Stephen Kingsnorth
Warmer Flesh

Citizens of empty city,
former journeys fill eye bags;
temp accommodation offered,
only if get rid of dog.
But she only understanding,
she alone has need of me,
not regarding me as nuisance,
sidewalk swerving, eyes avert.
But as world self-isolating,
social distance outside home,
lay-abouts that litter pavements
better swept to hostel box.
Pigeon hole for those not fitting
into model lifestyle set,
but that fix ignores my closest;
life’s a bitch, if me or her.
Where would others choose for shelter,
cleaner sheets or warmer flesh?
Rather share known breath of puppy,
panting tongue and wagging tail;
others share the bed of lover,
I would pave-way kennel pooch.

—Submitted on 03/25/2020

Stephen Kingsnorth‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry, The Dawntreader, and Foxtrot Uniform Poetry Magazines, and Identity, as well as in the anthology Pain & Renewal: A Poetry Anthology (Vita Brevis Press, 2019), edited by Brian Geiger. He is retired from ministry in the Methodist Church and lives in Wales. Online at Poetry Kingsnorth.

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Gretchen Primack
Covid

Who was the pangolin,
caged
in the truck, in the stack,
in the market

What could her body,
balled protection no protection,
smooth nail scales no protection,
do but uncurl and mark us

When did her cage unstack
from the hens above,
the pig below, the dog
alongside

When did hands pull
her smooth balled body and slit
her throat for its tonic blood,
boil her skin for its scales,
cut her tissue for the pleasure
of meat

Where moved the first virion
in her body—eye, neck,
heart—

did its twisted ladders
course a thousand times,
a million through the mouths
of her cells before the hand
came down on the back
of her neck

(And the pig below,
the hens above, what poisoned cells
course through their dread)

How do we fill our bodies
without her body, the hens
above and the pig below
and the dog alongside, leave
their lives and deaths alone,
leave their cells alone

Why can’t we

To tear someone from her life,
to cage her, to let her blood
for our habit—
did we imagine no consequence

Do we see it now

—Submitted on 03/25/2020

Gretchen Primack is the author of the poetry collections Visiting Days (Willow Books, 2019), Kind (Post Traumatic Press, 2013), and Doris’ Red Spaces (Mayapple Press, 2014), as well as the chapbook, The Slow Creaking of Planets (Finishing Line Press, 2007). with Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary co-founder Jenny Brown, Primack co-wrote The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals (Penguin Avery, 2012). Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, FIELD, Poet Lore, The Massachusetts Review, The Antioch Review, New Orleans Review, Rhino, Tampa Review, and many others journals and anthologies. A passionate advocate for the rights and welfare of non-human animals, Primack lives with several of them, along with a beloved human named Gus, in New York’s Hudson Valley. She has taught and or administrated prison education programs since 2005.

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Amie McGraham
2 pm/somewhere over Texas

every time I close my eyes
(i am so awfully tired)

i see my mother’s closed eyes
the bony arms, thin
as needles

half awake i doze, asleep
in the stillness of an empty airplane—this
timeless space
holding my breath
(one moment, a lifetime)

the 5-year reel
unspools. the paradox of
dementia memories
my mind sore
my world
hurts
(she is so frail. And tiny. i
start to cry)

i will not see her again

—Submitted on 03/25/2020

Amie McGraham grew up off the coast of Maine. She holds a BA from Arizona State University, and splits her time between Maine and Arizona. Her blog, This Demented Life, chronicles her journey as caregiver to a mother with Alzheimer’s.

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Donny Winter
The World Still Spins

We hide behind our battened hatches
ready for walls to tumble (inside ourselves) while we’re
painfully aware that the world still spins.

We loom behind our windows and watch
the days that pass (on the outside) until they
shrink into portholes too bright for our eyes.

We tire as the sun droops westward,
worry of the hordes we keep (there’s never enough), and fear
the shadow-titans that stretch across the floor.

We see ourselves insects trapped in amber
as dusk sees through us (in overexposed sunlight), and
the robin sits high on the line, still singing:

“don’t worry, you’re not going to die.”

The world keeps its spin while the rivers steer
clean routes through [un]littered woods
and we, sanitized and scared, dream our homes sarcophagi

—Submitted on 03/25/2020

Donny Winter‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Central Review, Flypaper Magazine, and Sonder Midwest. An LGBTQIA+ activist and YouTube blogger from West Branch, Mich., he teaches creative writing at Delta College, a Community college in University Center, Mich.

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Stuart Gunter
The Big STOP

Checking in with my 85-year-old meditation
teacher during the early stages of the pandemic
I appreciate her response: I am loving this STOP.
Thanks for the offer. I cannot think of a single
want right now. If I can think of a single want
right now it is to love this big STOP and find
the silver linings in slowing down, stopping.
The earth healing from our slowing down,
pollution declining in Italy. I leave my car
in the driveway and walk the dogs, cook beans
and rice over fire. A baseball sits on the back
porch, waiting for the delayed season, robins
and cardinals calling from the redbuds and dogwoods.

