Kristin Fullerton lives in upstate New York. She is a proud alumna of both Elmira College and University at Albany. Previous work has appeared in Devilfish Review, Maine Review, Panoplyzine, and Zetetic.
{)
Reiterate, Write, Betray
Reiteration:
Peace is not very interesting;
the countless dead confess
the road of the speechless.
You stop listening and I can’t stand
my own mind. I have to speak, nothing
can disown me from myself.
I inhabit no words,
but the words of others. I followed
your footsteps, but I cannot give
to a museum of betrayal,
whatever that means.
I have discovered signs with your eyes.
Such knowledge frightens me, draws
the veil aside under the scrutiny
of daylight, commands:
Write, write!
But there is nothing to say.
Write this: the near past
of language is still betrayal.
A body can lessen what remains to say,
can turn me wrong
at the…
View original post 413 more words
i.
god comes to me in the knowing I’ll not find the one I’m here to replace
ii.
it is hard to carry
a nine-year old
not only
up and down
but also
by design
iii.
I had
what Peter had
three places
to smoke
I worry
without toys
on the sadness
of sons
my brother
is
as I make him
the keeper
of baseball cards
(even now
in pain
I look
at men
he points a pop-gun at a jack-in-the-box
(in hell
and on
your birthday
god goes to sleep every morning knowing adam and eve were the same person. god is waiting to die. we bite the child, or we don’t. our grief a prop of the churchgoer’s improv. our emptiness made of wax.
a smaller moment
of her
creating symbols
her ghost fan
coughing
on a winter
fly, her son
a bee sting
on the mind
of any angel
losing
its sense
of smell, our hair
separated
at birth
by sleep
a nostalgia
to which god
adds nothing
M; Margo is a person who writes and resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Their books include Pennine Hillsongs (The Haunted Mask II) [Ghost City Press, 2018], yr yr [Ghost City Press, 2017], and Blueberry Lemonade [Bottlecap Press, 2015].
{}
washington, lincoln, lafayette
it is the beginning of the summer
& everywhere feels too hot
the ice cream truck circles its usual route
with a lonesome echo
its jingle keeps asking
“hello?”
as if to beg for the attention of this tired city
the kids are tired & the kids’ hands are exhausted
the sno-cones are desperate to melt
melting over sweaty fingers
or melting over thirsty tongues
mixing with either saliva or cement
bare toes burning on black roads
my next-door neighbors turn on the radio
& fill up the inflatable pool
the ice cream truck drives around until it no longer exists
& then all of us look…
View original post 8 more words
Victoria Nordlund received her MALS from Wesleyan University. She is a 2018 Best of the Net Nominee whose work is published in PANK Magazine, Coffin Bell, Gone Lawn, Ghost Proposal, Amaryllis, Philosophical Idiot, and other journals. She lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
~*~
Memento Mori
I
Queen Victoria had a baby tooth brooch and bracelet
made with the first milk teeth of her brood.
Clean white polished pieces set with gold.
Delicate relics formed to mourn nine childhoods
long since passed.
II
After my mom died, I found
my primary collection in a copper box
with a lock from my first cut–
The initial trimmings before I realized
everything falls.
Strange to hold my baby teeth–Bits of me
Yellow/tiny/ broken/blood/brown/ kernels/
wrangled from their roots. Felt the gaps again.
And with each little loss
came the promise of permanent ones.
III
I ordered a silver keepsake bracelet with mom’s ashes–
Heavy…
View original post 29 more words
Hal Y. Zhang is a tinkerer of things. She is online at halyzhang.com.
)
Sievelike
The lump on the back of my skull is not
draining and I fancied it might sprout flowers,
nice-smelling ones if I’m lucky, a narcissus
bulb stitching delicate white interlace and the smallest
yellow trumpets. I’d need a hat to shade it from the
sun, perhaps a crocodile funerary mesh for good
omens, and when the well-meaners pry I’ll break into
tears, saving them on the menisci of my nails to
sprinkle over the long finger leaves at my earliest
convenience. Are you glistening, I’d subvocalize
to my lovely parasite, who already knows how to
ask for more by straining its fine net of roots
through my important parts.
(
kingsoftrain 