THE NOMAD is a nonprofit literary magazine dedicated to writers exploring journeys through a changing world. Ken Waldman & Rachel White, Co-Editors ..................................................................................................................... KEN WALDMAN has drawn on 39 years as an Alaska resident to produce poems, stories, and fiddle tunes that combine into a performance uniquely his. www.kenwaldman.com and www.trumpsonnets.com ..................................................................................................................... RACHEL WHITE makes poems to praise the mystery of creation. Her poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies, on the radio and in the liner notes of a classical pianist's album. rachelwhitepoetry.org Wherever you go, there you are. ~ (Misattributed to) Confucius W elcome to THE NOMAD ! I bumped into Ken Waldman, “Alaska’s Fiddling Poet” in 2021 at a reading by Michael Branch in Boulder, Utah where Ken handed me a card printed with his “New Orleans Villanelle,” a poem I was astonished to learn had never found its place in a literary magazine. We wondered what other treasures might be out there, perhaps not entirely in step with trends of the moment but in conversation with a larger tradition. We invited writers we knew to send us a pair of their favorite pieces, one published and one unpublished, and we thank them wholeheartedly for supporting our endeavor to create a center of community around what can be conveyed through words. Our title, THE NOMAD is a nod to Ken, who has lived life more or less on the road since 2001, and to the avant-garde Beat Generation magazine, Nomad , published from 1959 to 1962. In a time of accelerating change, it is a title with increasing resonance. Published in the Mountain West, we envision a space that both embraces and transcends geography. Writing is a special kind of reading, and we hope that these pieces that hold significance for the generous authors featured in the first issue of THE NOMAD will inspire you to engage with what matters most. We would be honored to receive your poetry, prose, book reviews, letters, and essays - please find more information under the SUBMIT tab, above. Write us at nomadlitmag at gmail dot com . And coming in October, the annual print edition! ~Rachel ... a movement towards movement, towards action, towards transport which drives through all the American arts, but especially through American poetry and painting, although it's very much there in jazz; at the same time, there is a counter-longing against this sense of transport and movement, for something quiet, for something still, for an imperishable moment that halts time ... ~Poet Edward Hirsch at the Art Institute of Chicago opening of American Perspectives , 2007. Proud Member of [ clmp ] Community of Literary Magazines and Presses

Reading by Natasha Sajé I’m bundled in another mind as if it were a down coat the world thick and quiet neurons coax words like insects grant them legs and wings a swarm that rouses me on the train or the plane in the meadow on the beach or in bed words riddle a raft full of tiny holes so I can float I love to read! Silent reading (which began in the sixth century) especially changes the brain. This poem is my attempt to understand how it feels. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue .................................................................................................................................................................................... NATASHA SAJÉ is the author of five books of poems: The Future Will Call You Something Else (Tupelo, 2023); Vivarium (Tupelo, 2014); Bend (Tupelo, 2004); Red Under the Skin (Pittsburgh, 1994); and Special Delivery (Diode Editions chapbook, 2021). Her prose books are a postmodern poetry handbook, Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory (Michigan, 2014) and a memoir-in-essays, Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity, 2020). Honors include the Robert Winner and the Alice Fay di Castagnola Awards from the Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared widely in periodicals including Kenyon Review , American Poetry Review , The Paris Review , Ploughshares , and The New York Times . natashasaje.com Next - Gradual by Natasha Sajé Next

