Kiran Bhat
A stranger on the bus asks: What do you love the most?

一个在公交的陌生人说：你最爱什么？

客然脑说：
抚摸狗的肥胖胡子
看空心电视，
做我的父母高兴。
我在写好的时候休息。

然后客然脑明确了：但是这些东西满足我的精神，不我的身体。

红树林，特别明丽，颜色切我的舌头。

特别包揽的母，它们有龙的照耀。
但是他们不是野生。
我看他们给我想想
一千火。
一百跳舞的吉卜赛人。
我的未来的爱人。

用最古老的交流的工具 –
性高潮，语言， 触动 –
我尝试了解人类。

这些是我的做爱的东西。

A stranger on the bus asks: What do you love the most?

Kiran says:
To pet a dog on its belly.
To watch mindless television.
To make my parents happy.
To rest after writing well.

Kiran then clarifies: but this is how to please my mind and not my body.

A mangrove, so bright, it’s color cuts my tongue.

Eyes so sapphire, they belong to the dragon,
But these are eyes that do not belong to the wild,
A thousand naked flames—
One hundred gypsies in dance—
But to my future lover.

Communicating through the primal tools of humanity to understand another person’s self.

Orgasm, language, touch.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Kiran Bhat is the author of the poetry collections Autobiografia (Letrame Editorial, 2019) and Kiran Speaks (White Elephant Press, 2019), as well as the Kannada-language travelogue Tirugaatha (Chiranthana Media Solutions, 2019) and the novel We of the Forsaken World (Iguana Books, 2019). He has traveled to over 130 countries, lived in 18 different places, and speaks 12 languages. He considers Mumbai his spiritual base, but currently lives in Melbourne.

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Jared Pearce
The sky falls.

The cardinal in the first big
snow storm found two
inches of dry branch under
a form of canopy. Still,

as the flakes broke
on the leaves the ice would
biff and bite him, snap
onto the bone of his beak

and jag up his coat and do.
He twirled then cranked
his face, shuffled his clutch

until he gave up in search
of comfort, showing even
minor gods must suffer.

Jared Pearce is the author of The Annotated Murder of One (Aubade Publishing, 2018). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Coachella Review, Xavier Review, Breadcrumbs, BlazeVOX, and Panoplyzine, among other journals.  Online at jaredpearcepoetry.weebly.com.

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Lynn McGee
Crush, 12

I’m driving up the West Side Highway and singing,
lungs happy as a sponge finally introduced to water.
I’m sisters with the Hudson River, onyx scratched
with light thrown by high rises on the other side.
I have a new lover and we share a fear of the ocean.
Her favorite place to shop is Lowe’s. She has
a big truck and the strategic intelligence of a wolf.
I throw myself at her like icy drops from air conditioners
embedded in windows high above Park Avenue.
She has never seen tulips growing in the ground.
It’s April in New York, garden boxes ablaze.
I send photos from my phone.

Lynn McGee is the author of Tracks (Broadstone Books, 2019) and Sober Cooking (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2016), as well as two  award-winning poetry chapbooks, Heirloom Bulldog (Bright Hill Press, 2015) and Bonanza (Slapering Hol Press, 1996). Here poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, Ontario Review, Phoebe, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sun Magazine, and The New Guard, among other journals, as well as in the anthology Stonewall’s Legacy (Local Gems Press, 2019), edited by Rusty Rose and Marc Rosen. With José Pelauz, McGee wrote the children’s book Starting Over in Sunset Park (Tilbury House Publishers, 2020). She serves on the advisory board of the Hudson Valley Writers Center and co-curates the Lunar Walk Poetry Series with Gerry LaFemina and Madeleine Barnes. Online at lynnmcgee.com.

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Marjorie Moorhead
Glass Half Full Today

On my favorite morning,
I’m sitting near the window

where outside hangs a simple feeder
for the birds. Mostly smaller ones

who can pull black oil sunflower seeds
through the mesh of this painted blue

metal coffee pot shape. They come and go,
come and go, taking turns swooping in,

and off again. It’s early February; a fresh
New England snowfall covers the recent brown-and-exposed.

Light grows stronger, lasts longer. We’re marching
toward votes and valentines. Ready to turn from darkness,

could there be a chance of meaningful change
in the air? On this favorite morning, I am singing

aloud, to the radio, whose station “gets me”.
Beautiful voices; beautiful words

and I sing along with them, feeling the vibration
in my heart. All of a sudden a small bird, different

from the black-capped, white-cheeked little chickadees,
settles on the bird feeder mesh, and lingers awhile.

Touched by the extraordinary sight
of its tomato-red breast under mud-brown wings,

I sing, “Hello lovely! Thank you for appearing”.
Welcome to my favorite morning.

