Cecilia Byer
Economy of the Forest

He was there at the layoff, where
The forest shut down—the rippled pond
In every oak recessed its banded babble

And chilled its notched marking of age.
The forest held its swell (indefinitely),
Waiting for two trillion to be carted in.

Up, up were the halos, stacked in swollen pause—
The trees, in wind, neither twitched nor ached.
Nothing, not even the rings, moved. And he—

He was there, at the layoff, the only thing
Growing in that awful place. The unripe,
The stillness, it rattled him. So empty it was,

Like gutted things: fish and plums and chests
And hollowed trees; trees hollowed,
Hollowed by him, by him! His fist

Punched holes in all that wood. He clenched
The pulp of backyard oak; soggy rings,
A puree of engagement between his fingers.

It was then that his veins branched and scratched at skin.
Blood sapped and the wedding never came.

—Submitted on 04/22/2020

Cecilia Byer is a 2020 high school graduate who will be attending Emory University in the fall. She has received a Certificate of Superior Writing from the National Council of Teachers of English, and a Gold Key for poetry from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. You can follow her poetry page on Instagram @celipoems.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Stephen Huiting
Distancer

He totes a slim flask
Of alcohol, slips
It in
And out of a hidden
Pocket
In his coat.

His mask
Makes mystery of mood
Or of mouth
At all.
Tarnished by his silver
Breaths; when
Retracted to a shadowed
Groove, a corner
In the room,
Distance
And gloom swear to secrets
Whether breath moves
The faceless
Fabric, which an eerie
Faith,and his eyes,
Say it must.

He is a lone man,
A splitter, fractured
From the main flow.
No
One has seen
Him come close;
Whenever another
Seems to approach—
To finally,
Peeringly
Quench question to known—
He is gone,
Inhaled by a
Wall, by his own
Masked aura,
Own sorrow.

He is hardened,
Yet he has never killed a man.
His hands
Share their spiral
Souls
But with gloves.

Who is
This stranger?
Why is he feared?
Others fight
To be less alone.

He is a survivor,
A wizened
Distance strider, with careful
Life thudding through
Sterile veins.

—Submitted on 06/12/2020

Stephen Huiting‘s poems have appeared in The Union, a newspaper serving Grass Valley and Nevada County, Calif.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Buffy Shutt
Disaster Fucking with Bette Davis

Disaster fucking.
Now, stupid! Then what is keeping us alive?
Now hands on my nipples—did he wash his hands?—
and his breath on my neck once a good thing now
wish he had a mask.
The virus is here. Close by. Possibly in this room,
possibly on the tip of his penis,
now ramming inside of me.
The TV is on, now a Bette Davis movie, black-&-white,
I know it by heart. We usually turn off the TV
but maybe he thought I would break in two if it goes dark.
I wriggle under him getting comfortable with the idea
the virus is inside of me
now. That’s okay.

I’ll contain it, I’ll flatten its curve, isolate it. I leave that
and put the slide under the microscope. My daughter
upside-down. I smell citrus. Tangerines. She likes the ones called cuties.
Think of my daughter, our daughter, no my daughter he isn’t thinking about her.
He goes long stretches without thinking about her, he isn’t thinking about her
now as he metes out some rhythmic present I don’t want and if she gets sick
what will I do? I can’t go there. I won’t go there.

I’m not Bette Davis. I’m not in Jezebel, the movie she made
because she wasn’t cast as Scarlett. Margaret Lindsay plays Amy,
saccharine, pretty, mewley. What is wrong with me? I look at the screen.
He doesn’t notice. Bette is brave. I mouth the dialogue, Bette’s southern accent
on my tongue as former lover-Bette fights with wife-Amy over Henry Fonda.

Bette Davis (Julie): But are you fit to go? Lovin’ him isn’t enough….
Margaret Lindsay (Amy Bradford): I’ll make him live or die.
Julie: It’s not a question of provin’ your love by layin’ down your life. Nothin’ so easy.
Amy: What do you mean?
Julie: I’ll make him live… Whatever you might do, I can do more,
I know how to fight better than you. Amy, if you knew the horror… It isn’t a hospital. It’s a desolate island…. You must….. be there with your body between him and Death.

The bed now a bulletin board and I am pinned to it.
He gets imaginative, replacing the absent televised sports
with a new still-in-Olympic-trials position. I go along.
Gives me time to consider what a bad mother I am. And
a bad lover. Now I am on my stomach, half-off the bed.
The virus stealthy & fast moved the bed upside-down. I don’t give a shit
that I am a bad lover—that I can hide. I am flattened, squeezed
into a grain of rice. I am a bad-mother-grain-of-rice.
A tiny nothing.

