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The wood was so dry that it ignited almost as though it were paper. Paul stood up from the fireplace and grabbed the keys from the bowl. He also grabbed the thick hat. It took him only a few seconds to get to the car, but his fingers were already cold. Thankfully the engine had caught on the first try. He sat, waiting for it to warm up. The weather folks loved this. Apparently, Minnesota was going to hit a new low temp record later tonight. Currently, it was minus 20. Paul grinned as he thought about it and even his teeth felt cold. He finally threw the car in gear and inched onto the icy street. Mornings were considerably easier sober. There was no shaking. No fog. A few months ago a morning like this one would have been unthinkable. At the post office he collected several bills and was about to close the box when he saw a smaller letter wedged in the back corner. He tugged it free and saw that it was dated from last week. He saw the return address, too. He didn’t open it. Instead he walked back to the car slowly, and laid the envelope on the seat next to him. Even though the car was already cold again, he didn’t turn the key. He remembered the last thing Dave had said to him. Paul still had three more weeks to go in the clinic…but Dave was done that day. When his ride came into the parking lot Dave had turned to Paul and he said, “Call me when you get out.” Then he left. Paul had called. But Dave never picked up. Sometime later Dave’s mom had called him. She called him several more times, each time more fraught. He sat in the cold car, staring at the envelop next to him. He didn’t open it. He didn’t need to. Zary Fekete has worked as a teacher in Hungary, Moldova, Romania, China, and Cambodia. She currently lives and works as a writer in Minnesota. Some places she has been published are Goats Milk Mag, JMWW Journal, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, and Zoetic Press. She enjoys reading, podcasts, and long, slow films. Twitter: @ZaryFekete

She reeked of debt, despair, and a litter box that hadn’t been cleaned for a week. She bulged in all the wrong places. He reeked of sweat, cheap cigars, and bad decisions. Jowls hid his neck, a hat hid his bald spot. He was wider than tall. They both needed glasses and antihistamines. They both wanted a bad drink and a good lay. Or maybe it was the other way around. Squinting through the smoky haze of a sleazy bar, They saw in each other the answer to their prayers. Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Accidental interviewer/reviewer. Faker of fake news. Website: https://bit.ly/3bT9tYu Twitter: @NolchaF Facebook: Nolcha Fox

the way that she looks in both directions as she boards the c train, as she focuses her eyes on the people around her, hoping to see the girl she met in elementary school on the same subway car two young women who live in separate boroughs with separate schedules who will meet on the train they planned the times of the c train schedule and practiced the places their feet would step in order to be on the same car and see the same images out of the window the subway car became reserved for stale croissants which were half off at the closest deli and the words those women said were written in their journals shared pens instead of phones and images from their words instead of photos solitude together. converge. Ilana Drake is nineteen years old and is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University. She is a student activist and writer, and she was appointed to be a 2022-2023 Global Goals Ambassador by the United Nations. Ilana's work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, PBS NewsHour, and The Tennessean. Her poetry has been seen in multiple magazines including Bright Lite, Flare Journal, and Same Faces Collective among others (https://ilanadrake.wixsite.com/mysite/projects). When she is not writing, she can be found listening to '90s country songs, researching used book shops, and promoting inclusion.

