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< Back to Breakthroughs Issue BLUEBIRD ABECEDARIAN Pamela Uschuk for Laura-Gray Street Aegean blue etches frost air a deeper indigo than river-scrubbed lapis or blue hair dye or cadmium fresh from the tube onto canvas’s deep glacial lake. Blue catches me wandering dawn song ether, where no bombs blow off freezing feathers from wings, where no random gunshots thwack red birds with the snap of their terrible teeth. Hobbling, mothers drag kids through Gaza, from unsafe to unsafe in genocide’s firestorms of missile revenge. Just when I think this Virginia sky has birthed a kite of quietude with its upswung limbs of live oak, redbud, elm and maple’s sugar hope news intrudes its list of atrocities opening old wounds that never get a chance to heal. Peace? Ceasefire? These ancient questions are tacked to my sleeve like small roses of blood leaking from a child’s forehead pixilated on screen, laptop or smart TV in your own living room where you used to lounge with your lover or your cat, both valentines of hope, that elusive word again like a ghost whale or x-ray of a leg bone shattered by a grenade or a splatter of yellow feathers. Ground Zero is war’s footprint, unseen by bluebirds the size of a human heart. I wrote this Abecedarian as a model poem for an advanced undergraduate poetry class when I was the Pearl S. Buck Visiting Writer at Randolf College in Virginia. Besides Natalie Diaz’s wonderful “Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation,” I couldn’t find an example that was quite right for this class. This poem tries to hold all the grief and outrage I feel by the ongoing assault on Gaza, a country that has been almost bombed out of existence by Israel, whose firepower is overwhelming. I incorporated a lot of bird imagery because birding is one of my greatest joys. The poem is dedicated to Laura-Gray Street who brought me to Randolf, and who I had the great privilege of going birding with. The poem turned out to be an anti-war poem. The last line was one of those gifts that come out of the blue, a lucky line. This is another breakthrough poem for me. 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 CRASH RUMINATIONS (excerpt) Karin Anderson The first time I saw Lake Hardy I was ten. The hike is brutal, but I really wanted to make it. Dad woke me a four-thirty in the morning and we loaded our gear into the back of his old sky-blue pickup. This was just before Lone Peak and most of the surrounding ranges were designated a Federal Wilderness Area. We didn’t at the time see the point, as the whole state except Salt Lake City was more or less wilderness. Now I’m dazzled by the foresight; the Wasatch Front is on the most populous and sprawling geographies of the Mountain West. Dad pushed the truck up the old sheep road until it killed on sheer steepness. He left it in gear and pulled the emergency brake and just left it there, clinging to the face of First Hammengog. He tossed me my lunch and canteen and we started the legwork: up the front of “First,” reaching the first stand of high pines and crossing the meadow at “Second.” We hauled up the ruthless switchbacks to the spine dividing the Hammengogs from the Intake canyon, clawed up the nearly vertical apex, leveled off for an eastern traverse across the base of the granite peaks. Then we dropped into the hanging meadow, Grassy Flat, and followed the stream and its iron-stained granite boulders up to the lake. Lake Hardy is an irregular blue circle, about a hundred yards across. Fractured granite cliffs rise from the north shore, and a ponderous granite stairway rises on the west. South is the route back to Grassy Flat. The ridge where the little Boeing crashed in 1931 is another hour or two above the lake, depending on the hiker. Between the lake and the airplane ridge, and east-north curve, the passage is pure stone, not in smooth sheets but in huge broken pieces, big as Volkswagens, big as boxcars. My father was a wonderful childhood dad, funny, generous, confiding. He remained funny and generous, rampant with stories and pronouncements, but as an adult, of course, I comprehended the edges and realized how little clear access he gave to anyone. When I was ten he simply dazzled me. We talked and laughed and stopped to breathe and be breath-taken all the way up. We ate sandwiches and Hershey chocolate under a hanging rock. He shoved me up that skinny razorback ridge and told me I could make it, and so I knew I could. My legs were shaking and I felt giddy at the summit, below Lone Peak itself but still ten and a half thousand feet above sea level. Dad grasped my ankles while I stretched full length across a skyline boulder and hung my arms and head over the airplane cliff. The wall dropped sheer for three hundred feet, then angled just enough for a spectacular bounce. I imagined that if someone pushed off hard, she might clear the angled slope and take the whole drop in one shot, all eight hundred feet. I felt my hair fly back with the updraft. Because I have been to the lake many times since, I know that at seven or seven-thirty on a summer evening the wind ceases and the lake goes still, perfectly. The motion settles and the lake turns into a huge silver hole, no longer water but a perfect inversion of the cliffs and sky and sparse pines above. It looks like the entrance to a parallel world, an inside that actually corresponds with the outside, the depth revealing the surface, the release point. Seeing the silver hole makes it easy to think you could walk right down into it. Alpine folklore claims that Lake Hardy, a volcanic opening, has no bottom. “Once, the Forest Service took a pack train up with spools of bailing twine,” my fifth-grade teacher, also a summer ranger at Timpanogos Cave, told us . “They went out to the middle of the lake in a rubber raft and let down the weighted twine, just keep unreeling and unreeling, tying each end to the next spool and then another, until there wasn’t any left. So they dropped the line and went home.” For some reason this story made us feel important. Souvenirs of my first hike: a piece of brittle airplane aluminum. Image of my father, grinning, a young man, proud of me. Invisible imprint of his grip around my ankles. First published in Saranac Review , Winter 2009. The full version of “Crash Ruminations” weaves stories of three different airplane crashes that affect my personal history. Writing this piece allowed me to trace meaningful elements of my relationship with my compelling, complicated father in a tempestuous season. Plane crash #1: the wreck of a 1931 Boeing, pre-radar, carrying mail and a few passengers, lost in snowy mountain cliffs above my hometown. Crash #2: the explosion of a DeHavilland Comet, the first commercial passenger jet line, over the Mediterranean Sea, carrying (and killing) my father’s father in 1954. Crash #3: a boink-by-boink dismantling of a Piper Arrow at the Provo Airport in 1987, poorly landed by me (and a panicked flight instructor). Previous KARIN ANDERSON is the author of the novels Before Us Like a Land of Dreams , What Falls Away , and Things I Didn’t Do , published by Torrey House Press. She hails from the Great Basin. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue HOW TO MAKE A BASKET Jan Mordenski for Henry Taylor Take a walk down Canal St. Buy one of those crispy horn-shaped buns from the lady at the corner bakery. Eat it as you watch the two boys dangling their lines off Salmon Weir Bridge. Sit inside St. Benedict’s. Watch the sputtering rows of vigil lights, the way the wax bends the air as it evaporates. Take delight in tangled things: your daughter’s coppery hair, the fading lines of your fingertips, the trail a swallowtail makes as she tastes the asters in the garden. You need not concentrate on strictly rural images. Park across from the power plant; follow the grimy path of one fat black pipe. Keep your eye on the red Trans Am as it volleys down Telegraph Rd. This is easy. Move on, now, to the more difficult preparations. Study openings, memorize the patterns of house windows, the shifting lulls in your conversations. Dwell on one vast vacant area: your own loss of hearing, your inability to understand, the memory of the palms of your mother’s hands. Then go into the field. Find something that grows, something long and aspiring that points to the sky, tries, in fact, to be part of it. Explain to it how it will be better this way. Take it in your hands, not reverently exactly, but with respect. And keep it wet. Remember that little thrush you saw this morning at the edge of the canal? Try to see her now: a disoriented worm in her beak, her claws, two tiny scythes, gripping the gentle mess of twigs and feathers and string into which she put her children. Hold all this as you begin the chosen pattern. "How to Make a Basket" was first published in BLACK RIVER REVIEW . At my father's suggestion, I had enrolled in a few classes in basket-making and that (like many crafts) provided time for reflection - on my homelife, teaching, writing. I came to realize how many separate aspects of life are actually interwoven . This poem celebrates that breakthrough, and one of my poet-mentors, the great Henry Taylor. Previous JAN MORDENSKI was born in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of the chapbooks The Chosen Pattern (Quadra-Project, 1988) and Blue Prairie of Darkness (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press, 2026 ). Her poem "Crochet" was published in Plainsong and in Ted Kooser's series, American Life in Poetry . poetryfoundation.org/poets/jan-mordenski Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue STARGAZING Mary Behan “I’m going outside to look at the stars. Do you want to come? It’s a perfect night for it; it’s still warm and there’s no moon.” Marilyn tried to inject as much enthusiasm into her request as possible, knowing that the invitation to her husband to walk uphill to the meadow behind their house was probably not going to be accepted. Each evening after dinner when he had cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, Kenny settled into his upholstered recliner with a sigh of pleasure and switched on the television. Within a few minutes, the authoritative voice of a male presenter describing a car restoration project would drift into her “lair,” as she liked to call her sewing room. Years earlier when she had been bitten by the quilting bug, Kenny had added a room to their bungalow. It was a bright, sunny space from which she could just see the hilltop meadow, the colors of which, as they changed with the season, gave inspiration to her quilting designs. This room was where she spent most of her evenings, and much of her days since retiring from her job at the local bank. “I’ll pass this time, if you don’t mind,” Kenny said. “There’s a program I’d like to finish watching. Remember, I told you about my ’64 Corvette? The one this guy is working on looks exactly like mine. Same color too.” His audible sigh was followed by, “Boy, I should never have sold it.” Passing through the living room, Marilyn gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek before pulling on a fleece jacket and going outside. Theirs was a happy marriage of nearly forty years. Each of them had been married previously, but as neither had brought children to their union, their love was focused on each other. Kenny gave her hand a gentle squeeze, his fingers lingering for a moment before releasing her. “I’ll be back in an hour or so,” she said, but doubted her comment was heard over the sound of the television. Outside, the air had a moist, nutty smell – a harbinger of the approaching Winter. The silhouette of a massive maple tree guided her towards the path. Passing by, she noted that the leaves were devoid of color whereas earlier in the day she had been stunned by their range of hues, from pale yellow to vibrant red. That morning she had watched, enthralled, as dozens of leaves detached themselves in a spontaneous gesture of exhaustion, and drifted to the ground in a blur of color. All through the day she had mused over how she might translate this visual miracle onto a canvas of cloth. The quilt would feature a pile of colorful newly fallen leaves, together with the figure of a child, their arms outstretched in a moment of joyful abandonment. It was an easy climb to the meadow. Cresting the hill, she went a little farther so as to block out any stray light from the house. Here there was a natural dip, deep enough to be sheltered from any breeze, yet shallow enough to see the full panorama of