Now he’s keeping at it. I hate his focus, his enjoyment, his long
minutes away from the virus. Another inequity, gender-discord
runs through me like a fever. I’ve wound up inside those small distorted
profile pictures on Instagram of doctors-strangers-brave nobodies.
Pleading. My brain a firefly. I am on top, now. Not so out of it
as I want. I give a little back to him.
I take him in my mouth. Nancy Reagan pops into my mind.
They say she gave great head in the back of limos
when she was Nancy Davis, B actress and thin. Always thin.
Just say no Nancy. She behind the scenes, the husband out front.
They are responsible

for this. When the air traffic controllers’ union was busted,
we didn’t realize
that was the dam, and when it broke, the virus oozed.
Oozing became what? Dripping. And dripping became streaming
and streaming rushing and rushing flooding and that is when the virus took hold.
Am I insane fucking while Mommy—our President called FLOTUS Mommy—
floats around my head? Get out.
Now fucking is still free—if you believe that, which I don’t.
I’m paying the price right now. The sides of my insides bruised ice cubes.
I want to stuff my crazy scared mind up my ass and let him try to coax it out
with professional fingers.

But I can only think if my daughter calls me,
if she calls me, if she calls me, what if I have to stand up to the virus?
Will I do it? Am I Amy Bradford? Now? I want to be Bette. Goddamn it.
I hear our whole conversation, what she says, what I say, what she says, what I say.
She is soft, lets the phone slip from her mouth, refuses facetime, won’t write down what I am telling her to write down, remember this password, she coughs or clearing her throat calls me Mommy. Each time we fly close . . . the virus interrupts now the white rabbit
with his fucking ticking pocket watch. The virus—he-she-they tarted up in graphs
and maps and concentric circles of pulsing
pink and red. Less and less blue.

I don’t know how long we fuck. A long time—no time.
He comes.
I’m out. Now disaster sleeping.
For two hours,
I am nobody’s
Mommy.

—Submitted on 04/22/2020

Buffy Shutt‘s work has appeared in Lumina, Whatever Keeps The Lights On, Rise Up Review, Dodging the Rain, Split Lip Magazine, and other journals. A former movie producer, she lives near Los Angeles.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Denver Butson
Weariness

even the peonies are weary
they drop their heads
on fence railings

they hang their heads
down along their stems

the air is so heavy
with what we have
asked it to carry

with the burdens
of ourselves
we have given it
to hold

yesterday I saw a man
who looked like
he could belong
to a distant century
except for his face mask
and plastic bag
stop and pull peonies
out of that bag
and lay them on the bumper
of a refrigerated corpse truck
humming behind a funeral home
and look up at the sky
above the corpse truck
with dignity and ceremony

he turned
looked right at me
and then seemed
to go back to
disintegrating
into weary dust
before my eyes

every evening
at approximately 7:02
when the applause
on our street
and apparently every other street
in the city ends

a little boy
a few doors up
whose name is Samson
tries to have the last word
with me

after all the cheering
and clapping
and pot banging stops
he looks at me
across the stoops
between us
and bangs his pot
decisively

and I look right at him
and bang my popcorn can lid
with just as much meaning

and then he bangs twice
and I bang twice
and then three and three

and then with great fanfare
he lifts his spoon
one last time
and I try to match
his strike
so that together
we make one last
mighty sound

it’s as if we are
two dueling drummers
who have decided
to work together
and not against
one another

or just two people
who won’t drop our heads

who refuse to simply go back
into the silence

without doing all we can
not to be weary

—Submitted on 06/11/2020

Denver Butson is the author of five books of poetry, including most recently In Which We All Kiss Something Secretly (Court Tree Collective, 2019), a collaboration with visual artist Maria Mercedes Martinez. His poems have appeared in The Yale Review, Ontario Review, Field, Zyzzyva, Tin House, and other journals, as well is in several anthologies. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Austin Reilly
And This Is by No Means a Comprehensive List

