, I feel the soft petals against my skin & the intoxicating scent - pink sunshine cotton-cloud soft. Out I come from my cocoon; sprouting translucent wings from my tiny bones. Fragile, microscopic sparkles - the day has shifted into night now. I fly up above the blue green grass & up above the trees. Up above the lightning bugs & foxes' telepathy, moonlit gardens & lines of laundry. Portrait of a Lady in a Walmart Parking Lot A blonde beauty with an angel-like face; round as the moon, a young mom. Husband in the store, kids at school. She's got a plastic fork in one hand, cigarette in the other - it's raining & fog hits the Walmart parking lot like a tranquil morning in the mountains of Japan. She sits unruffled in the drivers' seat of the minivan, a mouthful of soggy hotcakes like hot butter & coffee spilled all over an old mattress. Hollywood Dreams Everyone has vanished from the land of big dreams & silver screens, the eternal stars left in sand & shambles. A continuous matrix of technicolor landscapes & Marilyn's handprints - are they lost or chosen? Forever frozen.

Two drops of blood found on the bedsheet, the one tossed casually over her shoulder all night, in the one place where she felt small and safe: unassuming and anonymous, the quieter the better, the bad habits she couldn’t break. She awoke to find that and nothing more—two drops of blood in a sea of possessions, items that didn’t really belong to her, at least none that she would claim. She kept her shoes strapped tight all day and most of the night, a bag full of necessities on a hook by the door, ready to disappear if circumstances called for that. They hadn’t yet. The walls were mostly awake by then, aching echoes of rooms she was invited into but couldn’t bend her legs to sit in, leaving the laughter of loved ones curt and short, tinny, blowing endlessly from an oscillating fan in one corner. A pile of fake IDs sat face-up on the desk, all her name but a different address: some downstate, some out-of-state, some Istanbul, none used for anything but daydreaming, feeling her way through the other lives she could be living. For now, she exists in sun-scorched confusion—some dichotomy, caution reigning supreme, every would-be “yes” a tentative “maybe,” "nothing" doesn’t mean "nothing to lose,” always think it over. Meanwhile, two flies occupy the windowpane where she unknowingly slept beside the remnants of dead bees. They make frantic, frazzled pleas, negotiations with each other and the cool glass and the breeze they could almost sense—feeling through vibrations, knowing but not knowing, gut instincts. “If you move, I’ll move. If you bend, I’ll bend.” Neat stacks of towels sat folded but not put away, locked together in mismatched hues of well-worn terry cloth. Some dryer heat was still secured in between; not an ounce of warmth to be wasted, even during the warmest season. Strength in solitude is dubbed weakness and still weakening like an atrophying muscle, the lull of exhaustion waxing and waning. Fingernail clippings top the trash—bones expelled by routine squander, the way we waste things we don’t believe we need! An in-ground pool laid sultry and inviting beyond the window, close enough to observe but not to touch, an ocean chemically salted and trapped in a cage (the way humans do with every wild thing they encounter). It’s still the only way she has to walk on water, so it’s worth the trouble, at least for a while. But summer’s bitter end is coming, the hazy, sweat-soaked throes of death, cool air wrestling its heavy iron fist loose and easing it away with a whisper. If you move, I’ll move. If you bend, I’ll bend. Tiffany M Storrs is the editor in chief of Roi Fainéant Press. She is a writer above most other things, but there are so many other things, and she is properly qualified for none of those titles. She loves a lot of stuff but we're not going to get into all of that now. You can find her here, on Twitter @ msladybrute, on Instagram @ lady.brute, and out back honing her wit.

Sharon is a runner. Everyone has a thing they do. That’s her thing. The minute she gets out of bed in the morning she goes for a run. But today Sharon’s body refuses to cooperate. She finishes the first mile, and it still seems as though she’ll never wake up. Past the Nelson’s house, past the corner grocery store, the playground, the elementary school, up Granby’s Hill, and around the parking lot at the recreation center. Every step feels like she’s slogging through thick mud. But at least nothing hurts this morning. No tight Achilles tendon to shake out. No shin splints or aching hamstring. At least there’s that. Still, she’s slogging, slogging, slogging. And then. It happens. With no warning. Zap! Every cell in her body snaps to attention, the grogginess vanishes, and she’s fully alert. Just like that. Just like last week in the company cafeteria. She was on her lunch break, scrolling through LinkedIn, when she saw an article about the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, a philosopher she’d never read before. According to Aurelius, the obstacle we face is actually the way out of our current problem. The obstacle is the solution. The way out. And then. It happened. With no warning. Zap! Every cell in her body snapped to attention, and she knew Aurelius was right, that the latest disaster her alcoholic husband had created to traumatize her life was not the last disaster, but one of many to come, that his disasters would continue again and again and again, like they had for the last seven years, that nothing would change, even though he promised it would, again and again and again, but it never did and never would, that this disaster was not just another stressful situation to survive, but her way out of a dead-end marriage. The obstacle, this disaster, was the solution. And it was. And this time she knew it. The way out. Hers. And this time she took it. Just like that. Laura Stamps is the author of several novels, short story collections, and poetry books, including IT’S ALL ABOUT THE RIDE: CAT MANIA (Alien Buddha Press), THE YEAR OF THE CAT (Artemesia Publishing), and IN THE GARDEN (The Moon). Winner of the Muses Prize. Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations. Mom of 5 cats. Twitter: @LauraStamps16. Website: www.laurastampspoetry.blogspot.com