sky. She lay down on the cool ground and deliberately closed her eyes. From previous experience, she knew this would hasten her dark adaptation, and maximize the experience when she opened her eyes and looked up into the sky. It was easy to keep count of the seconds and minutes. For some unexplained reason she was able to hear her heartbeat in her right ear — a steady sixty-four beats per minute. The tinnitus had developed after a routine ear cleaning, but her doctor reassured her it was nothing to worry about and that it would likely go away. But it hadn’t gone away. During the day she could ignore it for the most part, and at night had taken to sleeping on her right side to muffle the sound. Now as she listened, the steady pulsatile thrum dominated the night sounds — the hoot of an owl, a coyote’s howl, some small creature rustling in the grass, the plaintive wail of a train. One hundred beats later, she opened her eyes to view her personal planetarium. A tiny gasp escaped her as she tried to absorb the immensity of the sky. Her eyes first sought out familiar constellations, starting with the Big Dipper and from there following a line to the North Star. Orion with its distinctive belt was just beginning to appear over the edge of her horizon. She recognized Cygnus to the east, a grouping that often eluded her, but this evening did indeed look like a swan. High above, the irregular “W” shape of Cassiopeia came into focus. But it was the Milky Way that held her gaze, sweeping across the arc of the night sky from north to south. It was easy to understand why Native Americans from Chile to Alaska had thought of the Milky Way as a pathway for departed spirits, connecting the earth with the otherworld. Staring at it now, it seemed to engulf her, sucking her into its swirling interior. In the stillness, she listened but could no longer hear the beating of her heart. * * * It takes some time to get used to being dead. For a start, the whole idea of time is different. It’s not linear like in life, but seems to be interrupted, as if you were reading a book and skipped a chapter or two, leaving you struggling to reconnect with the story. The past is irregular too, like watching tiny snippets of black and white movies punctuated by blank sections. There’s no future, or at least I don’t recognize it. Sometimes I feel as if I have been dropped magically into an ongoing stage play, where none of the actors notice my presence. They just continue with their lines, moving through me without missing a beat, and yet I am there on stage with them. I can remember that final evening on top of the hill behind our house, lying on the ground looking up at the Milky Way. I came back to the house and went into the kitchen where a light was still on; the rest of the house was in darkness. Things seemed a little out of place. A book I had left on the counter, planning to return it to the library the following morning was gone, but I guessed Kenny had put it in the car so I wouldn’t forget it. A couple of other things had been moved. But the biggest change was that he had replaced the toaster on the countertop by the sink with a brand-new air-fryer oven. He had talked about getting one for me at Christmas, so this was a lovely early present. In our bedroom I could make out his bulky form under the comforter, but resisted the urge to wake him and tell him how pleased I was. Instead, I lay down on the sofa. I became aware of two voices coming from the direction of the kitchen, neither of which I recognized. When I looked, a young couple was sitting at the table, the remains of a meal around them. He was tall and dark-skinned, and had a pronounced Indian accent. She was short and pretty, her voice carrying the rounded consonants and dragged-out vowels of the Midwest. “Who are you?”, I asked, “and where’s Kenny?” I was irritated by their intrusion and annoyed with Kenny for not letting me know we were going to have guests. They ignored me and continued talking. I walked to the table and stood awkwardly between them, looking from one to the other. Again I asked the question, this time more forcefully. Still they didn’t make any effort to respond, so I grabbed the man’s arm and shook it. “Look here. I’m talking to you. How dare you…” It was then I realized that I couldn’t feel his arm, that my hand made no impression on the sleeve of his shirt. I reached out with my other hand, this time tentatively, and tried to pick up the knife that lay beside his plate. Nothing. I returned to the living room and looked around more carefully. For a moment I thought I had developed cataracts. The room had a washed-out appearance, like you might see in an old photograph — not quite black and white, but what little color there once was had faded. The furniture had been rearranged to face a huge flat screen TV, something Kenny and I had sworn we would never buy. I continued down the corridor to my sewing room. On the large work table where my sewing machine sat, all traces of quilt-making were gone, replaced by a laptop computer and neat stacks of papers and journals. I could still hear their voices in the kitchen as I went through every room in our house, searching for signs of Kenny or me. There were some — pieces of furniture mostly — but any sense that we had lived in this house for almost forty years together was gone. I know it sounds ridiculous, but when I couldn’t find our electric toothbrushes in the bathroom, I glanced in the mirror. It was only then I finally understood: I had died that night under the stars. But why had I come back to my house as a ghost? I asked that question again and again over the next several months. Even though time had little meaning, I knew that months were passing because I could see Mary Anne’s belly getting bigger. The couple now living in our house were Mary Anne and Arjun and she was pregnant with their first child. From conversations I overheard, I gathered they had met while they were at university. Now they were working at two different Biotech companies in the nearby city. It wasn’t as if I deliberately eavesdropped. It was just that when they were in the house, I was aware of them and heard everything they said. It struck me as odd that I could both hear and see, yet I had no ability to feel anything or move an object. Smell