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< Back to Breakthroughs Issue RUTHLESS E. D. Lloyd-Kimbrel after Mary I will teach you, she said, to be ruthless. Greatness can be achieved no other way, she said. You will learn to sharpen and cut, to do the hard prune. You will be acolyte to gardeners to butchers to desert saints, she said. Words sentiments dreams relations must be reduced to hard bone so pale in the moonlight that it glows with naked sanctity, she said. You are good, she said. But weakness lurks softness lingers compromise leans in and your grip loosens. You are in debt. You owe to yourself the sinew the essence the abandonment of all except the elemental, she said. Keep nothing that gentles that sings regret. Keep only that which is harsh in its purity. You must be great, she said, because anything else is not enough. Nothing is enough, I said. I will stay as I am, I said. And so I was ruthless after all. Published in Tangled Locks Journal . As regards compositional commentary, I prefer not to deconstruct my poems too much—what prompted them for me may not be how readers experience them. To paraphrase something Robert Frost somewhere said, once the poem is out in the world, it is no longer simply yours. That being said, though, in both of these poems the "breakthrough" involves a recognition of self-worth, with “Ruthless” being somewhat Socratic in approach and “Pourquoi Moi” being slightly satiric by way of referential whimsy (in a nod to Ron Padgett’s poem “Nothing in That Drawer”), but both being resolute. Thank you very much for reading my verses. Previous E.D. LLOYD-KIMBREL (whose car masquerades as a branch library) has published biographical, critical, and scholarly essays, creative nonfiction, and poetry, including a chapbook, Matrimonies (Finishing Line Press, 2023). Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue THE CURSE OF SEVENTY EIGHT Mona Mehas My sister just turned seventy-nine; I called on her birthday, said congrats. “I broke the curse!” she said, “Damn the stats!” I’m afraid to take this as a sign. Sperm-donor passed at seventy-eight; my sister just turned seventy-nine. Sisters called him Dad, with blood aligned— no, his sperm does not a dad equate. At seventy-eight, our mother died; she’d a weak heart and a crooked spine. My sister just turned seventy-nine— I’m growing old, my age amplified. First sister, same age. Was it bloodline? At dinner, unspoken, thinly veiled superstition and fear, now exhaled— my sister just turned seventy-nine. "The Curse of Seventy-Eight, from my book Hand-Me-Downs (LJMcD Communications, 2024) , deals with the day I came to grips with my own mortality. Previous MONA MEHAS is a retired disabled teacher in Indiana, USA, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize (Paddler Press , 2023, and TV-63 , 2025), and for Best New Poet (Lucky Jefferson , 2024), with eight published chapbooks. Mona's work has appeared in multiple publications and online museums. She works with Cicada Song Press and Engage! , an online Star Trek fan magazine. Mona is a former President of the Poetry Society of Indiana and is Indiana Co-Leader of Authors Against Book Bans . She is editing her second novel while perpetually distracted by her next chapbook. monamehas.net Next

Stacy Julin < Back to Breakthroughs Issue LAST MEAL Stacy Julin 00:00 / 00:32 LAST MEAL Stacy Julin That last meal as a family was difficult. He struggled to swallow the food down between sobs. The kids were quiet. He said it was the best meal he had ever eaten, but it was over for me. Twenty years of sadness and cheating. I admit my heart ached for him, but after he left, nothing would stop me now from locking that door. This poem was written at a very hard time in my life. Now, when I look back on it, I'm really proud of myself. I taught my children something very important. No one deserves to be treated badly, and you are strong enough to leave. Previous STACY JULIN'S work has been published in Oyster River Pages , Pirene’s Fountain , Sweet Tree Review , Southern Quill , and Word Fountain , and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, A Pebble Thrown in Water (Tiger’s Eye Press, 2010), Visiting Ghosts and Ground (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Things We Carry (Finishing Line Press, 2024). She lives with her family at the base of the beautiful Wasatch Mountains. facebook.com/Stacydixonsplace/ Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue PURSED LIPS Robert Cooperman My diminished stamina? I take in too much breath to expel, but you show me how to blow out, pursing my lips, not holding my breath and exhaling in a giant