That Time We Got Married at a Tent Revival by Michael Shay On the third day of her first semester, Bobbi was getting ready for what her dormies said was a ballbuster of a chem course when Joanna came running into their room wrapped in a towel. “You gotta see this.” Joanna grabbed her hand and pulled. “I got chemistry, Jo.” She pulled away and went for her books. “No. Come with me.” There was really nothing to do. Jo was bigger and taller than Bobbi, a mismatched pair through high school that Bobbi’s Dad called Mutt and Jeff although nobody in the St. Francis class of 1969 knew what the heck he was talking about. One hand on the towel, Jo used her other hand to pull her through the dorm room door, down the hallway, and right to the big windows at the end of the hall. “Look,” she dropped her friend’s hand. Bobbi saw another sunny Florida day that would make her a sopping mess by the end of the day when she collapsed in her room. Another girls’ dorm was across the creek and the boys had three dorms off to the left and they all looked like they were built as barracks during her father’s war. “What?” Bobbi said. Jo hitched up her towel and cinched it tight. “Down there.” She pointed to the grassy swatch of territory that began at the dorm and ended at Creekside. An army-green pup tent was pitched right in the middle of the summer-browned lawn. “It’s a tent. So what?” “But whose tent? I ask you. Whose?” “How am I supposed to know. Am I in charge of tents at the U?” “No, but…” The tent flap flew open and a guy’s head poked out. He had lush sun-streaked hair and she was beginning to get a strange feeling when the guy looked up and saw her. “Oh my God. What’s he doing here?” He scrambled to his feet. He wore a T-shirt and shorts. He smoothed the shirt which was a bit wrinkled and then looked up again. “Hi Bobbi,” he said. She couldn’t hear him as the big windows were shut to keep out the gathering heat. Her heart beat faster as she raised her hand in greeting. “Hi Paul,” she mouthed to the window. Some of the other girls in various states of undress had gathered. Linda pushed her barely covered chest up against the glass and looked down. She ran her fingers through her blond hair. “He’s cute.” One of the other girls who she didn’t know yet said, “He is cute. Is he a surfer?” “He was. And he’s not supposed to be here,” she said, first to herself then she raised her arms, pounded on the glass and shouted, “You’re not supposed to be here. You’ll lose your scholarship!” He shrugged. “Is he your boyfriend, Bobbi?” someone else asked and all she could do was nod. “He’s not…” she began again. “Someone open the window.” Linda cranked open the window. What passed in Florida for a cool morning breeze swept in. “Paul,” she yelled out the window. “What are you doing here?” He smiled. “Hey Bobbi. How you doing? I’m coming up.” “You can’t. It’s not allowed.” “You can meet in the lobby,” Jo said. “Is he your boyfriend?” Linda said. “I don’t have a date for Saturday’s game.” Paul disappeared around the building. “Oh God no,” Bobbi said. “Is he your boyfriend?” Bobbi wanted to take Linda by the bra strap and strangle her. She’s forgotten all about chem class. “He’s not my boyfriend,” Bobbi said. “I gotta get down to the lobby.” She turned around. Linda stood in her way. “Not my boyfriend.” She moved past Linda and sprinted to the stairway. She shouted over her shoulder. “He’s my husband.” * * * * * Husband. That was the word on Bobbi’s lips when she awoke. That dream again—damn. She looked over at the clock and gasped. Lunch with Carol! She had showered after aerobics class and dressed before stretching out on her bed “just for a few minutes.” Should have known better. The elevator was at the far end of the hall so she took the second-floor stairs. Take your time—stairs are the enemy after 65. Slowly, cane at the ready, she made her way down and shouldered open the first-floor door. The sun-drenched lobby illuminated a fountain surrounded by a flower garden and she noticed other people in the room and someone was calling her name. “Bobbi!” A woman with gray-streaked short hair, a sweater around her shoulders, sat in one of the comfortable chairs that surrounded the fountain. She returned the wave and knew exactly who this woman was. Carol . “You were expecting someone else?” Carol took her hand and looked through thick glasses. Bobbi slid into the adjacent chair and sighed. “Your hair looks nice.” She primped her short hair. “My glam chemo look. Did I tell you that the cancer center has its own hair stylist?” “Yes.” “Chemo brain. I repeat myself a lot. Why so late?” “Took a nap after morning chair aerobics. Had a crazy dream.” “That’s what we get, Bobbi. Dreams, and tuna surprise for lunch.” “Again with the tuna surprise?” “Again.” She jerked her thumb at what they called the food court at Sea Wind Villas. “They never tell us what the surprise is.” “Food poisoning.” They laughed together. It was the early-to-lunch crowd and she and Carol liked to sit and watch, naming names, talking about which of the women may have slipped into which of the men’s rooms last night. It was always a guessing game because by the time sneaking into rooms had begun, Bobbi usually was snug in her room, watching what the kids call streaming