and taste were also absent. In life that would have been a hardship, but now I hardly noticed. It was the absence of touch that affected me the most. Time and time again I would reach out to stroke a piece of fabric or put my hand over the stovetop and try to capture its heat. The absence of any sensation was a cruel reminder of my new state. I could still watch clouds drifting across the sky, see pine branches trembling in the wind, or look at birds alighting on the feeder — all things I used to enjoy when I was alive but now gave me little pleasure. What did give me pleasure was hearing Kenny’s name or mine. Little by little I pieced together what happened to me that night. I had a cerebral aneurism that burst, ending my life instantaneously. Even if Kenny had found me, it wouldn’t have made any difference. As it was, he slept soundly through the night, only realizing that I wasn’t beside him in bed when he woke the following morning. He blamed himself for not going with me, choosing instead to watch that television program. But the aneurism could just as easily have burst when I was with him, perhaps when I was driving which would have ended both our lives. I think he might have preferred that outcome, for, according to Mary Anne and Arjun, he was depressed and had lost all interest in life. I might not have been able to feel, in the sense of feeling an object, but even as a ghost I could still feel . Just as with the faded images and scenes, my emotions were also diminished; but they were still there. I still felt love for Kenny, and I missed him deeply — the pleasurable anticipation of seeing him when I walked into the room, a smile lighting up his face when he saw me. I missed basking in his loving gaze, touching his hand, kissing his cheek, being hugged by him. * * * Mary Anne looked up from her computer and stared out the window of her home office. The maple tree that dominated their backyard was at the peak of its Fall colors, she guessed, noticing a few leaves drifting gently to the ground. She decided she would ask Arjun to hang a swing from one of its thick lower branches next year; that is, if they were still living here. For several weeks now, they had been negotiating with Kenny to buy the property. Meanwhile, his nephew had advised him against a direct sale, pointing out that he could get far more money if he listed the house with a realtor. As renters, they would have to leave once a sale was finalized. In her mind’s eye, Mary Anne could see herself swinging back and forth lazily, surrounded by color, while her son played in the circle of leaves beneath the tree. Lost in this vision, she didn’t hear the car on the driveway and was startled when Arjun burst into the room. “He’s going to sell the place to us!” Arjun said, stooping to wrap his arms around his wife. “We don’t have to move.” The relief in his voice was palpable. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “At the price we offered?” “Yeah.” Arjun nodded vigorously. “After all, it’s not as if we’re asking him to fix any of the things the building inspector came up with. Still, I was afraid he might change his mind at the last minute. His nephew has been talking to him again.” “It’s a fair price, and I think he likes the idea of us living here, especially with the baby coming.” Mary Anne moved Arjun’s hand to her belly. “Can you feel him kicking?” Arjun kissed his wife on the lips. “I am the luckiest man alive.” “You are indeed,” she replied, with a laugh. “Actually, we both are. And we’ll never be able to thank your parents enough. I know they have lots of money, but still…” Arjun kissed her again. “They love you, and now that they’re going to have a grandson, they love you even more. Besides, it’s now that we need their money, not in fifty years’ time.” Groaning slightly, Mary Anne got up from the chair. “Tell me about the visit with Kenny. I feel badly not going with you, but the place depresses me. I’m certain the baby feels it too.” She stroked her belly protectively. “It’s alright. I don’t mind going there. I know in the beginning I had an ulterior motive, but over the past few months I’ve come to enjoy our chats. Kenny is an interesting old guy with lots of great stories. Today when I got there, everybody was in the day room, so I asked if I could take him to the conservatory — that glassed-in area off the dining room. It was a little chilly, but at least we had some privacy. We had a good conversation and in the end we shook hands on the deal. He’ll call his lawyer tomorrow and get things rolling. He asked how you were, by the way. I think he likes the idea of a new baby in the house. He and Marilyn never had children; I think his nephew is the only relative he has.” “Did you tell him he can come and visit any time he wants.” “I did of course. But to be honest, he’s so weak, I doubt if he’ll be around much longer. All he talks about now is that he’ll be with Marilyn soon.” “That’s so sad.” Mary Anne made a wry face. Arjun shrugged. “He believes it. I suppose that’s all that really matters.” * * * The thought of my husband spending his final months in a nursing home surrounded by strangers made me sad. I wondered what would happen to him when he died. How would he find me? Up to now I had never encountered another spirit, neither in the house nor in the surrounding farmlands. There was nothing more to learn indoors, so I began to roam the woods and fields around the house, often at night when the absence of light made little difference to my wandering. One night I made my way to the hilltop pasture and the spot where I had died. I lay down in the grass and looked up into the vastness of the universe. The Milky Way was shimmering above me, and as I stared at it, the banner of stars seemed to descend. I raised my hand with fingers outstretched as if to touch one end of this band of light. For a moment I wasn’t sure, but then I felt something. I felt something. Fingers brushed against my hand, then entwined themselves in mine. I brought Kenny’s hand to my lips and kissed it. In this story, the breakthrough is from life to death. An elderly woman dies, and returns to her home as a ghost. She searches for her husband, but new owners have moved in. Her search is eventually rewarded, and the couple is reunited. Previous MARY BEHAN was formerly a professor of neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and now writes fiction, memoir, and short stories. Her books, published by Laurence Gate Press, include Abbey Girls , a memoir she wrote with her sister, Valerie Behan, about their childhood in Ireland; A Measured Thread set in Wisconsin and Ireland, which was named a Top 100 Indie Book, a finalist in the Page Turner Awards, and an eLit medal winner; Kernels , a collection of short stories; and Finding Isobel , a companion to her first novel, was published in 2024 and awarded a gold medal for best adult fiction e-book by the Independent Publishers (IPPI), a silver medal in women’s fiction from Readers Favorite, and Outstanding Literary Fiction Winner in the Independent Author Network Book of the Year Awards. mvbehan.