The sky falls to the ground it looks like small pieces of shattered glass a bit like water a bit like a broken lake of water you pick up the pieces you put them on a table you take them one after the other and you paste them on your wall like a map like a geographical map in the center of the map there is an eye it is the eye of the mirror it is the mirror the that sees you because the real mirror is not those bits of sky that you've just put on your wall the real mirror is your eye it's the only mirror it's the only way you have to see yourself you’re made but solely of flesh and bones not much with a bit of shit too and food in the end shit and piss mostly and necessarily a lot of piss because you are old and as you are old you piss yourself all the time you smell of piss most of the time and with age you're going to smell more but of shit and piss getting slowly decrepit it'll be your natural smell and then one day that smell will be replaced by that of the rot the rot eating you up alive the rot inside as one is still conscious the rot of death that itches us so often then will come the rot of the corpse and as you’re an old bachelor living by yourself like an idiot maybe you will die without anyone noticing it in your apartment located in the suburbs of Paris inside it your body will be lying on the ground and will smell more and more of the stench of the rot it will surely take some time maybe several weeks before this smell of rot reaches the staircase of the building and when one day a neighbor on his way home perhaps will realize that there is something rotten in there he will think well the old lunatic is surely gone on vacations and this idiot has left the meat to rot in his fridge and then one day the smell will be so strong that he will say to himself no there is something that is not normal so he will call the police and the police will come the police will break down the door and it will find a body finally what will be left of you half flesh half skeleton with a bit of luck there will be some skin and meat left on your head and one will only see your skull appear on the sides of it maybe you'll have that half mouth half skull weird smile partly made of scarce old teeth protruding out of the bones and on the other side rotten and green lips puffed up with worms and bacteria it will be a moment of great beauty you will have to take pictures of course maybe say a poem maybe do a drawing dance and party around the corpse in circles but nobody will be able to feast on it because it will be too rotten so they will have to bring hyenas bring vultures bring rats the hyenas the vultures the rats will perhaps eat the corpse because it takes a hell of a belly to digest a corpse and this rotten food this disgusting flesh the hyenas probably will have been brought from the zoological park next door this hideous zoo where you had no longer in your lifetime set a foot since your childhood it will be convenient nevertheless because it is really right next door in a small wood called Vincennes in short they will go get the hyenas those will eat your corpse it will save money no need to carry away the body no need to feed the hyenas everyone will be happy then one will have to burn the paintings that are in the apartment because they are useless one will have to throw away the books one will have to sell the apartment falling apart anyway and that will be it it will be all over and just the one and only thing that might be left in a corner after all this devastation could be those bits of sky still stuck like bits of mirror on a wall but these bits of sky turned into a mirror a long time ago will now be covered with dust and your eye will have totally disappeared, digested by the belly of a hyena , or maybe by the one of a lonely rat. A word from the author: Ivan de Monbrison is a schizoid writer from France born in 1969 and affected by various types of mental disorders, he has published some poems in the past, he's mostly an autodidact

Christmas Boxes They have been roaming streets and avenues long before honest souls had awakened into another Monday. It was to be a great day of much bounty for the voracious teeth of the roaring monsters driven by their half-conscious pilots. Frigid in the north, balmy in the south emboldened by some brew hot or cold before the fumes of their green robots. Customary armies of holidays passed they were dying for another piece of memories to process those joyous moments gone. Colorful cardboard boxes made for disproportionate friends papers of multicolored stars and snowflakes food for these psychopathic ogres. No more time to celebrate the birthday of a king as children shed a tear upon the passage of a strange sled too hungry to feed their dreams. Miracle of the Butterfly Crawling across the pathway she hopes for another inch to her survival under threat of the unforgiving sole blind to the many worlds below. It is a hard journey for the one who fights with nothing more than an eternal fate to feast our eyes on unknown perfection alone on the most perilous adventure. Yet she will live to hide in her precious home made of silk and promises, upon a tree limb the warm protection of an unlikely abode a place to become an instrument of seduction. The child contemplates the chrysalis cowardly trapped in a crumbling box with no food but the eye of a teen expecting miracles in a strange prison. Terror resides within her fragile home as she knows her life may be brief thus, she must dazzle with her colors and a flight to the zenith at noon. From a strange mixture of mysterious potions the eternal code will tell the tale to make this miracle true like so many creatures to be born in amazement. Poussin teaches French and English at a university in Georgia, USA. His work in poetry and photography has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other publications worldwide. Most recently, his collections “In Absentia,” and “If I Had a Gun,” were published in 2021 and 2022 by Silver Bow Publishing.