channels and there were a million choices. “That dream again,” Bobbi said. “The tent?” “The tent. It always seems so real.” “It was, wasn’t it?” She had to admit it was, a big part of it. Fifty-five Septembers ago, a handsome boy had once traveled 357.5 miles to see her during that first week of college when she was only thinking about getting to chemistry class on time. She scolded him for endangering his and possibly her college scholarship and sent him back on the bus the next morning. They kissed madly and deeply at the station. He waved to her from the Greyhound window. “We phoned a lot during the next month or so. I flew up for the last football game in November. He told me all about the Gamecocks.” “The Gamecocks? Sounds slightly salacious.” “It is, or was, I guess. Paul’s friends always said it with the accent on the ‘cocks.’ Ah, freshmen boys. They still had panty raids on his campus.” “You time travel to 1959?” “It was 1959 in 1969. Freshmen had to wear beanies during registration.” “You’re kidding. Kids are getting naked and tripping balls at Woodstock and 18-year-old Gamecocks in Columbia wear beanies and go on panty raids.” “The Deep South, what can I say? A few weeks later, I got a pair of skimpy panties in the mail. Carolina Red. Big black lettering: Gamecocks with Cocks capitalized.” “Did he snag it in a panty raid?” “God no. The price tag was still on it. Give him some credit.” “OK, I’ll give him some credit. But what was he like? Was he nice to you?” The first time she dreamed the dream, she cried into her pillow. a thousand tears. It might have been the boy—his name was Paul—or it might have been her dead husband—his name was Jim. Paul had broken her heart or she had broken his—they were only 18. Jim broke her heart a dozen times, mostly without meaning to, just the way men do. The kids too, all three of them, their visits tapering off with time, as they moved away from Florida to make their own memories. They were all heartbreakers. “It’s more memory than dream. He did hitchhike to campus and pitch a tent outside my dorm,” she said. “Not sure where he got the tent. Caused quite a stir. He was a handsome boy. He spent the night in my room and my roomie—she was my best friend from high school—was kind enough to go elsewhere.” “You shoot off any fireworks?” She laughed. “There were fireworks that night at Disney Resorts. People might have heard me all over the hotel.” “Great memory.” “God love you. Those visions hang on, don’t they? Doctors lie about old age. You forget something and they say Alzheimer this and Alzheimer that. It’s not the forgetting that’s the problem. It’s the remembering.” She paused. “I was reading a book of stories by Jane Campbell, Cat Brushing, it’s very sensual. Anyway, it was her first published book when she was 80. One of her characters talks about the ‘persecution of remembering.’ The character, I can’t remember her name, says that we remember so much and late at night ‘remorse bites hard.’ ” “Cheery.” “Not supposed to be. You ever felt it?” A shadow passed across her friend’s eyes and she composed her mouth in a grim line. “Of course,” she said quietly. “Sure.” “You want to talk about it?” “No.” “OK, but you would think our imaginations would be in tatters by the time we get to Sea Wind Villas. But here we are, talking about the past.” “You ever see Paul again?” “That November, I took the bus to Columbia for the last football game of the season. Stayed with him in his dorm which was a definite no-no. Went to the game and then an all-you-caneat buffet place that didn’t like the students coming in and scarfing down all the food. We cruised downtown after. Went out into the sticks and drove by a tent revival—see a lot of those in South Carolina. We parked and went in. Preacher up front chided his audience about this and that. Halfway through, he asked if there were any couples in the congregations who wanted to get married in the eyes of Jesus. Paul pulled me up there and I was too buzzed to resist. The preacher came over, peeked down my halter top, and put his hand on my forehead the other on Paul’s. “Do you believe in the Lord God as your savior?” he asked. “Paul said yes. I nodded.” “The preacher told us we were married in the eyes of the Lord. He had strong hands and gave us a little shove and we fell into the arms of some of the preacher’s people and they showed us a donation plate and asked for money to do God’s work. Paul dug into his pocket, grabbed some change and dumped it on the plate. He took my hand we ran out of there into the night. A beautiful fall night with lots of stars. Paul wrapped me in his arms and said, ‘Bobbi, we’re married now.’” " 'Not in the eyes of the church we aren’t.' 'This was a church. Sort of.' 