Heather Truett
A Conversation Among Mountains Via Wikipedia

The Appalachian Mountains are a system of mountains in eastern North America.
They first formed roughly 480 million years ago and once reached elevations similar
to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains
before experiencing natural erosion.

The Appalachian Mountains are a system of mountains that formed the hills
of Eastern Kentucky, where my body came into being and my brain first
formed, and I believed in nearly everything
before experiencing natural erosion.

The Appalachians are a chain barrier to east-west travel. They form a series
of alternating ridgelines and valleys oriented in opposition
to most highways and railroads
running east to west.

The Appalachians are a chain barrier to my returning home. They form a series
of conservative political agendas that are oriented in opposition
to most of my ways and the forward
motion of my life.

This range of rocks and hills and trees were once called
the Allegheny Mountains, the Alleghenies, and even Alleghania.

This is the range of rocks and hills and trees and people
that I once called home.

In spite of the existence of the Great Appalachian Valley, many of the main rivers
are transverse to the mountain system axis. The drainage divide
of the Appalachians follows
a tortuous course

In spite of the existence of so much beauty in my homeland, I have found
their homespun attachment to the supposed good ol’ days runs transverse
to my own belief in the need for change. Loving
the land you leave is a torturous course.

The flora and fauna of the Appalachians is diverse. Of great importance
are the many species of salamanders and, in particular, the lungless species
that lives in great abundance concealed
by leaves and debris on the forest floor.

The people of Appalachia are growing more diverse and I have hope
for a very different tomorrow than the coal dusted yesterday that left
my grandpa with Black Lung
and the present full of poverty.

By the end of the Mesozoic Era, the Appalachian Mountains had been eroded
to an almost flat plain. It was not until the region was uplifted during
the Cenozoic Era that the distinctive
topography of the present formed.

By the end of the current era, I have dreams of an ignorance eroded and a poverty
plateaued, new soil lying latent, dark, lush and ready for uplifting,
a distinctive new topography of love
ready to be formed.

Heather Truett is a writer, a mother, and a somewhat heretical pastor’s wife. Her credits include: The Mom Egg, Vine Leaves Literary, Tipton Poetry Journal, Drunk Monkeys, Panoply Zine, and the Young Adult Review Network.

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Remy Dambron
ik-sep-shuh-nl-iz-uh m

city after
city infiltrated
by self
proclaimed
purists

white

as if civil
rights were simply
ghosts of the
uncivilized right

despicably disturbing
sickened society of
infatuated

fascists

following in his footsteps
feeling empowered
emboldened
by his madness

effectively solicited by
executives who exonerated
legitimately permitted

disdain

terrorism
masked as
patriotism
unleashed
onto the street

domestically raised
conditioned by rigidity
inflexible nonthinkers
lustfully relishing
imponderable police
protection

flaunting
colonial beliefs
as progressive resistance
speeds to suppress
the capacity
efficacy
potency of
this resurrection

exceptional

righteous
pessimal
state sponsored

hatred

Remy Dambron is English teacher turned social activist and environmentalist. He has been published by naturewriting.com, has been honored by the Society of Classical Poets for his work denouncing human rights violations, and his poem entitled Oceana won 1st place at the Power of Wind and Water Art Show hosted by Kregel Windmill Museum last Spring. He and his fiancé live in Portland, OR, where they have taken an active role in supporting the homeless, rallying for equal rights, and reporting.

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Amanda Forrester
you don’t want to remember

you know
by now you know
character traits and character acting
like a fool in love
with yourself you sit
alone lonely grayed voices
call clear and you comeback

why and ask why when
by now you know
you know nothing
as if your mother bottle
fed you groomed you combed
your hair
it’s like this, she said, one hundred strokes
one hundred strikes with a leather belt
both for shininess
welting your thighs you

remember when a man’s hand
touches your thigh backs and takes you
back then back out now
blackout what you know

Amanda Forrester’s creative work has appeared in the Sandhill Review. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Tampa and lives in Dade City, Florida.

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Chad Parenteau
Polite Discourse Jesus

Polite Discourse Jesus
says it’s easier to needle
a camel’s eye than it is
to ask permission to be good.

Polite Discourse Jesus
asked the money lenders
to vacate the temples
as long as they felt like it.

Polite Discourse Jesus
couldn’t get a place
for the last supper, his table
taken by the Huckabees.

Polite Discourse Jesus
never found the right time
to have words with Judas,
who’s now running for senate.

Polite Discourse Jesus
is unable to ascend. He gets
kicked back in his grave
every three days.

Polite Discourse Jesus
had to die and come back
seven times just to share
three word with Pilate.