On the drive to see my mother, the transformation begins. By the time we hit the bypass the change from A-Grade student to underage witch is well underway. Around two junctions from complete. I catch my reflection in the wing mirror and watch in fascination as my eyes slide from sea to emerald green. In the time it takes our car to pass a caravan, my hair has grown dark, sprouting so fast I have to tease out the tangles. Raking through knots with beetle-shimmer fingernails. Only stopping when the footwell fills with spiders, snakes and other creeping things. Yet Dad’s face stays Sunday-set, far-away and flinty. His brow stamped Do Not Disturb. Focused on the road. Busy looking the other way. I try to speak. But the words creak out in cackles, fringed with maggots and frills of purple steam. Dad sniffs, sneezes. Then cranks up the air conditioning and puts the radio on. Chewing on newts and sulphur, I shrug my newly sharpened shoulders and turn my pointed chin away. I press my fresh, scarlet mouth hard against the window, sucking at the glass. My black breath yanking at beautiful, stolen sights. Pulling each one in. We wait at the roundabout, where I harvest three matching smiles in an estate car, a metallic balloon tied to a pushchair and a tree, russet in flaming symmetry. Small, rare flashes that I push high against my palate. Breaking and rolling them across my lizard tongue, before spitting them like dragon’s teeth into my palm. Amulets to string around my scaly neck. Layers of cool blue enchantment, to lay against my flaking skin. Ready to ward off white gowns, floral curtains and endless paper masks. Pushed up against the window my breath turns hot and froggy. I shift and take jagged bites of frosty silence. Before throwing my face hard, back against the glass. Long teeth jangle. Soft gums shrink. A black cat darts out of nowhere. My father swears. And the car, just slightly, spins. We move on. And I inhale rushing but perfect hillsides. My lungs glowing green, then furious purple, as they rip at the roots of wildflowers, icy streams and velvet moss. All of which I stuff into cushions, ready to strap beneath my horn-rimmed feet. All the better to hush drumming footsteps during hasty corridor retreats. We pull up at traffic lights and through the vents seeps a heady scent. Cut grass, fresh bread and the dark midnight of tarmac; as if conjured to order. Ripe for mixing, ripe for casting. The very essence of magic, ripe for breathing in. I lean forward open-mouthed, probing the tastes, as they crawl toad-like upon my tongue. Categorising them by colour, texture, slime and shape. Then I snort them up, one by one, into the gingerbread cottage of my brain. Where they sit in candy-covered rooms, waiting to coat the smell of sympathy and antiseptic. And spit cooling fires of poison on hot dry air and earnest updates, quietly given. Behind closed eyes, with frantic wizened hands, I start to uncork sapphire bottles, pop smoking corks and tap on granite lids with willow wands. Tipping, pouring, stirring, shaking; I keep on lining up the jars. Hundreds of different shapes and a thousand shifting sizes. Yet all labelled just the same. Each engraved with her many faces, the ones that smile. The ones that wink and laugh. The ones that play. Enchanted vessels; impregnated and animated by the magic of the past. Before sliding doors, rainy car parks, whispered weekly visits. And sinking cheeks that, despite my spells, refuse to stay the same. Rachel Canwell is a writer living in Cumbria. Her debut flash collection “Oh I do like to be” was published by Alien Buddha in July 2022. Her fiction has featured in Sledgehammer Lit, Reflex Press, Retreat West and Pigeon Review amongst others.