explosion— like a whale through its blowhole— ineffective and exhausting. Along with a pulmonologist’s inhaler, my pursed lips let me exercise, though I’ll never run a marathon, not that I ever did, but at least I don’t feel like I’ve gasped through twenty-six miles when I climb a flight of stairs. But what I can’t get out of my head: those pursed lips: remembering seeing To Have and Have Not as a kid, Bogie telling Bacall to walk around him, taunting he comes with no strings attached, and she comes back with, “If you want me, Steve, all you have to do is whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?” her mocking purr. “Just put your lips together and blow ,” and now all I want to do is purse my lips and kiss and kiss and kiss you forever. I’ve been suffering from shortness of breath for quite some time, but recently got good advice from my wife Beth about one way to deal with that problem, and also from a pulmonologist. For our 50th anniversary, I thought a poetic tribute to Beth was very much in order. Previous ROBERT COOPERMAN, "a Brooklyn boy, right down to a B.A. at Brooklyn College," moved to Denver in 1974 to study in the joint Literature-Creative Writing Program, and received a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and 19th Century British Literature. He has taught English at the University of Georgia and Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He lives in Denver with his wife, Beth. His volume In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (Western Reflections Pub. Co., 1999) won the Colorado Book Award in 2000. coloradopoetscenter.org/poets/cooperman_robert Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue BECAUSE WE CAN Brock Dethier When asked why he was attempting to be the first to climb Mt. Everest, George Mallory said, “Because it’s there.” He died on Everest in 1924. It’s not because it’s there that we climb the highest mountain. It’s because we can. Adventurers know that our abilities can change instantly and will inevitably change slowly, so the climbing route, the powder line, the 20-knot windsurfing blow that you can just barely handle today will be beyond you tomorrow. I did 4000-foot-vertical hikes because I could. I ran every other day for thirty years, hating every step, because I could. I tried every drug that came my way, often more than once because I could. I skate skied up Green Canyon nonstop because I could, just barely. I swam underwater to the Green Room behind the travertine falls because I’d lost my mind. I can’t do any of those things now. Nor can I drive a golf ball out of sight, hit a forehand passing shot, or backpack nine miles into the Wind Rivers. Somehow when I wasn’t looking, my body’s motto went from “Whatever you need, whenever,” to “Nope, can’t.” What can my body still do that’s worth doing and I might well lose tomorrow? C’mere Babe. “Because We Can” is a new poem. I grew up with Mallory’s “Because it’s there” in my head, wondering what it meant and why I too embarked on pointless, dangerous adventures. The insight is of limited benefit to me now that I’m 73, and it might not make sense to someone who’s young enough to feel that there will always be another tomorrow. But understanding WHY we should seize the day was a breakthrough for me. Previous BROCK DETHIER retired from Utah State University after directing the writing composition program for 11 years. His publications include From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music (Heinemann, 2003), First Time Up: An Insider’s Guide for New Composition Teachers (Utah State University Press, 2005), Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them (Utah State University Press, 2013), and two books of poetry, Ancestor Worship (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and Reclamation (Popcorn Press, 2015). Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue GHAZAL WITH COYOTES, GAZA AND HEALING HERBS Pamela Uschuk “My eyes went to heaven instead of me.” —five year old boy in Gaza, PBS NEWS , January 2025 Desert wind razors oleander leaves, scraping dawn’s yard. My pup attacks coyotes through chain-link fence to the East. Radio cries for children bombed each day in Gaza’s rubble. Love-starved, rain refuses to kiss wildfires to the East. What is chickpea flour to dead mothers wrapped in white sheets? My shoes catch fire. I would send rivers of milk to the East. On my sill, basil & healing herbs flex from East to West. Finches and mourning doves sing up sun to the East. A rabid coyote bit three neighbor dogs across town. During chemo, my friend sent dates sweet dried from the East. Neighbor kids dribble, shoot baskets on