Polite Discourse Jesus
never bothers his Dad
while hanging out on the hill
every other weekend.

Polite Discourse Jesus
always has new friends
on either side, never
knowing who he is.

Chad Parenteau is the author of Patron Emeritus, released in 2013 by FootHills Publishing. His work has appeared in Tell-Tale Inklings, What Rough Beast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, Ibbetson Street, and Wilderness House Literary Review. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine. His second full-length collection, The Collapsed Bookshelf, is forthcoming.

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Quintin Collins
Sold As-is

You know what might be the most American thing there is? Forgetting.
                                                                                    –Kyle Dargan

as the pilasters and facade symmetry show                  the house is a charming new
england
         colonial       and it’s a steal for what you get  in this neighborhood
         the fenced-in yard     provides extra privacy          and security
the house needs some tlc   but don’t fret           the property suffered
             a fire in 1992        the damage was light
         the homeowners remediated                  that issue however the house
                  sits on a floodplain there might still be mold
from 2005                  they did all they could          with what resources
      they had                  the foundation
                 started                  cracking         a         few         hundred
years ago        previous owners never repaired
                  the damage I imagine you could patch the cracks
         with one of those home depot kits the house
                  will be fine     the mothers choking on their children’s blood
                           is a low keening         that’s the house settling
all old houses do that                 this one was built
                                    before 1970 you have to be careful of lead
         bullets         asbestos         tear
                                    gas leaks    knob and tube wiring
one final thing          i should tell you          people have died
                  in the house some natural causes
                                    some murders
but if you don’t believe         in ghosts         or oppressed people
                                             then you have nothing
to worry about         the price         
             is competitive for the neighborhood         if you want
           gut the whole place
                           sounds                  like         fun         to take
                           a sledgehammer to these old walls

Quintin Collins has works that have appeared or are forthcoming in Threshold, Glass Mountain, Eclectica, Transition, and elsewhere. A graduate of the Solstice MFA program, Quintin is a managing editor at a digital marketing agency, where he publishes writing craft blogs. If Quintin were to have one extravagance, it would be a personal sommelier to give him wine pairings for books.

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Alana Hayes
to my shame

i found me in his Brain again
and here i thought
Body was the sinner
was taught that Brains
didn’t sin
they were always

Logical Men
but why is it that Brains
can’t stop themselves
from touching Bodies

why is it that i, a Body,
can make myself small
keep my hands in check
and that Brain can’t

even when i tell him to
when i prove i have a Brain in this Body
and they stand up for each other

why does he still insist
on treating me like an object
even after all this time

we haven’t gotten very far have we
i only traded the title chattel for your toy-
tramp-slut-whore-bitch-bimbo-pussy-dyke-candy-cunt-skank-tail-cougar-cow-kitty-
FRESHMEAT!
i’m over here

i only traded rights i didn’t have
without the permission of a father or husband
for rights i’m promised, but don’t always get
does my safety mean anything?

and you would actually call me sin
when i am but your object
and the sin lies in the eye of the beholder

here’s to my shame
may it be long lived in a courtroom
where everyone is more worried about his future
than they are about what happened to me
and they broadcast all over your tv screens
about what a waste prison bars are for his life
what about my safety?

am i supposed to live my whole life in fear
always looking over my shoulder
because we’ve decided that those “20 seconds”
aren’t important enough to ruin his “precious years to come”
here’s your get-out-of-jail-free card son
it’s her own fault for not keeping her knees together.

here’s to my shame
that we might never even make it to the public humiliation of a courtroom
that i might remain the slut of your jokes
the toy that you laugh at for years to come
that thing that you left behind
a dumpster, in an alleyway, strewn across
a stranger’s bed like a piece of trash

let’s toast to our shame, America
we let him get away with it
but, hey, at least he wasn’t murdering anybody
right?

Alana Hayes is a twenty-four year old American citizen currently living in Haifa, Israel, where she works at the Arab-Jewish Cultural Center Beit Hagefen (House of the fruit of the vine), a non-profit organization dedicated to the values of shared society and cross-cultural communication. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she received a BA in English Literature and another BA in Women and Gender studies. She has a background in non-profit cultural work specifically focused around Judaism and cultures of the Middle East. She has worked for Hillel, The Jewish Museum of Maryland, and Silk Road Dance Company. Most of her poetry revolves around themes of Judaism and feminism. She likes to take modern issues or experiences from her life and give them context using history and/or Jewish lore and culture. This particular piece is one she wrote around the time of the election and, and one she feels still rings true to issues we’re facing as women in America now. You can find her on Instagram under the handle @womanasriot.