Poet Laureate recipients tend to get elected to their positions because they have something important to say. Sheila Packa, Minnesota’s Duluth Poet Laureate 2010-2012, and Jim Ferris, Ohio’s Lucas County Poetry Laureate 2015-2019, are two proven examples. Both poets are vocal and passionate about the social justice issues that they care about and the social justice organizations that they feel close to—for Ferris, it’s ADAPT, and for Packa, it’s the American Civil Liberties Union. After getting to know their work while co-editing the anthology Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press, March 2019), I found myself wanting to get to know both writers even more intimately and the result is the following interview where we discuss social justice, Donald Trump, climate change, and so much more. Ron Riekki: What are the most important issues of social justice that need to be written about right now? Sheila Packa: Lately, following the news of the ICE detention centers and the huge increase in prison populations in our country, I’m concerned. Under GOP leadership, these have become privatized, run by private, for-profit corporations. Incarceration is an expensive and ineffective method of addressing social problems. Regarding privatizing social services, it’s important to remember that corporations always put profit above all else, and they should not be in the business of providing social or human services, including education or criminal justice services. One can see the problems that have happened under the Trump policy with the detention centers. Small children are separated from their parents; this is an institutional form of child abuse. It breaks the family unit, it traumatizes the children, it hurts human development and penalizes the most vulnerable. It has not and does not address the problem. Children who are taken from their parents are at high risk of abuse and neglect in the institutions. This same thing happened to Native American children in the past. Horrendous treatment. I personally don’t want my tax dollars going to these institutions. A second concern I have is the need to protect water resources. Water = Life. We all need clean water to maintain our health and the quality of life and health of future generations. Sulfide mining, fracking, oil pipelines, refineries, and the residual effects of chemicals contaminate our land, air, and water. Cleanup is costly and usually borne by the taxpayer. Instead of using “profit” as the central organizing principle, we need to use “people’s health” as the central organizing principle. Jim Ferris: There is a powerful temptation to decry the forms of oppression that are most in our faces at the moment. But I want to resist that temptation for a moment, because the oppression that hampers the world is like one giant World’s Biggest Knot, and focusing on one or two threads is unlikely to untie the knot. Racism has been called America’s Original Sin, with plenty of justification. But I find myself thinking that ableism may well be the most fundamental form of oppression, because of the ways that the ability/disability continuum has been used to oppress people of color, women, sexual and religious minorities as well as people labeled as disabled. I think we need to write about all of it, with the care and detail that will not only make beautiful compelling art but also will shift the culture. Ron Riekki: What is not being written about that needs to have a larger voice? Jim Ferris: As I write this I am participating in a wonderful writers’ conference in the mountains. The conference organizers have worked really hard to make the conference a rousing success. The faculty is excellent, wonderful writers and human beings who clearly and deeply care about good writing, about the participants, and about making the world a better place. And there is still a disturbing undertone of ableism lurking. The ableism is not just in the challenges of making charming old buildings accessible, though using a wheelchair here would be difficult indeed. Mostly, the ableism is in the assumptions about who we are and what we are doing: the desirability and indeed the primacy of normativity, that excellence cannot be achieved without in some way re-inscribing normativity, without bowing at the altar of the normate even as we try to make something wholly different. If all we can do is try to surpass what has already been done, then we are stuck on the same track, just trying to go a little farther—rather than forging new paths, not just illuminating but creating different ways of being, knowing, and doing the world. What is not being written enough is why well-intentioned normals should change their minds and their ways of engaging, recognize that the problem is not just behaviors, not even just attitudes, but the fundamental concepts, the pressure toward norms that prescribe who is fully human—and who isn’t—who can fully participate in society—and who is not allowed to—who is ‘one of us’, and who is, to call on an old phrase, ‘beyond the pale.’ Explicitly, we should be noticing and calling out ableism wherever it arises. We are nowhere near done exposing, let alone correcting, the deep problems caused by racism and white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, and the all-too-wide range of other human differences that lead some of us to oppress others of us. But I think ableism is the least recognized of these pervasive ills. Since ableism is about all of us—every human is variably situated on the ability/disability continuum—this ongoing and desperately harmful construct of ideas dearly needs the light. Sheila Packa: Women and children’s needs: over the past 30 years, women’s rights have diminished in many regions of the world, and with this, children are adversely affected. More attention is needed to access to health care, food, safety from domestic abuse, and access to education. Countries have been destabilized because of war, gang violence, religious fundamentalism, and climate issues. There is a worldwide refugee crisis (and its roots are often in government policies) that must have a global response to help stabilize governments and communities. Ron Riekki: Do you often write about social justice issues? What incites you to write those poems? Sheila Packa: The poem I wrote is a cento, and it is a collage of quotes from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels about the way that change happens. It is intended to give heart to people who work for positive change. I came to write about this while doing research for my latest book of poems, Night Train Red Dust, about my Finnish immigrant grandparents and women’s and labor history in Minnesota. In the early 1900s, a progressive movement occurred that supported women’s equality (and the right to vote), immigrant services (like settlement houses, language classes, etc.), and a concern about how big corporations exploited the working class and poor (and as a result child labor laws, occupation safety measures and the forty-hour work week came into being). Farm and other types of cooperatives helped create sustainability for the immigrants at that time. Good things happen when people work together for the common good. Jim Ferris: I can’t help but see how power is implicated in just about everything we humans experience. It can’t help but surface in my poems. One of the big things I find myself using in poems is the conflict between the normate ways of experiencing and using the world and the lived experience of those situated as Other. Is the elder driving slower than everyone else because she is old, or because she is African-American? Or both? Other reasons? Just because? Ron Riekki: Trump. Your thoughts? Sheila Packa: Trump fails to treat others with dignity and respect. He lies and blames others. He prefers spectacle over substance and celebrity over integrity. If a leader cannot take personal responsibility, maintain accountability to the public, and work toward the common good, then he or she shouldn’t be in office. Jim Ferris: (Sigh.) He is a reflection and an outcome of something that has been a part of American thought (if we can call it ‘thought’) for a long time, the idea that this land was given to a select group to use, enjoy, and rule over—or we could use verbs like dominate and pillage. I’m reminded that Ronald Reagan’s Interior Secretary James Watt didn’t think the country needed to practice stewardship because end times were coming soon so go ahead and use it all up. Trumpishness shows the same level of thoughtfulness and responsibility. Ron Riekki: Climate change. Your thoughts? Sheila Packa: Serious wildfires are going on right now, and these impact regions much larger than just the places in flames. Smoke and particulate pollution are impacting large swaths of territory in the west and north, and this impacts people with asthma and other lung conditions. Plastic in the oceans impacts marine life and the food we eat. Loss of the arctic regions raises the temperatures of the oceans and amplifies hurricanes. In the near future, high temperatures will get worse. Our government and citizens make a dramatic change in policies and practices otherwise our grandchildren’s quality of life will drop. Each of us must reduce our carbon imprint. This means developing more alternative energy, stopping driving as much, conserving and protecting water resources, avoiding using plastic, and providing assistance to those impacted by drought, flood, fire, and hurricanes. Jim Ferris: I worry that we are dancing close to the tipping point. I do think Trump will be seen to mark the end of an era; I hope we don’t have to endure even more widespread pain, chaos, and destruction as a result of waiting too long to address this clear and present problem, this imminent catastrophe. Ron Riekki: For people who are interested in more writers who write well about issues of social justice, who would you recommend? What particular writing by them? Jim Ferris: Eli Clare (Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure and Exile) and Jamaal May (The Big Book of Exit Strategies), Sheila Fiona Black (Iron, Ardent) and Patricia Smith (Incendiary Art), Marilyn Nelson (A Wreath for Emmett Till, How I Discovered Poetry, American Ace) and Ross Gay (Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude) and Alison Kafer (Feminist Queer Crip) and Kaite O’Reilly (peeling, And Suddenly I Appear, the ‘d’ monologues), Ellen Samuels (Fantasies of Identification: Disability, Gender, Race) and Sami Schalk (Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction), Kim Nielsen (A Disability History of the United States) and Liat Ben-Moshe (Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the US and Canada) and Tim Seibles (Fast Animal) and Toi