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue Review of EL REY OF GOLD TEETH by Reyes Ramirez Willy Palomo El Rey of Gold Teeth by Reyes Ramirez is a striking contribution to the poetry of the Central American diaspora. Ramirez writes in a form-forward style with a microscopic attention to language. His pen treks across an ambitious range of topics, including toxic masculinity, the climate crisis, as well as colonization and its hangovers. There is hardly a poem in this collection that doesn’t fit into his tightly woven thematic tapestry and the following four series: the “hijo please series,” where his mother provides him with sometimes toxic but always loving advice and admonitions; the “A Lesson …” series, where Ramirez unpacks the weight of colonization, migration, and (dis)possession, especially in gendered terms; “The Fabulous Wondrous Outfits of the Fabulous Wonder Twins” series, where Ramirez takes images of twinning from 80s and 90s music videos and spins them out to comment on the bifurcation of identity so frequently discussed by diasporic authors; and finally the “… is My America” series, where Ramirez takes moments of both joy and disaster to paint us the cultural landscape of his personal America. Such a tight grip on his pen gave me little space to doubt Ramirez’ intention, sequencing, or mastery of form, even when I may have wrestled against them. Take, for example, Ramirez’ use of codeswitching. The poet intentionally codeswitches in a staggering manner that pushes against the fluency of typical bilingualism. This excerpt from “A Broken red-eared Slider’s Shell” is case in point: house de flesh y hueso glides about un azure womb skyed con marbled membrane struck numb por prisms que shatter y skitter. The average bilingual reader will recognize that this is not how we generally codeswitch and likely will have difficulty saying this sentence aloud. For some, that will be a turn-off and valid criticism. It’s obvious to me at least that this move is intentional. The clash of languages in between articles and prepositions forces me to slow down to pronounce the language Ramirez conjures, which is beautiful even if I experience some pain in the difficulty of speaking it. Rather than flip the page in frustration, I marvel: what a clever way to corner his readers and force them to slow down and experience the violence of language. The trip of the tongue is a trip I experienced many times in my lifetime of losing and acquiring my Spanish. El Rey of Gold Teeth will routinely dazzle you with flashes of perfectly sketched moments and images Ramirez uses to transport people directly into his neighborhoods. In “La Pulga,” you will rummage through “a series of shirts,” where “Tweety is Chicana / Bart Simpson is Domincan” and “Vegeta is Salvadoreño now.” In “Finding Kittens After a Tropical Storm is My America,” Ramirez surveys his devastated city in an effortless contrapuntal, showing the reader “edgeless mouths struggling to speak” and how “raw pink paws thrash again / for nipples on rusted air conditioner.” In “A 4th Grade Dance Party in a Cafeteria at 1 P.M. is My America,” Ramirez shares the magic of watching children spontaneously dance “the milly rock, / the juju, running man. even ones before / their birth like the macarena, wobble, cha cha slide.” Ramirez displays such charm and mastery time and time again in poems about pupusas, pozole, Selena, and more. Ramirez writes from Houston, Texas, a city bursting at the seams with powerful Black and Latinx voices in a state that has banned more books than any other state as of 2023 and where diversity, equity, and inclusion has been outlawed in higher education. In El Rey of Gold Teeth, Ramirez follows the thread that stitches his Latinx communities, their significant leaders, their pop stars, and even their children, indelibly into the American empire. Their presence is frequently in resistance to colonization, surely. Other times, such as the poems “El Salvadoreño-Americano as Decolonizer, 1929-1936” and “The First Mexican American Astronaut Was Once,” I read Ramirez as a colonized intellectual a la Fanon, wrestling to provide meditative, compassionate portrayals that champion significant Latinx leaders whose jobs were ultimately intimately tied to American imperialism and settler colonization. I lay exhausted with my back to the mat in this wrestle with Ramirez, as we struggle to recuperate a history banned once again and attempt to forge a future where our people may still be nourished by their roots. The coming fascists will be willing to do more than ban us to stop us. It is our duty to survive. It is our duty to keep writing down our truths. Ramirez says of El Rey of Gold Teeth (Hub City Press, 2023 ): "Colonizing languages and subverting forms, rerouting histories, and finding the mundane made extraordinary, El Rey of Gold Teeth breaks open notions of destiny, in humorous and devastating ways, to reimagine the past and present a new future where lack transforms to abundance, where there will be many answers to every question." Previous WILLY PALOMO (he/they/she) is the author of Mercury in Reggaetón, winner of the Lightscatter Press Prize, and Wake the Others (Editorial Kalina/Glass Spider Publishing, 2023), a winner of a Foreword Prize in Poetry and an International Latino Book Award honorable mention in Bilingual Poetry. A veteran of the Salt Lake City poetry slam scene, his fiction, essays, poetry, translations, and songs can be found across print and web pages, including the Best New Poets 2018 , Latino Rebels , The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, and more. He has taught classes on literature, rap, and creative writing in universities, juvenile detention centers, high schools, and community centers. He is the son of two refugees from El Salvador. www.palomopoemas.