asphalt, shoes laced to laughing feet, tap love notes to the East. Revenge rape is no quotient to solve torn burkas. Indentured slave, my migrant grandma prayed to the East. My ancestors were massacred by a tyrant’s troops. I am their contrail sending love poems to the East. For years I believed my alien name meant big ears. migrating to Belarus from Siberia far East. Uschuk means whale who spirals down to evade enemies. I’d curl in a blue whale’s singing brain to the East. Where is God when bodies are blown to bone confetti? What herb heals daughters & sons exploded in the East? When Ami Kaye, publisher of Glass Lyre Press, solicited poems for an anthology of Ghazals, I was determined to write one. Before this ghazal, published by Ami Kaye in Nur Melange Anthology of Ghazals , my earlier ghazals seemed wooden, forced. But, this ghazal was an axe that opened my heart broken by daily images of Israel’s incessant bombing of Gaza, by its genocide of Gazan citizens, especially its women and children. I wanted to write a ghazal to honor the dead civilians of this hideously besieged nation. This was a breakthrough Ghazal for me. I haven’t yet mastered this elegant Persian form, but I am happy with this poem. Previous PAMELA USCHUK is the author of eight books of poems, the most recent of which is Pulling Down Sky , forthcoming from Red Hen Press. She has received many awards, including the American Book Award, and is a senior fellow and board member of Black Earth Institute, as well as the Editor in Chief of Cutthroat , a Journal of the Arts. www.pamelauschuk.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue TIP Marjorie Maddox of the tongue not tickling the undiscovered decay; of the finger, stubbed into silence; of the #2 pencil, poised and pointed, suddenly stifled, its nonpoisonous lead unable to undo any tabula rasa—mine or yours or my mother’s, who keeps asking with the tongue and the finger and the blank slate of her almost ninety-year-old face, “How old? How old?” How old this silence that faces the poised, the stubbed mother tongue— yours, mine—blank as any tabula rasa before words knew how to rise, or fingers how to point at the poisonous, the decayed, or merely the undiscovered hiding behind the stifled face, ninety #2 pencils unable to answer such sudden questions. How to answer what tickles the stubbed mind, undo the poisonous—yours, mine— face the tabula rasa without pencil or tongue, the blank of silence its own discovery of decay, the pointed “How old? How old?” suddenly stifled, leading back to the undoing: blank slate where ninety keeps asking after itself as the finger points in question, and the poised tongue raises again its unanswered Tip "Tip" was previously published in Southern Florida Poetry Review and in the poetry collection Seeing Things (Wildhouse, 2025). This poem, the first I wrote during a Fall 2018 writing residency, tumbled out the evening that I arrived, the process “tipping” me into a “tip of the tongue” space that writing often pushes through. This time, the process provided insight into the early stages of my mother’s dementia. What, I wondered, did it feel like to her when words became evasive at a more extreme level than common “tip of the tongue” syndrome? “Tip” thus paved the way to other poems on dementia, caregiving, and the shifting roles of memory that eventually became the book Seeing Things (Wildhouse, Feb. 2025). Previous MARJORIE MADDOX has published 17 collections of poetry, a story collection, five children’s and YA books, and two anthologies (co-editor). She is a Professor Emerita of English at the Lock Haven Campus of Commonwealth University. marjoriemaddox.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue TIGHTENING SKATES Brock Dethier I gouge my numb index fingers under the stiff laces, pry for leverage, the tiniest bit of slack, jerk it through, knuckle the gain in place up sixty pairs of eyelets, Corey's, then Larkin's, then Tanner's, lower back scar bulging, knees wet from kneeling, jacket flecked with frozen spray kicked by kids' skates, and thank my mother in her ancient, thin parka, kneeling beside her mitten shells, tightening the first to get laced, the butt of each skate denting her thigh, hands blotched redwhite from cold, hoping her fingers will still obey and lace her own, give her a moment of grace to glide before the first one gets cold ears or needs retightening. Published in the collection, Reclamation (Popcorn Press, 2015) . I imagine most parents can relate to the kind of moment I capture in “Tightening Skates:” doing something for your kids makes you suddenly appreciate what your parents did for you when you were a kid. I don’t think I planned what’s now my favorite part of that poem—that it allows the mother briefly to glide away, free, something she had trouble doing in real life. Previous BROCK DETHIER retired from Utah State University after directing the writing composition program for 11 years. His publications include From Dylan to Donne: Bridging English and Music (Heinemann, 2003), First Time Up: An Insider’s Guide for New Composition Teachers (Utah State University Press, 2005), Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them (Utah State University Press, 2013), and two books of poetry, Ancestor Worship (Pudding House Publications, 2008) and Reclamation (Popcorn Press, 2015). Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue SUMMONING Shari Zollinger “I've always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I've worked hard at being the hero of my own life. But every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn't know how to belong. Longing? Yes. Belonging? No.” – Jeanette Winterson What if we were born with an assumption, we tiny creatures without verbal webbing in our already formed pulsing cortexes, and what if that assumption was simply that we belong to the world and the world belongs to us—even while our gooey little bodies spill out into gravity? And how do we reconcile the betrayal we feel when we learn that belonging never was the static act of our grand assumption? That we'll have to walk round its bend repeatedly, that we'll get caught inside the crook of its elbow, that we’ll get lost. I once tried a thing called soul retrieval. A bandied term that lies thick with ambiguity. The practitioner lay by my side, hip to hip, after calling upon the four directions. She took the responsibility for driving from me for just a moment, and I was grateful. A relief to let her hold the space for this expedition, as I handed over my consent for her to act upon my body, just this once—not as renunciation but investigation. To scry inside my webbing long enough to see what I’d not seen. To lead me through a matrix of memory. After I lay on the decorative rug next to her for some time, she sat up with a story to tell. Was this what she meant by retrieval, reaching for what had been dropped into the margins and carrying it home? Her story was about a rock. The rock was in the hand of a girl. The hand of the girl was clenched around the rock. The rock and the girl were asleep deep underground. The girl was eight years old. As the rush of the story came into our space, I thought, well, there was a time when I was eight years old, when we were exiled from the sprawling Mormon farm full of cousins, playmates and caretakers. We were given orders to leave. Reasons as messy as families are, the breaking fraught with financial mistakes, personality conflicts, scapegoats. And because I was eight, and I didn’t know that eventually I’d break with this tribe deliberately, I’d taken the orders as religious gospel. As once we might belong, so too shall we not. We became, in my eight-year-old head, the Boxcar Children looking for pine needle beds. And because we were used to caretakers in multitudes, how then would we survive, being reduced to two parents who’d possibly never considered that they’d have to bear the emotional weight of 9 children on their own? What if this story buried itself inside a rock in a small bird-claw-hand, deep under the earth, because this girl simply didn’t want to leave? Perhaps at that point, she’d searched the farm, walking dusty paths by the cow corral, next to the silage pit, underneath the red-twined hay bales for a place to bury one piece of her with a rock to keep her company. She’d allow this separation because, although leaving was inevitable, perhaps it could be mitigated by letting one piece stay—the rock piece. How long do we stay in a place with our hands wrapped around stone? Then the practitioner excavated the metaphorical rock and in shamanic ritual, blew it back into my belly, creating a crossroads of then and now, where something lost was found—something buried, reclaimed: the revolutionary act of remembering. "Summoning" debuted alongside a film by Amanda Madden, A Spell for Queer Home , in 2023 in Moab, Utah. In this lyric essay, the summoner leads a seeker to revisit childhood traumas and achieve a breakthrough. Previous SHARI ZOLLINGER is a Salt Lake City-based poet, essayist, and bookseller whose work examines memory, place, and the traces we leave in both landscape and life. She currently reads for Sugar House Review and has spent 25 years in independent bookselling as a buyer and community advocate for literary programs. Her work has appeared in Sugar House Review , Redactions: Poetry & Prose , The Shore Poetry , and Ephemeral Magazine. sharizollinger.substack.com Next