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Susan Craig
TRAUMA

The drama
unfolding, Little-
Big-Man pontificates
turtled, bespectacled: We will confirm
him, it’s all a smear, while she steels
for another assault, all the suited
assailing her story, digging for
memory glitches. As if
she would seek this, as if she would
welcome the world’s violation,
new swimsuit straps snapped,
tender mouth smothered by
men’s drunken thrust, weight
of them crushing her crushing
her body remembers,
escaping.

Susan Craig has spent her career in design and communications. She is a native South Carolinian and poet whose work has been featured in Kakalak, Mom Egg Review, and regional journals The Collective I, Fall Lines, and Jasper. Her manuscript was a semi-finalist in the 2018 Quill’s Edge chapbook contest. Three times her poems have been chosen for Columbia Poet Laureate Ed Madden’s public transit initiatives. She is a passionate mother of two adult sons and loves walking with her husband in the Congaree Swamp in silence. She enjoys lengthy discourse with her dog Charlie.

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Heather Truett
Pretender

Honduras and America are similar women.
They just don’t dress themselves the same.
Honduras paints her body fierce.
America chooses neutral shades.

They just don’t dress themselves the same.
The U.S. borrows her mother’s pearls.
America chooses neutral shades.
Honduras wears rivets on leather.

The U. S. borrows her mother’s pearls.
America looks like the safest dream.
Honduras wears rivets on leather.
Both women are likely to kill you.

America looks like the safest dream.
That makes her more dangerous to me.
Both women are likely to kill you,
But only one pretends you are free.

Heather Truett is a writer, a mother, and a somewhat heretical pastor’s wife. Her credits include: The Mom Egg, Vine Leaves Literary, Tipton Poetry Journal, Drunk Monkeys, Panoply Zine, and the Young Adult Review Network.

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Pamela Sumners
MARIE ANTOINETTE GETS ALL GAYED-UP AT THE SUPREME COURT

Now, Supreme Court, I will use my outdoor voice for choices
you made for me. You see, I want to have my cake and eat
it too. I want layers and layers and layers, gooey butterscotch
and groom’s cake, too, and I want a pediment love topping
it all. I want it to read, in sediment, “Equal Justice Under Law.”

I want my big gay wedding cake decorated in piggish, lardy florets,
one for every corner, and I want it to be so huge that Texas women
seeking the heavens by their hair will have a handy subterfuge.

I want a cake so layered that Stonehenge and Stonewall are there.
I want a cake that has a stolen verse of Leviticus curse, and just
more Texas hair. I want a cake with pictures of Jerry Falwell, either
Jr. or Sr.—I don’t much care and hey, well I’d prefer neither.
I want a big, gorgeous ee cummings mudluscious sound of you
putting your hand in mine when finally, I get to marry you after 30 years.

We had no cake.

We had to take the chance we could, at the city hall, while the window
was still open. But I’d like my reception, my gooey-butter cake, and
I will still eat cake, whether the Supremes likes it or fights it. I’m hungry.

Pamela Sumners is a civil rights and constitutional lawyer with a special interest in religion and speech law. As a native Alabamian, she has litigated against Roy Moore, Alabama Governor Fob James, Jay Sekulow, and Bill Pryor and can vividly describe their hairlines. Her first love, however, is poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Streetlight (third-place winner), Mudlark, Snakeskin, UCity Review, New Verse News, Tahoma Review, Third Wednesday, BACOPA, California Quarterly, Loch Raven Review, and Blue Unicorn. She lives in St. Louis with her wife, teenage son, two lazy geriatric dogs, and a puppy who thinks his name is “Dammit.”

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Sarah Caulfield
Kamakura

I had a dream last night where I met Trump, I hear him say, three steps ahead of me
In a heatwave. It was awesome. It’s a word reserved for the Sistine Chapel, maybe, or
Rollercoasters, or a backflip. There is nothing lost in translation. The red of his cap is stark,
The color of a memorial wall in Berlin, the unspooling of names over red paint.
The resemblance stops there.
The greenery is bright, oil-heavy in the rising sun. It glows, kryptonite, whenever I close
my
eyes.
I think of my grandmother, giving me a picture of her favorite saint for safeguarding. I
think of
Photographs of confiscated rosary beads, torn out of hands at borders.
I look it up later, to make sure:
Awesome: to inspire awe. Awe: a feeling of reverence, apprehension, or fear.
We all answer to something. I have to hope we all answer to something.
I make sure I am not alone with him for the rest of the trip.

Sarah Caulfield is the author of Spine (Headmistress Press, 2017). Her work has appeared in Lavender Review, Voicemail Poems, The Griffin, and The Mays (XXIV). She has lived in the UK, Poland and Germany, and currently lives in Japan.

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