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue FIVE COWS, TWO CALVES FOUND SHOT DEAD IN PINE VALLEY Dana Henry Martin The cows dead in the vast pastureland were shot as they grazed. They look like chunks of basalt until the mind adjusts to what it sees. Here, something with hooves, ears, a tail. There, a barreled body on its side, a number burned in its hip beside a brand like a symbol from an old scroll. They died nameless but not without identity: cows one through five, and two nursing calves. All night, they laid next to the powdered road, among the sands and sagebrush, a stone’s throw from pinyons, holes blown from ribs into lungs, from backs into intestines, a blush oval-shaped dish of skin around each entry. The news shows two adults but neither calf. That would be too much even for those bred in this rough country, where generations have nursed on heaving, iron-laden lands. It’s one thing for God to take what rightfully belongs to him through drought, hunger, heat. It’s another when a man stands at the edge of a road that’s not even his, points the tips of his boots at each animal he aims to shoot and kills a whole herd, even the babies. Easy targets if you’re willing to trespass, to get dirt on the hems of your jeans, and flee before you’re seen. The shooter moved under a dark cape below Taurus the bull squinting from the stars, seven girls dancing forever in his shoulder, The Pleiades carried to the heavens to escape Orion the hunter who vowed to kill every brute in the world. Then, morning: the night sky’s inverse. Seven dead cows a black constellation against bright earth, dark angels whose story’s written in the dirt. — “Five Cows, Two Calves Found Shot Dead in Pine Valley” is based on a story by the same title in St. George News , the online newspaper for Southwest Utah. The breakthrough for this poem was being able to write it at all. I read the news story in 2022, but couldn't write the poem until 2025, despite wanting to. How do we talk about such things? How do we live in a place we love where such things happen? I wanted the cows and calves to have a different ending, a different story. So I gave them one that's part funeral, part myth. That was my way into the poem. Previous DANA HENRY MARTIN is a poet, medical writer, and health- and mental-health advocate whose chapbooks include Love and Cruelty (Meat for Tea, forthcoming), No Sea Here (Moon in the Rye Press, 2025), Toward What Is Awful (YesYes Books, 2012), In the Space Where I Was (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2012), and The Spare Room (Blood Pudding Press, 2009). Martin's work has appeared in The Adroit Journal , Barrow Street , Cider Press Review , FRiGG , Laurel Review , Mad in America , Meat for Tea , Muzzle , New Letters , Rogue Agent , Sheila-Na-Gig , SWWIM , Trampoline , and other literary journals. She weaves, birds, and hangs out with the cows who live next to the cemetery in Toquerville, Utah. danahenrymartin.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue BIRD NEWS Cynthia Hardy A thump against the cabin wall. I find the body, palm-sized, warm yet, on the porch. One eye glistens, the beak open. Someone says, "If a bird flies in your window he's come to tell good news." But, if the bird dies, and the news is never spoken? Or spoken late, words of comfort flung against a window they can’t pass through? I see your mouth move, like bird wings: the news shatters as it flies. As children we filed into halls nestled among coats and boots, our heads between our knees cradled by our arms. We recited the bad news silently. The skies shone clear and empty. The worst threat— one not seen—comes in joyous blue. All we love can vanish, empty as the sky. I lay the bird on a clump of moss. Next time, I say, there will be no window glass. Next time the bird flies in free and clear, singing. This poem was written in response to the statement quoted in the poem. I was surprised at where the poem turned, and then, that the poem was published in the Heartland section of the Fairbanks Daily News Miner in 1986 (when they regularly published poetry). This poem was also published in my collection Beneath a Portrait of a Horse (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2010). Previous CINDY HARDY writes from Chena Ridge, Fairbanks, Alaska. She has published poetry and fiction, and was the 2025 recipient of the Alaska Literary Award. Cindy teaches occasionally, rides horses, and gardens all summer. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue AN AMICABLE CORRESPONDENCE Scott Abbott amicable : good-natured, harmonious, cordial, agreeable, good-humored, kind, polite No, none of those. I mean something with more bite, more room for spirited exchange. This amicable correspondence will be between amici , prijatelji , Freunde . amicable : between friends. In 1826, officials in Weimar decided to clean out an overstuffed mausoleum that housed the remains of various notables, including those of Friedrich Schiller, who had died twenty-one years earlier. When they could not identify Schiller’s bones in the chaotic crypt, a doctor named Schwabe gathered 23 skulls to examine at home. Schwabe had known Schiller, he had his death mask, but still he was unable to identify Schiller’s skull with any certainty. He finally chose a skull that distinguished itself by its large size and fine, regular form. Großherzog Karl August recommended that the skull eventually be housed under glass next to Leibniz’s skull in the Royal Library. In the meantime, Goethe borrowed the skull and in the night of September 25th wrote a poem in honor of his friend, exploring the shifting relationships between nature and spirit, between matter and mind. Wilhelm von Humboldt saw the skull in Goethe’s possession and wrote to his wife that Goethe was having a burial vault built in the hopes that he and Schiller could eventually lie there together. In the end, the friends never shared a grave. DNA analysis in 2008 proved