Andrea Hollander < Back to Breakthroughs Issue LIVING ROOM Andrea Hollander 00:00 / 02:12 LIVING ROOM Andrea Hollander In the cave of memory my father crawls now, his small carbide light fixed to his forehead, his kneepads so worn from the journey they’re barely useful, but he adjusts them again and again. Sometimes he arches up, stands, reaches, measures himself against the wayward height of the ceiling, which in this part of the cave is at best uneven. He often hits his head. Other times he suddenly stoops, winces, calls out a name, sometimes the pet name he had for my long-dead mother or the name he called his own. That’s when my stepmother tries to call him back. Honeyman , she says, one hand on his cheek, the other his shoulder, settling him into the one chair he sometimes stays in. There are days she discovers him curled beneath the baby grand, and she’s learned to lie down with him. I am here , she says, her body caved against this man who every day deserts her. Bats , he says, or maybe, field glasses . Perhaps he’s back in France, 1944, she doesn’t know. But soon he’s up again on his knees, shushing her, checking his headlamp, adjusting his kneepads, and she rises to her own knees, she doesn’t know what else to do, the two of them explorers, one whose thinning pin of light leads them, making their slow way through this room named for the living. Previously published in RUNES , and winner of the RUNES Poetry Prize, selected by Jane Hirshfield, "Living Room" is included in my third full-length collection, Woman in the Painting (Autumn House, 2006 ) and in Landscape with Female Figure: New and Selected Poems, 1982 - 2012 (Autumn House, 2013. ) Witnessing my father's years-long death from Alzheimer's was overwhelmingly heartbreaking, but observing his wife's unwavering care for him during those sad, difficult twelve years gave me unexpected peace; her compassion and deep love were motivations for this poem. Though I'd written about his disease in other poems, not until I found the perfect analogy of spelunking (a breakthrough), was I able to create this poem that honors both my father and my stepmother. Previous ANDREA HOLLANDER is the author of six full-length poetry collections and has received numerous awards, including two Pushcart Prizes for poetry and literary non-fiction, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. www.andreahollander.net Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue DEAR CARLEY Beth Colburn Orozco My daughter turned four the day before my scheduled trip to Honduras, where I had accepted a teaching position at a secondary school in El Progreso. The paperwork, pictures, and letters I saved from my pregnancy and her adoption were scattered on my bed. Packing would have to wait as I studied her baby pictures taken by her adoptive parents and sent to me through the adoption agency. In one, she was propped up against sofa cushions holding a baby ring with plastic keys, her chocolate-brown eyes and chunky cheeks smiling back at me. The guilt and shame acted like trained assassins hired to kill me. I thought of canceling my trip and curling up among her things. Instead, I picked up the little wristband she wore at the hospital, searching for parts of her, hoping her DNA, like a map, would lead me to her. I had chosen her parents from a stack of letters from people wanting a family. I wanted a family, too, and had promised myself, while in a Milwaukee courtroom, signing away my parental rights, that I was making the right choice. I was wrong. I was in my twenties when I got pregnant, squandering those precious young adult years with the wrong people while making one bad decision after another. For years, I worked in restaurants and bars. Living on tips, I worried about making rent and car payments. I didn’t have a safety net or a place to raise a child. My friend Tammy got pregnant during her second semester of college. She was raising her little girl in government-assisted housing with the help of welfare assistance and food stamps. One morning, I stopped by with donuts. A little pink bike with a banana seat, a flat tire, and mangled training wheels lay on its side on the front stoop of the apartment building. I dragged it into the yard. Tammy and her daughter lived on the second floor. The dingy linoleum stairs and hallway were filthy, and the walls were in dire need of a fresh coat of paint. The apartment door was ajar. Tammy’s little girl sat on a tattered rug, eating a bowl of cereal, and watching Scooby Do. Tammy’s