Marjorie Moorhead is the author of Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, HIV Here & Now, Rising Phoenix Review, and Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Porter House Review, Tiny Lit Seed, Verse-Virtual, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including Planet in Peril (Fly on the Wall, 2019), edited by Isabelle Kenyon; From The Ashes (Animal Heart, 2019), Amanda McLeod & Mela Blust; Birchsong: Poetry Centered in VT. Vol. II (The Blueline, 2018), edited by Northshire Poets Alice Wolf Gilborn, Carol Cone, David Mook, Marcia Angermann, Peter Bradley and Monica Stillman; and others. She received an Indolent Books scholarship to attend a summer 2019 workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Moorhead writes from the NH/VT border.

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Jessica Covil
Where to Begin

Where should one start, except at
where it hurts.
Here: place two fingers on my wrist
and listen, closely
through the skin.
Be careful not to take
your own heartbeat
for mine; that is
make sure that I’m alive, and then
search for the wounding.

Suppose you start
with the neck instead—
but the rest remains still.
What else is there to do
but press your fingers down,
lightly and listening
for my body to answer.
You, who are different from myself.
Do that bit, and then—
why, you’d search for the wounding still.

Why else come to my body
on the floor?
Aware by now that something
has happened here,
you must wonder, too,
how else to begin?
If not at the wound, and then
the wounding.

How else, you see—where,
why else
would you begin?

Jessica Covil‘s poems have appeared in SWWIM Every Day, Whale Road Review, and Rise Up Review. She is a third-year PhD student in English at Duke, pursuing certificates in African and African American studies and in gender, sexuality, and feminist studies.

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D. Dina Friedman
When Despair for the World Grows in Me

I’d like to think I’d lie down with bears, confront gun nuts,
but more likely, I’d be climbing a mountain

a bright blue day when the air is crisp as apple skin
and leaves rain their last remnants in the wind.

At night the cat has returned
to sprawl his love against my chest,

no longer needing to splay belly up in the heat.
He purrs like the tree I aspire to be,

its trunk unbothered by strangler figs. Lie down.
Really, there’s nothing in the world that matters more

than skin on skin. Maybe we need to spread the love.
A cat on every chest, like a chicken in every pot.

A gun in every holster. Maybe, we just need to sing
until we reach oblivion—or action? Dynamo? Dynamite?

Die? The sky is as blue as apple pie
is American. Listen. That distant hunter

is downing a deer. I’ve always wanted an antler.
It’s kind of like penis envy, but better,

a secret weapon against despair
growing out of the part of the body that thinks.

And when he talks about thoughts—and prayers,
tell him that people were praying

in all those shuls and mosques, those churches,
and sorry for the blasphemy, but

God didn’t seem to be there, God prefers
to be here in the soul of the deer

and that black mama bear fighting thorns,
gathering the last of the berries before a long sleep.

D. Dina Friedman is the author of the two young adult novels. Escaping Into the Night (Simon and Schuster, 2006) was recognized as a Notable Book for Older Readers by the Association of Jewish Libraries, and a Best Books for Young Adults nominee by the American Library Association. Playing Dad’s Song (FSG, 2006) was recognized as a Bank Street College of Education Best Book. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook Wolf in the Suitcase (Finishing Line Press 2019). Her work has appeared in Calyx, Common Ground Review, Lilith, Wordpeace, Pinyon,  Negative Capability, New Plains Review, Steam Ticket, Bloodroot, Inkwell, and Pacific Poetry, among other journals. Friedman holds an MFA from Lesley University. She lives in Hadley, Mass., and teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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Anna Leah
Fuck Serenity

“Fuck your serenity,” you said.
Well, fuck you, too

It’s hard-won
against hard-on wielding men
who grasp as you pass
and gasp as you ask for yourself
and reach out to grab to snag you from jaywalking

Against connections of self
and objections to all else
you wish to choose to say

Against a world that pushed in hopes
you won’t notice
and hands palming you everywhere

Serenity is smiling over screaming,
meanwhile, ulcers teem

It’s exhaustion after exhilaration after confusion
reveals itself to be mean

It’s forgetting your ego,
because it’s been beaten away
from your expectations of anything

It’s releasing all ideas of accomplishment
letting yourself be selfish
and giving up on yourself

Serenity is in these moments between panic
and all that’s left

It’s touching the river like a lover
and forgetting why you left those others behind

Fuck this serenity, perhaps
but it was far from automatic

It comes from years of servicing
then, forgetting
to decide to have any consciousness at all

Anna Leah’s poetry has appeared in Panel Magazine (published in Budapest). Her broadcast and print journalism have appeared on PBS, AJ+, and Brut and in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The New York Post, Brokelyn, and other publications. She holds a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. Also a filmmaker, Leah lives in Brooklyn. She posts poetry to Instagram, @ByAnnaLeah.

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J.P. White
If the World Is to Go On

Everything unknown softens when you look at it a second time.
The first time we see fear and suspicion
Or some memory that’s been hunting us.
The second time we look,
We don’t reach after argument or conclusion.
We sag a bit in our stance. We take in more
Of the entire field in which the other sits.
Lovers and enemies know this better than anyone.
When they pause, take a breath
And look again at their part in the quarrel
They find a way back to the table.
If the world is to go on,
We will need to take more time with it
Because everything and everyone will need to be seen twice
And held for a moment longer.