I’m scared of more time than I know what to do with
I’m scared of slow declines
I’m scared of inevitabilities
I’m scared of being direct
I’m really scared of acting my age
I’m scared of antiques
I’m scared of people who seem to be on top of things
I’m scared of abstractions
I’m scared of the last line
I’m scared of white coffee mugs
I’m scared of black coffee mugs
I’m scared of coffee
I’m scared of people my age in 10 years
I’m scared of wide-ruled paper
I’m really scared of boredom
Narcissism too
Starting sentences out with the first-person pronoun
I’m scared of being perceived
I’m scared of vibrant colors
I’m scared of my golden years
I’m really scared of my golden years
I’m scared of packing
I’m scared of what soda does to teeth
I’m scared of irony
I’m scared of coasters
I’m scared of aluminum blinds
I’m scared of thin shower curtains
I’m scared of fingerprints
I’m scared of standing behind the white, yellow, or red line
I’m scared of smooth jazz
I’m scared of fonts other than times new roman or calibri (body)
I’m scared of oat milk
Oats don’t have mammary glands
I’m scared of software updates
I still don’t know what RAM is
I’d like to hear a foghorn in real life
I’m scared of embers smoldering in dry grass, which strikes me as a very sane thing to worry about
I think it’s good that someone thought of smokey bear
I’m scared that I’ll forget what to do when I can leave my house
I’m scared of dating apps
I’m scared that people older than me mention the economy with solemnity
I’m scared that maybe I shouldn’t have kids
I’d like to re-watch Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood
That reminds me of Jay Jay the Jetplane
It’s been a while since I’ve played a flash game
I wish so many things didn’t feel like transgressions
I’m scared of keeping condoms in my wallet
I’m scared of physical calendars
I’ve found some easy hours, but should that make me feel guilty?
I’m not sure
There’s a lot I’m not sure about

—Submitted on 04/19/2020

Austin Reilly graduated summa cum laude from Indiana University in 2019. He will go on to study genomics at the University of Chicago. This is his first poetry publication.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Nathaniel Kostar
MOVE
American Airlines Flight, May 19th, 2020

The plane back to Mexico was full of workers,
young men with tanned skin and baseball caps,
worn backpacks slung over their shoulders,
leaving.

American Airlines chose money on this flight,
and now the stewardess, who didn’t speak Spanish,
was nervous and afraid.

There were no middle seats, as promised,
but the workers didn’t complain.
This wasn’t the first promise
America had broken.

I sat next to a Chinese girl who was
dressed like an astronaut.
She wore everything except
the helmet.

I think she was returning from an important
mission since she carried a manila folder
and seemed satisfied.

She stole my arm rest
and fell asleep.

I guess we were all on a mission
on this flight—
but she was prepared.

And so were they, I thought,
as I looked across the aisle
at the old couple, los viejitos,

as they remained composed,
fiercely holding hands,
even as the flight-attendant
barked at them in English:

“You’re in the wrong seat.
You must move. You must
move. Move. You must.
Move…Move.”

—Submitted on 06/10/2020

Nathaniel Kostar was born and raised in Central New Jersey. He holds a BA from Rutgers University and an MFA in poetry from the University of New Orleans. He lives in Mexico City where he works as a writer, lyricist and English teacher. For more info visit NateLost.com or follow Nate Lost on Spotify.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Carol Alexander
Envy, or Intake

I could almost envy body, its luxurious swoon to the conqueror.
The fairytale stroke at midnight, a horse’s neigh—

kindling of protest and wariness lit to a firestorm.

O I need a river. A moat. One the other side,
a friend can’t bury her mother. Golden efficacy of prayer.

A dog howls down the block and body too howls,
sweats a fog of cells.

The virus besieges the town, wracked, bristling with arrows.

With a little flourish I tick off points of ingress,
armpit glands and throat, a rushing cage of birds in my head.

Then the nihilism begins, I can barely wait to rid self of self.
That too is a lie: meat and drink, a drift from one lilac window to the next.

If pivots to when. I will feed the hungry. Accept a truce.

—Submitted on 04/19/2020

Carol Alexander is the author of Environments (Dos Madres Press, 2018), Habitat Lost (Cave Moon Press, 2017) and Bridal Veil Falls (Flutter Press, 2013). Her poems have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Chiron Review, One, Southern Humanities Review, Sweet Tree Review, and other journals.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Nicole Callihan
from Yesteryear

(6/8) Back
Cackalacky way,
in girlhood,
I got words,
small words,
and dirty ones,
but some
really, really
ugly words,
put in my head,
butted up
against good
words, jesus
and sweet tea
and Queen Anne’s
lace which
sounded so regal
but was a place
for the mites
to crawl into
your panties,
and Cheerwine,
and mama,
mama, love
you, mama,
don’t be
that way, mama,
crabapple,
hillbilly, purdy
is as purdy
does—those ugly,
hateful, chigger
loving, niggardly,
retarded words
were butted
against the good,
sunk in, dark
flies in morning
molasses, and
slow as, and
sticky, and I wish
I could scrub
it all out
in the sink,
all the blood,
shit, and grief,
but even
in nothing
but the light
of this
full moon,
I still see
the stain.