'Not our church.' I told Paul to be sensible. Told him this tent revival was a carnival religion, all show. “I may have hurt his feelings. His eyes looked so funny. He said that Catholic priests put on a show. He had a point. “I told him I was getting cold and he slipped my arms into his high school letter jacket and led me back to the car. His friends joined us. Paul said let’s go dancing to celebrate and we went to one of the 3.2 bars. Paul danced with a succession of women and I just watched. There was something off about him. We’d smoked a joint in the car but he was flying high on something else. He came over and pulled me to the dance floor. Showed me how to do the Carolina Shag and I caught on pretty quick. I started dancing with another guy and looked up to see Paul hanging all over this other girl. He just wasn’t there, you know. We got back to the dorm at 2 a.m. and had to slip in the back door—the guys propped it up with a rock on weekends since curfew was midnight. The R.A.’s didn’t make a big deal of it. We got to Paul’s room and he was all over me and I pushed him away, told him I was on my period. For a second there, I saw daggers in his eyes and I thought something bad was going to happen. But his face went from some sort of madness to the look I was used to, friendly Paul, Paul the boyfriend, Paul the guy I’d known since eighth grade. He turned and stormed out of the room. “The next morning, I found my own way to the airport. Was a bit rattled when I finally got back to my dorm. Jo said I looked like shit and what happened and I said I got married and she laughed. I didn’t have the energy to tell the story but the next day in the cafeteria, the girls asked me about my trip and I told the whole story and I could tell they were worried about me. Jo put her hand on my forehead and said I was burning up and took me to the student clinic. Next thing I know I’m in the hospital with pneumonia and I miss all of my classes. I am sad and pissed off at the same time. “My parents come to pick me up and take me home early for Thanksgiving. I had to call all of my professors. I was just a basket case. I didn’t go back to school in December. The week before Christmas, Mom brings me a letter. ‘Who do you know at Fort Jackson?’ ” “Nobody,” I said. She handed me the letter. It was from Paul. He addressed me as his ‘Dear wife.’ He then wrote he’d got draft number five in the Selective Service Lottery on Dec. 1 and didn’t like school anyway and had joined up the next day and now was in basic at Fort Jackson. His last line: I guess this is goodbye. He signed it ‘Your Devoted Husband.’ ” Carol grabbed her hand. “You’re not going to tell me he got killed in Vietnam?” “I am not. It was worse. He came back a junkie. It was my senior year and I was walking on the beach in Daytona with my new boyfriend and a car went by that looked familiar. A guy got out of the back seat, while it was moving, tripped and rolled in the sand, beer flew out of his hand. Spring break, you know, not unusual. You can drive on the beach there, or at least you could back then. Guys sitting up, swigging Bud, driving their convertibles with their feet. Guys trying to be cool for all the girls who were also trying to be cool. Paul stood, brushed the sand away, staggered, and looked right at me. “He yelled: ‘My lovely wife!’ Almost got hit by a car and stumbled over to me. My new boyfriend gave me a strange look. Paul wrapped me in his arms. Reeked of beer and sweat. He tried to kiss me and his beard scratched my face and I pushed him and he fell on his ass. He got right back up and stared at me with those dagger eyes I saw in the South Carolina dorm that night. My poor boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend by the end of the day, walked over to challenge him. Paul looked down at Lloyd who was about six inches shorter but muscular. Both seemed ready for a fight. Paul just looked down at him, shook his head, and stumbled off, splashing through the shore break like he was going somewhere. “The last time I saw him was at the 25th high school reunion, 1994. He asked me to dance, told me he had met his second wife at an NA meeting, said he got his shit together working with fellow vets at the VA. I was a little drunk and wanted to kiss him right there, not him in his 40s but his 18-yearold face, that lovely face. But it didn’t exist anymore. I looked over at our table and saw my husband flanked by two of my female classmates who never gave me the time of day in the hallowed halls of St. Francis. I told Paul I had to rescue my husband. I squeezed his hand and let go. As I walked away he said, ‘We’re still married, you know.’ I kept walking, showed him the back of my hand and was just about to respond with ‘ No we are not.’ But the words caught in my throat. I turned to him and said, ‘I know.’ He smiled. He was missing a couple teeth but it was still a beautiful smile. I got to our table, shooed away those she-devils, took Jim upstairs and had my way with him. Several times.” She paused. Saw Jim’s face as it was that night, and then his still-life face in the casket at the front of the church. “I miss him.” Carol took her hand. “I miss my crazy Richard. Went too soon. It still stings.” The lobby loudspeaker crackled into life. “Ladies and gentlemen, luncheon will now be served at Sea Wind Villas Food Court.” There was a lot of shuffling and squeaky rollator wheels. “You ready for tuna surprise?” asked Carol. “No,” Bobbi said. “What about Mickey D’s? I love those little burgers with the shiny cheese and tiny onions and pickles and ketchup. We used to get ‘em for fifteen cents.” “Gosh you’re old.” She gripped Bobbi’s arm. “Let’s get it delivered.” Carol plucked her phone from the mostly empty spaces of her bra, punched in a few buttons and made the selections. “And two chocolate shakes,” Bobbi added. “Large.” Carol punched a few more keys, clicked off the app, and slipped it back in her bra. “Fifteen minutes. Want to eat on the patio?” Bobbi nodded, used the cane for leverage to stand. They took each other’s arms and walked into the sunshine. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue Sometimes an idea kicks around in my head until I stumble upon a way to tell it. I first wrote this as straight narrative and then reminiscence. It’s about a dream I’ve had over the years and I decided to let the dream tell the story through one of the women characters. I thought it added a bit of magic to the telling. .................................................................................................................................................................................... MICHAEL SHAY writes short stories and essays. His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies including Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking Out the Jams from Coffee House Press. His first book of short stories is The Weight of the Body . He recently completed an historical novel set in 1919 Colorado with the working title Zeppelins over Denver . Next - Worry Poem by Alexandra van de Kamp Next

Among by Cynthia Hardy a half dozen poems: five about sky—darkening, flattening, dampered by cloud. Gray in all varieties now. The dark shadow of bark below fir branches, the pale trim of snow edging all. We dream of color, of tropical gardens, all red, yellow, purple, green. You say, Are you dreaming? I say, Not really, then tell all I remember: a sea, deep blue, the white collars of foam, the motion and relentless sweep towards brown sugar sand. The same water tosses a boat around as I wander from deck to deck, down dim corridors, leaning on tilting walls. I am looking for you, or someone like you, and ride the bounce and shift like a tilt-a-whirl. You drift there—in and out of focus—but I find you in every room. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue One of a series of poems I wrote during the Covid lockdown period in Zoom meetings with Hippies in the Attic, a group of writers based in Green Bay, WI included in Rude Weather (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, forthcoming). It’s partly a reflection on a recurring theme in my poems, including the weather and the sky, snow, and the porousness of the boundary between poetry and dreams. .................................................................................................................................................................................... CINDY HARDY writes from Chena Ridge, Fairbanks, Alaska. She has published poetry and fiction, with a new poetry collection, Rude Weather forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. Next - Insomnia by Cynthia Hardy Next

Mākara Beach by Michael McLane I fall in love my first step southerly slamming car door back onto my leg I bleed a little into my sock a good start the baches more driftwood than intent the lone café closed and closed and closed paint of it sheared annually a reptile coming into its own cold blood I smell death from the car park a short distance to the sandbar hiding the sea lion bloated about to sublimate there is peculiar sweetness to the air to the stiff flipper over the eyes the invasion began here as certain as tides as certain as barbed wire twisted into crumbling cliff faces men stormed ashore frigid and trembling funneled up the valley to Karori and beyond we need monsters most days— printers’ marks survey site or crosshairs— gun emplacements is a gentle term gift or softened stance the pedestals still fit the human form perfectly parallel to wind farm perpendicular to wind these are old fears— Dunedin’s guns trained on the 19th century Russians