Derricotte (The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey) and Thylias Moss (Wannabe Hoochie Gallery of Realities’ Red Dress Code). I could keep going, but this is a good start. Sheila Packa: I recommend reading Roxane Gay, Zadie Smith, Claudia Rankine, Joy Harjo, and Barbara Kingsolver. Read George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language.” I recommend the writing of Michael Ondaatje because his writing is beautiful, and his characters experience the effects of war. Find writing you love and make art. Write your own stories and share them. Help others in your community tell their stories. Jim Ferris: I’m also looking forward to Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha’s Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, due out in Fall 2018. Ron Riekki: Other than writing about social justice issues and reading about these issues to learn more, what actions need to be taken? Recommend some steps that you advise people to follow to make significant improvements to this world. What are you doing to make change? Sheila Packa: I spend less time on Facebook. I donate money to political candidates who I think have the right values. Last year, I worked on a committee in our local community focused on changing police policy with undocumented immigrants. This was initiated by the ACLU). I support the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Planned Parenthood, and arts organizations. I do writing workshops in the community. Art is a powerful tool in social change. Jim Ferris: We can’t recycle our way out of this mess. I still believe in the slogan “think globally act locally.” The best actions to take are specific to place and community. Don’t wait for the government or for others to take action; find the best things available to you and do them. Connect with young people: it’s their world, we’re just using it for a while. Recognize the future that is already with us, live in that future, the world will follow. You don’t have to solve all problems—or any problems—all by yourself. Find community, make community. Team up with one other person and get started. That’s how we turn this corner—together. Bios: JIM FERRIS, Poet Laureate of Lucas County, Ohio, 2015-2019. Books include The Hospital Poems (2004) and Slouching Towards Guantanamo (2011). Chair of the Disabled & D/deaf Writers Caucus (2016-2018) and past President of the Society for Disability Studies. Ferris holds the Ability Center Endowed Chair in Disability Studies at the University of Toledo. SHEILA PACKA was Duluth Poet Laureate 2010-2012. She has four books, The Mother Tongue (2007), Echo & Lightning (2010), Cloud Birds (2011), and Night Train Red Dust (2014)and recently collaborated with Helsinki composer Olli Kortekangas. The Minnesota Orchestra premiered their work, Migrations, in 2016. She teaches at Lake Superior College and in the community.

After five o’clock, we got together at La Siesta for margaritas, fajitas, and tacos to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, and someone asked what the holiday represented. None of us cared what it meant, other than eating great food and, more importantly, drinking margaritas, but we all thought it was to commemorate Mexico’s Independence Day, a victory over Spain. Marty, the human resources manager in our group, corrected that it was to celebrate Mexico’s victory of a French occupation and that our mistake was yet another example of false memories of a group referred to as the Mandela Effect, named so after people who’d had an incorrect memory of Nelson Mandela dying in an African prison when he hadn’t. Marty shared other examples that seemed less significant: people remembered the name of Jif peanut butter as Jiffy; Curious George had a tail when he didn’t; the theme song for Mister Rogers was “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” when it was “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood”; and Hannibal Lecter said to Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs “Hello, Clarice” when, in fact, he simply said, “Good Morning.” “Get out,” Frenchy said. “That movie scared the hell out of me.” “100% all true,” Marty said. “It’s even true individually. What people say in interviews about their own experience in previous jobs seems to be false memories compared to the reports from their supervisors when we check.” “You’re kidding,” Jan commented. “How do you know the former supervisors are telling you the truth?” “We don’t, but we have to somehow find middle ground,” Marty said. “I have come to wonder what reality is.” “Well, the reality is these are the best damned margaritas I’ve ever had,” Frenchy said, and everyone laughed. “Except for the ones you had last week that you don’t recall because you had too many,” Jan said. Niles Reddick is author of a novel, two collections, and a novella. His work has been featured in over 450 publications including The Saturday Evening Post, PIF, New Reader Magazine, Forth Magazine, Citron Review, and The Boston Literary Magazine. He is a four time Pushcart, three time Best Micro nominee, and a nominee for Best Small Fictions. He works for the University of Memphis, and his newest flash collection If Not for You has just been published by Big Table Publishing. Website: http://nilesreddick.com/