—Submitted on 06/09/2020

Nicole Callihan is the author of SuperLoop (Sock Monkey Press, 2014), The Deeply Flawed Human (Deadly Chaps, 2016), Downtown (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and Aging (Yes, Poetry, 2018). With Zoe Ryder White, Callihan is the co-author of A Study in Spring (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2015) and Elsewhere (Sixth Finch Books, 2019). With Samar Abdel Jaber, she is the co-author of Translucence/بين قارّتين (Indolent Books, 2018). Callihan is also the author of a novella, The Couples (Mason Jar Press, 2019).

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Monica Joy Fara
Ode to the N95 Mask

O filter O sanitizer O separator of sick and healthy O shield that saves us from each other O sacred regalia O white veil O coy fan O curtain that hides the shape of our fear O separator of sick and sick O artifact O uniform O black market weapon O hoarded gold O amulet of protection O fetish O gag O hand that silences us O ear that listens to our prayer our song our whispered confessions O ally in this fight against our exponential enemy O flattener of functions O negative space O sensory deprivation O outer limit O border O floodgate O barricade O rebel cause O white flag O white shroud O new normal O blank unblinking face of uncertainty O distancer O mandate O hope O swaddling cloth O sterile cocoon O silk O cradle of metamorphosis

—Submitted on 04/19/2020

Poems by Monica Joy Fara have appeared or are forthcoming in The Tampa Review, The Cimarron Review, The Mid-American Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Room Magazine, and other journals. She holds a BA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Tweets @MonicaJoyFara.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.

Paul Hlava Ceballos
Poems from Hospital Pamphlet

—

Heads up your next patient is a felon
is whispered to me in the hall, heads up
you can remove your name badge
can request he’s handcuffed to the bed
bright orange and chained to
a wheelchair, his heavy face is pulled
by the weight of lost decades
what I ask of him, he does obediently
tired and mute while two armed police
stand behind me in the hospital room
is this what Luchito is like now
20 years after cops tazed him, weed-cloudy
amidst the shattered store window
of his teenage collapse into mania
is this what the 1 in 3 black boys are like
who were never given the chance
to fuck up like me, tearing 60 down
residential streets, screaming at the dash
that my friend was gone now, bag of weed
safe with coins in my cupholder
my fingers imprint the prisoner’s
edematous skin, hypertensive from salt
while an officer behind me is cell phone lit
with hand casually resting on his gun
I have never seen this patient before
how many long years was his hospital wait
he sat meekly and arranged his stained
undershirt, chains preventing wrinkled
arms from reaching fully up, mucus
roiled deep inside each forced inhale
when I say he was a sick man, let me
make the language clear, we must burn
each police station to the ground
and every cop must pay for their crimes
against the community they patrol
I pledge this with fire in my throat because
I survived to diagnose and do no harm

—

It was the classic presentation
chest caved in on the stairwell
EKG showed elevated T-waves
his father died of a heart attack

in his village back home, he says
with a polite smile as I tape twelve
electrodes to his chest, I am thinking
of George Floyd, a former football champ

who worked at the Salvation Army
a black man murdered by a policeman’s
choice to bring them both
to searing summer asphalt

I am thinking about George Floyd because
a coworker said protests are fine
but she disagrees with damaging
a Nordstrom Rack, we need order, she said

alone in a hospital after severe pain
the man is laughing on the treadmill
each step is a belief in the nurses and system
that will convey him to new health

and then his blood pressure
drops, he clutches his chest
on my screen his heart is a perfect
failed machine, rounded apex immobile

gasps for air pumped nowhere
sometimes we must create
an emergency to understand
what pathology was always there

and the next day he got a stent
and stopped by to say thank you
(how rare!) before going home
where dusk set the sky on fire

—

Briefly, I see my reflection
sway backward in the dusk-dark
window and grasp
the coma patient’s bed as a brace

it wasn’t my reflection, it was
a white-gowned woman
in the room facing us
leaning down to pack her bags

—Submitted on

Paul Hlava Ceballos has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Artist Trust, and the Poets House. His work has been published in Narrative Magazine, BOMB, the PEN Poetry Series, Acentos Review, and the LA Times, among other journals and newspapers, and has been translated to the Ukrainian, and nominated for the Pushcart. He holds an MFA from NYU and currently lives in Seattle, where he practices echocardiography.

SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.

If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.