J.P. White is the author of the poetry collections The Sleeper at the Party (Defined Providence Press, 2001), The Salt Hour (The University of Illinois Press, 2001), The Pomegranate Tree Speaks from the Dictator’s Garden (Holy Cow Press, 1988), and In Pursuit of Wings (Panache Books, 1978). His essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds a BA from New College, an MA from Colorado State University, and an MFA from Vermont College. He lives on Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis.

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Dion O’Reilly
Closet

I
She wanted her father to stop her mother,
but he couldn’t.

I suck my thumb and mess my pants,
she said as he took her to third grade
on his way to work. Still dark.
No breakfast. Her insides screaming.
The dirty shirt she’d slept in.

The janitor let her in. She waited
in front of a burping heater, nursed her thumb
till the rest arrived in a raucous wave.

II
On the ranch, she looked at the sun, wondered
if another world spun on its far side,
understood the language of crows
screaming in ravines, heard ticking teeth
beneath the lawn as Father mowed.
Mumbled to himself. Softly cried.

III
Crouched in her closet, she studied
the vaulted architecture of her mind,
saw whole lives there. Drew them by feel
on walls behind the clothes, pushed
a pencil into the soft wood. Felt a shivering
contentment as she drew, slowly
shit herself. Filled the air with stench.

IV
No prince lived in her closet. Just me,
she whispered. Squeezed
her anal sphincter with delight.
Holding back. Letting go.

Dion O’Reilly is the author of Ghost Dogs (Terrapin Books, 2020). Her work has appeared in Narrative, New Ohio Review, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, Sugar House Review, Rattle, The Sun, Tupelo Quarterly, and other journals and anthologies. O’Reilly has spent much of her life on a farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, working at various times as a theater manager, graphic designer, and public school teacher, among other occupations.

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Kiran Bhat
A little boy asks Kiran: What is your favorite animal?

一个小男孩问道客燃脑：你最喜欢的动物是什么？

客然脑说；不是一头大象
但它的肤比泥更灰,
比木炭和灰泥更坚硬,
和他们的眼睛燃烧着，
这是一个聪明的标志.

不是鲸鱼.
虽然他们也很聪明.
他们互相玩游戏，
唱最奇妙的歌曲，
只是寻找需要.
如果动物有文学能力，
鲸鱼的诗歌
将是我会读的第一本.

并不是人，
我可能是人，
但我宁愿被锁在一只羊笼里，
谁至少知道如何尊严地对待对方.

客然脑结说：我相信我爱蚂蚁.
他们的身体是葡萄的灯泡.
一个比我的手指甲小的脑，
他们建造了最和谐的寺庙，
在那些已死的人的骨灰上.
他们自己思考,
但作为一个团队工作.

如果他在挡道了，那么他们可以伤害别.
他们也尊重他人的领土.
它们确实是最珍贵的动物.

小男孩问道; 那么,为什么当你看到一只蚂蚁时，
走在桌子上，你停下来挤压它？

客然脑出了最狡猾的微笑。
我确信没有其他物种，
有了破坏人性的人类。

A little boy asks Kiran: What is your favorite animal?

Kiran says: It isn’t the elephant,
But their skin is grayer than mud,
Tougher than charcoal and stucco,
And their eyes simmer and smother,
It is the sign of an intelligent being.

It is not the whale.
Though they are also quite intelligent.
They play games with each other,
Sing the most wondrous of songs,
And only hunt for need.
If the animals were capable of literature,
The poetry of the whales
Would be the first that I would read.

Nor is it the human,
I may be a human,
But I would rather be locked in a cage of sheep,
Who at least know how to treat each other with dignity.

Kiran concludes:
I believe I love the ants.
Their beady body the bulbs of grapes.
A brain smaller than my fingernail,
They build the most harmonious of temples,
On the ashes of those long dead.
They think for themselves,
Yet work as a team.
They only harm the living if they are in their way.
They respect the territories of others as well.
They are the most precious animal, indeed.

The kid asks; then why is it that, when you see an ant,
walking on the table, you stop and squish it?

Kiran gives the most devious smile.
He says; because whenever I see an ant,
I am convinced that there is not a single other species,
With the power to undermine humanity.

The Mandarin version of this poem appeared in Kiran Speaks (White Elephant Press, 2019).

Kiran Bhat is the author of the poetry collections Autobiografia (Letrame Editorial, 2019) and Kiran Speaks (White Elephant Press, 2019), as well as the Kannada-language travelogue Tirugaatha (Chiranthana Media Solutions, 2019) and the novel We of the Forsaken World (Iguana Books, 2019). He has traveled to over 130 countries, lived in 18 different places, and speaks 12 languages. He considers Mumbai his spiritual base, but currently lives in Melbourne.

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