—Submitted on 03/25/2020

Stuart Gunter‘s poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Hiram Poetry Review, Appalachian Journal, The Chattahoochee Review, and Into the Void, among other journals. Gunter is working toward a master’s degree in mental health counseling at Longwood University in Farmville, Va. He was recently accepted into the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University. He and lives in Schuyler, Va.

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Julianne Chua
Instructions for Cooking Elbow Macaroni

11 minutes

Use the crook of your elbow to support her neck and bring her closer to you.
Hands on waist, extend your elbows until they are taut, no chicken wings.
Relax, keep your elbows straight as you dive in, arms at 12 o’clock.
Lean over, elbows touching knees, hands on top of your head.
Hook your elbows, slightly bent, and slowly sip that champagne.
Elbows on the table, where I can see them. No holding hands.
Move your elbows forward, slide your body up an inch or two.
Lift arms, bend elbows, chest against the metal surface, hold your breath.
Without locking your elbows, bump the elbow of a person that you meet.
For al dente, firmly press your elbow against the traffic light to cross the street.

—Submitted on 03/24/2020

Julianne Chua is an editor of Artsy: Fun with Southeast Asian Art (National Gallery Singapore, 2017), an activity book for children aged 4 to 7. Her work has appeared in the journal Afterglobe, as well as in the anthologies Petua: Reminiscing Grandmother Tales & Superstitions (Basheer Graphics, 2013), a collaborative project between Visual Inconsideration and The HeartThrob Project; Kepulauan: A Collection of Poems (Ethos Books, 2014), edited by Zhang Jieqiang, Hidhir Razak, and Marcus Tan Yi-hern; and Inheritance: An Anthology (Math Paper Press, 2017), edited by Marie Ee and Joy Chee. Chua holds a BA in with honors from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She grew up between Bukit Batok (Singapore), Boston, and Berlin, and lives in Istanbul.

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Parker Jamieson
A Panic-Attacked World After COVID-19 Encases Buffalo, New York

The metro is a cesspool
For bacteria. It always was
A host of particulate phantoms
That rarely show their faces
Unless you tinker through telescopes—
Now there is more rise over run,
And the parabola regains its slope.
I can’t make it anywhere these days,
And I have no money to refill
My prescription for buspirone.
I think about how this all started
For me: Rob Halpern reading
Poems in the WNYBAC. Outside, the
City a corpse corrugated like candlelight.
Candles that I had the night before
In a dream of servitude and
My lungs calling, without sound, to the
Woman that I carry on my finger.
The morning before that dream
I had taken my Zoloft. My pilled mind
A landscape of tumult eased
from the broken sticks of youth,
Not the fear of contagion, and
Not the contagion of fear.
The landscape fails to move me
Back to my youth completely
And I can’t take the bus away
From my mother’s house.
Maybe I can go pick up bottles.
Maybe I can build a hut of sticks,
I’ll patch a roof from littered plastic.

—Submitted on 03/24/2020

Parker Jamieson‘s poems have appeared in Poets Reading The News, The Wild Word, Outlaw Poetry, Passaic / Völuspá, and Anti-Heroin Chic, at a minimum. They hail from Woodlawn, NY, and work at Marilla Cemetery.

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Adam Oyster-Sands
Mary Oliver wrote that she was worried

Adam Oyster-Sands is a high school English teacher in Portland, Ore. He holds a BA from Dallas Baptist University and MA in humanities from the University of Dallas.

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Lucie Barrios
It’s Only Monday

We are posting our goodbyes
And writing eulogies to those with feeble breath in their lungs
And begging, pray
Begging, light a candle

The masks squeeze so tight they leave scars
On the faces
Of blue plastic alien angels
Behind closed doors

The children are opening their schoolbooks at home
Their parents struggling
To explain

Calculate how far behind on rent we are

Ponder whether Mommy’s getting her job back
Write a persuasive letter to her boss

Wash your hands when you get up in the morning
Wash your hands before you go to bed at night

Sneeze into your elbow

Stay at home
Shut the door

Laugh until you cry
Really cry

Count your blessings
And pray that death passes over

—Submitted on 03/24/2020

Lucie Barrios holds a BA from Webster University in St. Louis, where she majored in English.

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Leah Metcalf
Hearts Beat

My shower is blue
When I bend down to wash my feet
My heart, fallen
Lowered close to the ground

I am reminded of my female body
My female heart is beating
Because it loves me
Because it loves itself

A nurse cries as she pleads for the chance
The chance—She says
Chance—A word from the Old French “cheance”
To Fall
To keep her family safe from COVID-19

Win—win
Win—win—
Later, she says she was not able to afford to isolate
And horrors befell her family

Her heart beats
My heart beats
Because she loves me
Because she loves herself

How long can she love me?
How long can I love myself?
It is too soon to fall in the spring
Our hearts beat
They will beat—

—Submitted on 03/24/2020

Leah Metcalf is a PhD student in learning sciences and psychological studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she spent two years as an eighth-grade special education teacher for the New York City Department of Education. She has written about time and what it means to children in educational journals.

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