that the skull in question belonged to someone other than Friedrich Schiller. I decide to translate Goethe's poem. The dense rhymes of terza rima and the rhythms of iambic pentameter are integral formal contributors to the content, but my attempts to reproduce them in English are a disaster. I opt for a more straightforward form. While Contemplating Schiller’s Skull It was in the somber ossuary that I saw skulls aligned with ordered skulls; old times, I thought, gone grey. They stand fixed in rows, once mutual foes, and stout bones that clashed to kill lie athwart, rest subdued. Dismembered shoulder blades! what they bore now lost, and fine and lively limbs, the hand, the foot, scattered, disjointed. In vain you lay down tired, they left you no peace in the grave, drove you again into daylight. No one can love the desiccated shell, whatever splendid noble germ it protected. Yet for me, the adept, were inscribed sacred meanings not revealed to all, as I, amidst that unblinking multitude sensed an image wondrous beyond imagination, and in the clammy hall’s constriction I was warmed, refreshed, as if life had sprung from death. How mysteriously the form ravished me! The divinely ordered trace, preserved! A glimpse that carried me off to that sea whence figures rise transmuted. Mysterious vessel! Orphic oracle, How am I worthy to hold you in my hand? Lifting you fervently, ultimate treasure, from corruption and into the open air to freely muse, turning myself, devoutly, to the sunlight. What more can one attain in a lifetime than that God-Nature reveals herself? How she lets what is firm pass away to spirit, How firmly she preserves what the spirit engenders. (to be continued) Translating the poem from German to English and from the distance of two centuries, I enjoy an opening of sorts. As opposed to my largely monolingual habitation in the American West where I was born and raised, my friends Žarko Radaković and Alex Caldiero live at linguistic junctures. Žarko, who emigrated from the former Yugoslavia and whose native language is Serbo-Croatian, lives in Cologne with his German wife Anne. An uncompromising novelist, he is also a devoted translator of works by Peter Handke. Alex, who emigrated from Sicily to Brooklyn at the age of nine, lives in Orem, Utah with his Russian / Turkish / American wife Setenay. His poetry performances are legendary and his translations from Sicilian include the delightful “Bawdy Riddles and Tongue Twisters of the Sicilian Folk:” Trasi tisa / E nesci modda — It goes in hard / And comes out soft. !Pasta). I have been the fortunate friend of these emigrant / immigrant / translator / artists for more than four decades. 8 December 2017 I show Alex my new hearing aids. He points out that because his right ear is still his worst one, the fact that I can now hear through my bad left ear won’t change the fact that I’ll need to walk on his right side if we’re walking and talking. He has some technical questions. And then he gets to the heart of the matter: What if this destroys our friendship? What do you mean? What if our friendship is based on miscommunication? What if we’re friends only because I’ve been hearing you poorly and you haven’t been hearing me correctly? While contemplating that possibility, I tell Alex about Goethe’s poem written while contemplating his friend Schiller’s skull. My mother, Alex responds, had a burning desire to see her father’s bones. We were in Licodea, Sicily, and she insisted that we go to the cemetery where the family crypt is. My grandfather’s casket is in the ground-level room of the crypt, directly under the altar. She asked a cemetery official if she could open the casket. You can do anything you want in your family’s crypt, he said. I did my best to dissuade her from opening the casket. You know how close to an emotional edge I live; imagine my mother 100 times closer to that edge. She finally acquiesced and we didn’t open the casket. When Schiller died, Goethe was 55 and Schiller 45. Goethe was 76 when he contemplated Schiller’s skull. Žarko, Alex, and I are 73, 69, and 69 respectively. None of us is likely to write a poem with the other’s skull on our desk. Schiller’s first letter to Goethe (first of more than a thousand letters subsequently passed between them), dated the 13th of June, 1794 and sent from Jena to the neighboring town of Weimar, addresses Goethe as High Wellborn Sir, Highly-to Be-Honored Privy Councilor . The letter is a request for contributions to Schiller’s proposed literary journal Die Horen (The Horae). Schiller mentions co-publishers—idealist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the linguist and eventual founder of the University of Berlin Wilhelm von Humboldt. He signs the letter Your High Wellborn, most obedient servant and most sincere admirer F. Schiller . Goethe responds on the 24th of June and then again on the 25th of July. He offers a token of friendship and assures Schiller that he is very much looking forward to a frequent and lively exchange of ideas: "I shall with pleasure and with all my heart be one of the party." Several letters follow and in September Goethe invites Schiller to visit him in Weimar. Schiller responds enthusiastically on September 7th, but with a caveat: that Goethe not rely on him to meet any domestic timetables. Cramps during the night disturb him so seriously, Schiller writes, that he finds it necessary to sleep the entire morning and cannot commit to anything at any given hour. "You will, then, allow me to be a complete stranger in your house . . . to isolate myself so that I can escape the embarrassment of having to depend on others. . . . Excuse these preliminaries. . . . I ask for the simple freedom of being allowed to be ill while being your guest." And with that the friendship that proved so valuable to both men was begun. Goethe later told Schiller that he had given him “a second youth and made me a poet again, which I had as good as ceased to be.” Schiller, thinking perhaps of his delicate health and uncertain future, wrote that, “I hope that we can walk together down as much of the road as may remain, and with all the more profit, since the last companions on a journey always have most to say to each other.” Years later, while Goethe was editing their correspondence for publication, he