invisible invincible unease teens fucking each new generation into being in crumbling batteries ghosts of drowned Cossacks in the harbor each time I return the beach littered with thousands of bluebottle jellyfish their spent casings saturated and prophylactic as myth Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue This poem was another early one in the NZ work, when I was still trying to navigate the tremendous beauty of my new home, the ferocious violence both inherent to its wild places and imposed upon them by humans, as well as the myths and urban legends that arose from the intersections of these qualities. .................................................................................................................................................................................... MICHAEL MCLANE is the author of the chapbooks Trace Elements and Fume . He is an editor with Dark Mountain and Sugar House Review and was a founding editor of saltfront. He currently lives in Martinborough, Aotearoa/New Zealand and recently completed a PhD at the International Institute for Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington. Next - On the Disembarkation of Sergeant Nathan E. Cook in Auckland, 13 June 1942 by Michael McLane Next

Ode to Everything by Marjorie Maddox Enough of the lamentations. Open the window and sing! The world is awash with world: color-dripping globe always tilting into some Ah! or another, clouds stretching wide plump happiness, even in the noisy stage-show of showers, such sunny ovations. And the birds— overpopulating every poem— swoop here for free— swallow, hawk, robin, gull, eagle—what else can be written but wings that wave horizon to horizon? And enough of windows. Praise doors! Step out with arms open, and eyes gathering vim and vision: grandeur trailing from worm and woodchuck, branch puzzles of woods, open boat of breeze— all brimming with Hey! and Hallelujah! and Celebrate! such green giving of thanks, such miraculous mercy of earth: calm valley and even this rugged, rocky chain we climb now as family, claiming praise as respite, holding close each breaking day, dangerous yet divine in all its gorgeous glory. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue On of my more hopeful poems and one previously published in Plough , “Ode to Everything” reminds me to slow down, look around, and be grateful. As a writer, I often wrestle in my work with challenges or struggles. In the midst of such poems, though, I need to leave room for odes. .................................................................................................................................................................................... MARJORIE MADDOX has published 17 collections of poetry, a story collection, and four children’s and YA books. She is a Professor Emerita of English at the Lock Haven Campus of Commonwealth University. marjoriemaddox.com Next - Ode to Everything by Marjorie Maddox 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 chapbook The Chosen Pattern (Quadra-Project, 1988). Her poem "Crochet" was published in Plainsong and in Ted Kooser's series, “American Life in Poetry.” 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, forthcoming), 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 Hard Times Lev Raphael Fifty+ years ago, I was bullied in fifth grade, but not by other students: My teacher was the culprit, and she seemed to take special delight in tormenting me. Today I wonder if she knew I was gay decades before I did, given my obvious crush on our dazzling class president, and it revolted her. Thanks to the alphabet and our last names, I sat right across Michael who was tall and curly-haired, with blue eyes and brilliant white teeth. I was nothing like him. Sitting in the row furthest from the door, he seemed to always live in a penumbra of light from the giant windows piercing the nearby wall of our neo-Gothic elementary school. I longed to be his friend without being able to articulate that to myself or understand it could mean something vital about who I was. Mrs. Zir must have observed me fawn over him—when I could—like the time he dropped a pencil and I stooped faster than he did so I could grab the precious yellow cylinder and hand it to him, hungry for a smile. He was kind in an off-hand way. Mrs. Zir herself was scarier than Cruella de Vil though she lacked the sharp angles and swirling robes. Muscular and six feet tall with a large, oval, sneering face and thinning gray hair trapped in a forbidding bun, she loomed above us kids like an adamantine, implacable god. Zir's clothes were almost always some shade of gray that matched her hair and her derisive eyes. In a horror movie today, I think that CGI would be used to make her an alien storm cloud roiling