for very little
over a bowl of nothing
all of this
has been to pray
Cynthia Manick is the author of Blue Hallelujahs (Black Lawrence Press, 2016). A Pushcart Prize nominated poet with a MFA in Creative Writing from the New School; she has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, Poets House, and the Saltonstall Foundation of the Arts among others. A winner of the 2016 Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB), Muzzle Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York
~
In My Heaven
after RC Lewis
Everything begins with
hunger. Some crave Bartlett
pears, trees that breathe,
playing violin on gold roads.
Others only answer to their
animal names, knowing
which heart chamber calls
to the wolf, the sheep,
the jackal. In my heaven
the currency is words–
people sing or recite
verb to noun…
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pushes
every smoker
a grocery cart
for a six-
fingered ghost
not
true
all children come from god
(the theatrical
parent
we’ve all
that one
sibling
says death
is a prayer
that’s changed
churches…
who numbers children
backwards
from ten…
treats grief
like sunburn
& claps
for a fish
Jessie Lynn McMains is a poet, writer, zine-maker, and small press owner. Her words have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Awkward Mermaid, Wyrd & Wyse, Juke Joint, Occulum, Memoir Mixtapes, and others; she’s also a contributing writer for Pussy Magic. You can find her website at recklesschants.net, or find her on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram @rustbeltjessie
*****
forget the fuck away from me (origin stories of a safety pin girl)
coil magnetic reels back into cassettes
collect scraps flaked from yellowed glue bind
sheafs once held by rubber bands now
snapped & staples all a-rusted
static- magnetic between voices graves ghosts
so loud & sorrow-slick my blood smeared
with all that dark lilac remember
string me a necklace sing me a song decipher
me these stories how I was born to hate
pink dresses’ itched rustle & cobweb silence
by four I was lost to the basement carved
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i.
the father
does he have
his notes
on how to leave (an infant
speechless
ii.
the sister she is in
my ear (is her darkness
the size
of a quarter
iii.
I mean to run a bath
but don’t
iv.
(doom has a brother
shops
for a coffin
Joseph Murphy’s poetry has appeared in a wide range of online and print journals. His second collection of poems, Having Lived, was published in 2018; his first collection, Crafting Wings, in 2017. Murphy is a member of the Colorado Authors’ League and for eight years (2010-2018) was poetry editor for an online literary publication, Halfway Down the Stairs.
/
Celebration of Being
1.
Under an equal moon
I see the mountain lake
as an infinity of reflection
as the center
of a boundless faith
I see the lake and the stride of the moon
loose from me
like vapor
loose from the cove of a skull
These images
without distance
out deep in time
As I remember
I know
the angled wheel
from which my own self
is spun
2.
From a rooftop
I watch gulls weave
over seawall and pine
over a village’s
well-worn paths
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