asked “what could be more amusing than to see our letters begin with the pompous announcement of the Horen . . . . And yet, if there hadn’t been that impulse and will to document the times, everything in German literature would now be very different.” If the Serb hadn’t invited the American to contribute to the literary journal Knjizevna kritika , if the Sicilian and the American hadn’t begun neighborly conversations about poetry, and if the Serb and the Sicilian hadn’t conversed one morning in the American’s house, everything in the field of Serbian-American-Sicilian literature would now be very different. This opening section of my half of the book We, On Friendship (Elik Press, 2022) , co-written by Žarko Radaković and with contributions from Alex Caldiero, led to a surprising integration of Goethe’s and Schiller’s correspondence into the correspondence between the three of us. For more about the three books Žarko and I have published in both Serbian and English, see our website . Previous SCOTT ABBOTT completed a doctorate in German Studies at Princeton University and is a professor emeritus of Integrated Studies, Philosophy, and Humanities at Utah Valley University. His most recent book is a collection of essays, Dwelling in the Promised Land as a Stranger (Common Consent Press, 2022). He has translated works by Nobel Prize Awardee Peter Handke and botanist Gregor Mendel. scottabbottauthor.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue RUDE WEATHER Cynthia Hardy 1. The weather changes and changes again— just when our skin has opened its pores to heat & tanned from wildfire smoke-- rain 2. Rain softens the profile of mountains, blurs the day so that everything’s as in a dream— birds flit through the overhang of eaves—delphiniums droop—the greenhouse drowses 3. In a drowse, I hear the news—some tragedy in a place where the air overheats and neighbors pass with rude stares. I nestle the cat. I do not call my neighbor to ask how her tomatoes grow 4. Tomatoes form a wall of green at the back of the greenhouse— the dark and jagged leaves hiding yellow blossoms, thumb- sized fruits. A dragon- fly beats against the translucent roof 5. A dragonfly lands on my knuckle—a skeleton of black chiton—wings iridescent paddles, mandibles moving, slowly chewing a yellow striped sweat bee 6. The bees are silent. The neighbor’s hive has swarmed—the gray sky and rain damps down their buzziness. I long for a finger full of fireweed honey—so light and clear and nectar-sweet. This poem was written as a response to a challenge I gave my poetry students: moving from one image to another, letting the poem drift. It was a poem I could have just tossed away, but didn’t. Perhaps that’s the breakthrough—or that, in its own loose way, this poem represents an attempt to add order to my usual unstructured process. Previous CINDY HARDY writes from Chena Ridge, Fairbanks, Alaska. She has published poetry and fiction, and was the 2025 recipient of the Alaska Literary Award. Cindy teaches occasionally, rides horses, and gardens all summer. Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue VOCABULARY Robbie Gamble Well, there’s well-off, well-got, well-fixed, well-heeled, well-breeched, and well-to-do. There’s flushed, posh, loaded, upscale, affluent, prosperous, filthy stinkin’ rich. Try highbrow, high rent, high hat, high caste, high flyer, high roller, high stepper, living high, high falutin’, high on the hog and High Cockalorum. Or take on fat cat, fat cull, fat goose, even fatwad. Perchance a dilettante, muckety-muck, moneybags, boozhie, blueblood, or bigwig? Consider uppercrust, uptown, uppish, uppertendom. Possibly tip-top, top row, top shelf, top table, top-of-the-tree. Go for Rolling Joe, rolling in it, having it all, having it made, having money (known as:) cold cash, toadskin, green backs, gravy, lettuce, lucre, moolah, boodle, wampum, coinage, wherewithal, capital, mazuma, simoleons, bread and butter, gilt, and silver. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, born into the purple, born on third base, and of course to the manner born (as a:) trust fund baby, heir, issue, scion, Brahmin, beneficiary, trustafarian, aristocrat. We are moneyed, made of money, in the money, playing blithely with our house money since I didn’t have to work for it at all. An earlier version of “Vocabulary” was published in Lily Poetry Review . I’m a trust fund baby, and I’ve been trying to write about my experience of the injustice of privilege and how it can distort human relationships. This can be a rather stodgy subject for poetry, and “Vocabulary” was a bit of a breakthrough in that I found a way to lighten the discourse through wordplay. Previous ROBBIE GAMBLE is the author of A Can of Pinto Beans (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2022). He is poetry editor at Solstice Literary Magazine . robbiegamble.com Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue HUNTINGTON BEACH, MARCH 2 Shauri Cherie plovers scurry toward water only to shy from the kiss of waves against shore. A girl, small, uncoordinated on toddler legs, waddles after, feet imprinting into saturated sand, following pointed prints from the birds before they take to air. She stops near the tide and wiggles her toes, bending to pluck a shell with her thick fingers—you imagine it broken, sharp, and colored a dull red beneath its coat of sand, the grains wearing her skin where she clutches. Behind, a call of her name, and she turns, offering her free hand to her mother. The shell remains in her palm as they continue east, and you finally look away and walk west. Distantly, plovers land, resume their race toward shore. "huntington beach, march 2" is one of my oldest poems that has seen countless iterations, so finally publishing it is a breakthrough in its own right. Each reprise of this poem has been a breakthrough for me poetically, since I always come back to rewrite this aged memory with new techniques. Past versions remind me of how much my poetic voice has changed and grown, and it feels liminal to have this poem be both old and new. Previous SHAURI CHERIE is easily excited by travel, curry, and stingrays. Her work appears in Trace Fossils Review , Ghost Light Lit , and others. shauricherie.com 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