feet dangled off the sofa. She was asleep. I set the bag of donuts on the floor just inside the apartment. Tammy’s little girl never looked up. Outside, the broken bike lay on the grass like a wounded animal. Instinctually, I placed my hands on my belly to protect my baby. I’m not raising my daughter like this. The memory of the broken pink bike, an image stacked among so many I collected like tarot cards during that time, reminds me why I chose to give up my daughter. I named my daughter Carley after seeing Carly Simon singing “Coming Around Again Itsy Bitsy Spider” on an MTV video: I know nothing stays the same / But if you’re willing to play the game / It will be coming around again. Her adoptive parents changed her name to Kelsey. That name belonged to someone I hadn’t held in my arms at the hospital when she was born. I was unable or maybe unwilling to accept the truth. For years, my journal entries would begin, Dear Carley . I picked up the journal given to me by a dear friend who would, years later, die from colon cancer while her three children were still in school. It wasn’t fair. There was a single entry because, even though I had promised to write, it was too painful to address my daughter in such a concrete way. I scanned the entry for clues to help me understand how I came to surrender my baby. Then, as now, it makes no sense to me. March 3, 1992 Dear Carley, -If I wrote to you each time I thought of you, I would have volumes of letters to share. -[The day I gave you up] was the worst day of my life. I felt alone and empty. I also felt about ten years old and that at any minute someone was going to start making decisions for me that would take away the pain and guilt. -Before I had you, I always had a net or web under me to catch me if I fell: my friends and family, even things like money, a car, and a job. But all the security I had could not help me make the decisions I made with you. In many ways, I had to grow up. You have helped me do that. -I am sorry. I am sorry I wasn’t there to hold you when you couldn’t sleep. I am sorry I wasn’t there to catch you when you took your first steps, and I am sorry I won’t be there to answer all the questions you will have about your adoption. There wasn’t time to sink into the dank well where I often treaded deep, dark waters. There was still so much to do before I left in the morning. I gathered the papers and photos and returned them to the adoption box, a plastic tote I kept stored in my closet. I debated taking it to Latin America, but the box was insurance that someday I would return. I would never leave my daughter behind again. I slid the journal along with a few notebooks and a pocket-sized calendar I purchased at Walgreens, into my backpack. It was time to finish packing, and it was time to untangle Carley from the past. I would take her with me as a traveling companion rather than a symbol of grief I had worn like a heavy talisman around my neck for so long, I had forgotten what a privilege it was to have brought her into this world. "Dear Carley" is an excerpt from a forthcoming memoir, The Seasons of My Bones . It's been thirty-six years, yet I still struggle with these words: I gave my daughter up for adoption. In this essay, a breakthrough occurs when I decide to look toward the future rather than dwell on the past. Previous BETH COLBURN OROZCO teaches literature and creative writing at Cochise College in southeastern Arizona. Most recently, her work was published in The Ana and was accepted for The Letter Review shortlist. Beth's short stories and essays have won awards, and more can be found at bethcolburnorozco.com . Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue LET'S SAY Maureen Clark there is not a happy ending here the man stuck upside down in the cave will die what then? you will keep living more empty days you’ve begged before and no one came to save you there was no stretcher hauled out with a body breathing but broken mud and dirt worth the life how do you walk away without the rescue live the rest of your life with the always lost In trying to find new ways to deal with difficult subjects, I wrote in the Italian Rispetto form: eight lines, eleven syllables in each line. I like the way a very complex idea fits into this container, like a bento box. "let's say" was published in Sonic Boom . Previous MAUREEN CLARK is the author of the poetry collection This Insatiable August (Signature Books, 2024 ) and has received two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Her memoir, Falling into Bountiful: Confessions of a Since Once Upon a Time Mormon Girl , is forthcoming from Hypatia Press. maureenclark.art Next