Autumnal Equinox

Julian, CA

by Angela Narciso Torres

this urge to drive somewhere—what is it?

from a fast window, even brown grass

looks exciting. rolling into town, the smell

of burnt apples. grandpas, babies, tattooed

teens squint in harsh sunlight as if …

Here

—for Padraig Regan

by Paul Maddern

Here is the inventory of stone I
could not bring myself to make
and instead I have simply
photographed where stones have
been left on turned …

The Mother of All Parliaments

by Leontia Flynn

‘The Mother of Parliaments’
is having a nervous breakdown
as we gather your things
switch off and leave the house.

The trees shake in this storm
as the day shakes in …

Mélopée

by Matthew Ryan Shelton

One may speak, one may not speak.
One may speak, one may bespeak.
What if we are two if we are one.

One may see, one may not see.
One may …

Ode to My Leopard Print Coat

after Neruda

by Carrie Etter

If there must be
winter at least
I will wear this
leopard print
cape of a coat,
thick faux fur
smelling of dried
jasmine and sweat,
drawing friends near
to …

Everything Ends

by Martha Silano

but so what. In the sultry nights of August, I’ll unravel –
wanna join me? We can pant ourselves pantless,

share a double brushfire on the raucous. Together
we can …

Rock House

by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

This rock house loft can’t sustain the sway
from mile-deep brine water pumping back, it crumbles

like my hand crushed last winter,
car door slammed,
digits malformed into turnkeys
that don’t …

Lucidity

by Laynie Browne

From shine, lux, light, sleep with the dreamer awake, languid as if in water

If we were free from obscurity would everyone pause as instructed

The way birds dip and dive then …

Étude

by Travis Chi Wing Lau

Lotuses unfolding
into dreamfish,
slurrying into
queer failure:
how the
compression
fails me
(or have I
failed the
vine and
charcoal?),
too untrained
for even fingering,
too feral
for firmness

TWENTY-SIX BLOSSOMS

by Lisa Moore

I have been living in this house for eleven years
today is the day I began to inhabit it

the glass table in the corner of the room
the hand-sized chunk …

Portals Are Having a Moment

by Julie Choffel

on the TV & I’m having a moment that’s not
my world not ripped apart by light or arms
weary from swimming the multiverse
Harjo says I cannot walk through …

Sakura, Sakura on the Radio

by Naoko Fujimoto