with nauseating thunder and lightning, disguised now and then as a human being. This woman with the harsh last name stalked our classroom in big-ass sneakers you felt could crush you as easily as one of her savage, nonverbal put-downs. When she shook her head at your wrong answer to some question, that gesture said you were hopeless and she was disgusted. Mrs. Zir seemed to especially enjoy humiliating anyone who couldn't think fast when she swept up and down the five rows of six desks each, jamming a cruel index finger your way and demanding an instant answer to a multiplication problem. "Six times six! Five times seven!" It was a tsunami, and if you hesitated, she abandoned you to your ignorance and shame, turning instantly away to torture someone else. Just seeing her start this inquisition left me sweating and breathless because I was so anxious to begin with in her class. Arithmetic was like a black hole to me and written quizzes were my doom no matter how much I studied beforehand: hard-core proof of my inadequacy. The classroom with its scarred wooden desks--so old that they had inkwells--felt like a prison that whole year of fifth grade. Zir bullied me and anyone else whenever she got the chance. She was the queen and we were her lowly subjects, or most of us were. She had her favorites, the pretty girls and handsome boys (like Michael) whose parents apparently flattered her at parent/teacher conferences. Mrs. Zir knew that my parents had lived in Belgium, and when she said something to my mother in French at their first parent/teacher conference, my mother acted puzzled: "What language are you speaking? It's not familiar to me." That reply apparently left my teacher speechless. My mother relished this anecdote when she reported it to me at home because she thought Mrs. Zir was pretentious and a snob—on top of having an atrocious accent. As much as I enjoyed hearing an adult mock my teacher, I quailed inside when I heard what took place at the conference because I knew there would be revenge. It followed swiftly. In auditions for our class's production of The HMS Pinafore , I was cast as Ralph Rackstraw, the lowly seaman in love with the captain's daughter, but Mrs. Zir barely heard a note before silencing me: "You can't sing!" I was crushed. I could have been relegated to the chorus even if I wasn't a great singer, but instead, she gave me a prominent role and undermined it by keeping me mute onstage. Still, the cruelest thing she did was destroy my writing. I was an advanced reader and proud of my poems and little stories. I expected to take them all home when fifth grade was over to start a personal library, but Mrs. Zir wouldn't let me have mine. She said that she was keeping everyone's portfolios, and I was too scared to ask why or report her refusal to my parents. But when I finally steeled myself to venture one floor down to her classroom the next year when I was in sixth grade, she dismissed me with a casual "Oh, I threw all of that out." Decades after fifth grade, I am courageously taking voice lessons with a young graduate student in Michigan State University's College of Music and he couldn't be more different from the severe Mrs. Zir. Fair-haired Felix is relaxed, encouraging, witty, clear-headed, loves to laugh and can sometimes read my mind, as when he notes I might be overthinking a line in a song rather than feeling it. I had almost completely forgotten Mrs. Zir until the day Felix is talking about mental blocks interfering with the free production of sound and I find myself sharing Mrs. Zir's damning verdict that kept me silent. He shakes his head. "But you have a beautiful voice! There's so much music in you!" And I suddenly feel as liberated as if I've been under hypnosis and the magician has just snapped his fingers to bring me out of it. Sometimes opposites can inspire an essay or short story that I write, and that's the genesis of "Hard Times." I take voice lessons at a community music school connected to our local university, and it's staffed by faculty and graduate students from the College of Music. My most recent teacher has been ideal: inspiring, thorough, focused, friendly, and blessed with a great sense of humor. Those qualities have helped me improve my resonance, my legato, and my understanding of the poetry in each song that we work on, whether Schumann or Sondheim. One day during vocal warm-ups, his polar opposite, the worst teacher I ever had, just popped into my head. I hadn't thought about her in, well, what seemed like forever, but realized out of the blue that I was the one with power now because I could use the writer's magic to turn her into words. Previous LEV RAPHAEL is an editor, mentor, writing coach and the author of 27 books in genres from memoir to mystery. writewithoutborders.com and levraphael.substack.com Next

