Jackpot Under the ancient oak, little gold coins— glowing islands funneled through leaves— tumble jackpot at my feet. These dollops of light—flimsy as a wish slipping through fingers— nevertheless hold encroaching heaviness at bay. And even when darkness sometimes submerges the bright archipelago, the islands are not consumed but somehow escape and resurface shimmering elsewhere. William Holden It was the hour, I’m sure— at least partly— one of the wee ones, shadows thick as sludge, light wrapped, or maybe rapt, in smokey gauze. So when I first saw him—soft fingerpainting in black and white, sitting shirtless on a table edge, doughy flesh surfacing from black ink, enigmatic answer from a…

The Work of Summer I race the sun in the wild mustard field, the monarchs lace the northern hemisphere of my lungs. Boredom is dangerous, chambers enclosed in sugar maple rings, daylight opens each night at its seam. Out of the granite boulders, scree, out of hiding from my own body, out of hiding from myself, I am a honey, a wax, a gold light. I run to the scent of water, my head is a beehive— Andrea Carter is from Southern California. Her work is forthcoming or appears in The Comstock Review, Catamaran, Painted Bride Quarterly, Terrain, The Common Ground, SWWIM, and The Florida Review. A finalist for the…

and the word for longing is your name entire deserts of itpierced by Joshua Trees ochers sages oxidesdusted toward the soft horizon some purpled bowl of mountainsholding the wide of what it means to always want something otherthe barrenness of that choice a heart sievedlooks out and sees emptiness the clear shimmer of all that isn’t yoursburning in the afternoon sun the steam of it ragingagainst your quiet hungry skin   *titled after Jai Hamid Bashir’s poem “And the word for moonlight is my name.”   Sandra Crouch, MA, is a poet, floral designer, and letterpress printer living in Nashville. Her poems have been published in HAD, Jet Fuel Review,…

Over There Although we know they maynot be better necessarilyover there, we know at leastthings are different, and we sense we would be differentourselves all these yearshad we been born, broughtup, nurtured over there, been given opportunitiesto play the barefoot games,had we had the friendswith the perfect trochee names who lived on streets withno sharp corners but with treesthat grew, merged over roads,melded light like arches, in houses shadowed withpianos and portraits in oil,who went to the alabasterschool on the low, smooth hill with a library on whoseshelves are only first editionsbound in leather and hallsechoing a bronze tradition like a language strangerthan ours, older and stronger,the language of flawless…

Au Marché Uzès The smell of roasted chestnuts—New York City, I am eight years old. My brother takes the subway to his junior high. I am the only child still holding my mother’s hand when we leave our building on West End Avenue. The park if we turn right, the subway if we turn left and then the city, immense, an entire country. My mother buys me a bag of chestnuts, warm in my hands. This is her city, nothing worries her or if it does, she doesn’t let me see. Not yet. Not for a long time. Susanna Lang divides her time between Chicago and Uzès, France. The 2024…

Fever From my bed, a window full of sky. The air washed with light. A flight of stairs down to bath, bread. A banister to ease the way. My husband brings me tea, a cold cloth for my forehead. Time unravels the pale hours. Now it is morning. Now noon. I am seven. I am five. Dolls jumbled on shelves, faces white, lean into one another. The fever breaks slowly. The thermometer is shaken down. My father rises from the cot where he has been lying beside me these long years. He is just shadow and light. I could stand up right now, push off and fly out of this…

Driving Through the Cascade Mountains, January Highway 5, dense predawn fog, hours of headlights reflecting gauzy, moisture-heavy air, intermittent rain showers– wet pavement, slick hilly curves, hairpin corners–the occasional mercy of a straightaway, eyes stinging from the car’s blasting defrost, and terrified even to blink—then emerging from a curve into sunshine: the road ahead suddenly visible, landscape splashed in light, towering mountain slopes, centuries-old fir and pine— above, resplendent blue of the sky. Kristine Rae Anderson is a Pushcart-nominated poet and author of the chapbook Field of Everlasting. Her poems have recently appeared in SALT, Literary Mama, Science Write Now, and elsewhere. She has received Tomales Bay and Fishtrap fellowships…

Making My Peace with Kansas Oh mean muddy breadbasket, dead endof the Chisolm Trail, homeland of troglodytesand old sunburned farmers—I can’t/won’tforgive you for making a barrens of thisteenaged girl, for leveling her with yourrumors and plough winds, but finallyafter what feels like a thousand years, I canloosen my grip, feel my fingers once more. I fold you up like a dead man’s clothes, thenlift you near one last time to smellcorn stalk, Flint Hills after rain, pondrot, grandma’s gooseberry jam. Notmad (now), not sad, I let you go becausethis handful of words I’ve rubbed togetherfinally weighs more than all your sunflowersand silos and wind-ghosted plains. Dianne Nelson Oberhansly‘s work has…

Mrs. Self Destruct I want to run until the veins slitherOut of my body, blue highwaysAcross continents, the ones I once droveWith the approximation of freedom. I want to eat every eucalyptus branchUntil splinters push out of my pores.My skin, unfurling like the paper bark,White and thin and nothing at all. I want my lungs to emptyInto sonic boom. Shocks ripple,Rip the atoms, smash every light.Leave my rage boxed up in the void. I want my body to crumpleLike a crocheted blanket given to a child,Found frayed on the floor,Used for the last time. Holly Fine is a poet residing in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in Riverside, CA,…