On the Shawangunk Mountains behind the Correctional Facility, I trip on boulders I cannot see in low luxurious slanting sunlight. Bruise-kneed, again and again I get back up, giddy on freedom and the tinsel dazzle of New Year’s sunbeams. Ivor Daniel lives in Gloucestershire, UK. His poems have appeared in iamb, Fevers of the Mind, Roi Fainéant, Ice Floe Press, The Dawntreader, After..., Alien Buddha, TopTweetTuesday, Black Nore Review, Lit.202, and elsewhere. Twitter: @IvorDaniel Instagram: ivor.daniel.165

Our boss was a weasley old dude who thought he was a new age Magnum P.I. because he drove a Ferrari and had a mustache. He was always bragging about hiring local girls who would’ve ended up working night shifts at the plant. We all knew the real reason he hired young girls because we were always dipping and dashing out of his reach. He let us buy stuff on credit until payday so he thought that gave him privileges. We giggled and side-stepped and tolerated a pat on our asses or a snap of our bra straps sometimes to keep him thinking we were good sports. To keep him believing we were harmless and didn’t have anything under our blowouts but empty space and hormones. Three scraps of paper with a list of charges stayed pinned to the shelf above the counter in the stock room. At first, I didn't have a pinned note. Daddy said you never buy on credit, never be beholden to anyone if you can help it, do without and wait until you can pay cash. The other girls just rolled their eyes, said they be holdin’ stuff they needed and scraps could blow away in a light breeze anyway. One stormy spring, dark, mean clouds hung low, low over our little town. Over a week without sun and pimple cream made my face popcorn with hatching pink eggs. I became a desperate 5.49 on a fourth white scrap. Old Magnum just grinned his weasley grin and thumped my scrap with his thumb. Thought he finally had me under it along with the other girls and Brandy down at the cafe. Every Saturday he would eat lunch at The Sunshine Cafe where Brandy the waitress spread her sloe-eyed sunshine pie all over him. Every Saturday afternoon his wife took the Ferrari to the First Baptist Church car wash so it’d be bright and shiny for church the next morning. She’d watch the young guys squirting and rubbing, her mouth working double time on a wad of gum. Us girls had a running bet as to which one of them would rededicate their life to Jesus the next day, being good Christians and all. This one Saturday afternoon Magnum’s wife came in the store as usual to pick up the Ferrari keys. Magnum was having lunch at the cafe. He dragged in late that day with a look on his face like a black top road on a July day, a big old stain all over his white Polo, and a wet pink wad stuck in his hair right above his left ear. He walked real fast to his office giving us the death stare as he passed. We didn’t see him the rest of the day and his wife didn’t pick him up after work. We hid behind the snowball stand and watched him stomp down a back street toward home. Chatter at the skating rink later that night was that his wife found a hot pink lace thong peeking out between the seat and the console when she picked up the Ferrari. Us girls laughed and laughed as we twirled around the rink, sliding our hands down our mini’s so as not to let our panties peek out. Charlotte Hamrick writes about, reads about, and photographs extraordinary everyday things in New Orleans. Her writing is included in a number of literary magazines and in the Best Small Fictions 2022 anthology. Sometimes she writes in her Substack, The Hidden Hour.

e s i A proportioned r after a d i v e re quires a bit of an an gle to get ho me James B. Nicola’s poetry has appeared internationally in erbacce, Recusant, Snakeskin, The South, and Orbis (UK); Innisfree and Interpreter’s House (Ireland); Poetry Salzburg (Austria), mgversion2>datura (France); Gradiva (Italy); the Istanbul Review (Turkey); and Sand and The Transnational (Germany), in the latter of which his work appears in German translation; and Harvests of the New Millennium (India). His full-length collections (2014-2022) are Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page, Wind in the Cave, Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019), Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, and Turns & Twists. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award.

Each Diwali, Amma would light up Small earthen lamps From a big one, And ask us to place at Everywhere we have a connection with: The alcoves, the drain, the handpump, The manure mound, the hay-cutting machine, The tractor, bike, pumping set, The tethers where we tie cattle, And all the places and things that we own and use... As a child, I never understood the ritual, It was just a fun time to do it. But now, When I ride the Royal Enfield two wheeler For hundreds of kilometres, And it doesn’t betray me, I feel a gratitude for it, I feel a humane respect, And adoration for it, Now, I deeply understand The ritual of placing earthen lamps Everywhere and on everything we own. Maybe that is how, We feel for the things beyond humans. Padm Nabh Trivedi is a Lecturer in Govt. Girls' Polytechnic, Saharanpur and a research scholar in the dept of HSS, IIT Roorkee, India. He writes both in English and Hindi languages. His English poems have been accepted in Loftbooks (London), Dreich (Scotland) and Hindi short Stories in Setu (USA) magazines. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @tpadmanabh