The Barking Dogs of Taos by Richard Peabody 1. Ranger, Doyle, Zander, and Mesa are living the feral life in the no man’s land between Taos airport and Route 64 near Bad Dog Road. Doyle is a Belgian Malinois escape artist too slick for animal rescue or dog whisperer. Too cool to be caged. Starving, maybe, but as long as there are dumpsters. A real loner. Mesa and Zander are close knit Shepherd mixes. You catch one, you’ll catch the other. Don’t even look like they’re from the same litter. But still compadres, who have each other’s backs. Ranger is complicated. A shape shifting Australian Cattle Dog. He clings to the shadows, and blurs into the landscape like a coyote. Blink and he’s gone. Like a floater in your eyeball. A wizard of sand and scrub. Strays make rounds at dusk and dawn. Camping out near the John Dunn Bridge at the confluence of the Rio Grande and Rio Hondo. They can reach the river water hide out in the Beargrass and woody shrubs that hug the banks. If they can’t find food at the RV Park or the landfill they roam closer to town try Aly’s Eats or Medley. Doyle was caught one time at the Country Club by the Stray Hearts folks. He escaped the first night by climbing right up and over the rescue center’s wire fence. 2. The crew is back together now, covering a 12-mile radius from Arroyo Hondo to Taos, and back again. Chilly nights bring a wildlife control expert, in a bright red Jeep Cherokee. She’s a young empath and wants to rescue every lost pet. She also brought snacks. Doyle is growling at the dusk. Wary, Ranger circles the Jeep. Mesa and Zander are screw it we’re so hungry. The expert has pre-cut pepperoni. She softly sweet talks Mesa and Zander closer. C’mon guys, get a treat. They follow a pepperoni trail into the back seat. Ranger edges into the shadows barking like a motherfucker. Doyle snarls before he turns tail and runs toward the gravel pit. Fine. The wildlife expert drives to Taos animal rescue. She worries about Ranger and Doyle. The nights are getting colder. How will they survive? Yet now, her hands and heart are full and she wisely keeps the pepperoni coming. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue There’s no secret about my love for the red rock country of the southwestern U.S. I’ve talked about it so much for so long that a lot of people assume I used to live there. I’ve visited maybe six or seven times. I almost bought houses in Taos and Taos Canyon on two separate occasions. And I have friends who have permanently moved there. One of my daughters babysits and walks dogs. A report of some missing dogs in the Taos News mentioned a pack of scallywag dogs and I was smitten. This will be the title poem of my next collection. .................................................................................................................................................................................... RICHARD PEABODY lives in Arlington, Virginia. His most recent volume of poetry is Guinness on the Quay (Salmon Poetry, 2019). gargoylepaycock.wordpress.com Next - The Little Old Lady in the Woodstock T-Shirt by Robert Cooperman Next

< Back to Breakthroughs Issue West on Piccadilly Shauri Cherie Stop for a moment to feel the air grow colder, chilled by the rush of passersby milling on steps, on escalators, staying on the right to make way for those rushing for the platform. Take a step and listen to the sound of footfall and the grind of the train on the rail and the faint trill of Mind the gap over the speakers. Push between two teenagers stumbling out onto the platform for Russell Square. There’s little room on the Tube at this hour, but squeeze yourself into a corner, wrap your hand around the bar, and bear it as more and more people crowd around you. Some might have come from King’s Cross (they keep luggage tucked protectively between their knees as if anticipating the worst) or perhaps they’re on the journey home tonight (the woman next to you has mascara smudged beneath her eyelids and a seated old man is slumped forward onto his wrinkled palms). The doors will shut behind with a mechanical hiss. Sway with the lurch of the train as it departs, see a girl holding her mother’s hand shift her footing. The train twists and turns and tilts until brakes squeal to a stop at Holborn, Covent Garden, and, finally, Leicester Square. The doors open to a white-tiled wall, and here, the people move faster, faster, faster, so pause in this moment to watch the tide of bodies swell around you. Wait to watch a group of girls sway concert-drunk and tourists take selfies to post on Instagram, men hovering next to their wives, children swinging their feet in their seats while parents shush them and apologize to those seated beside. Wait here until the doors begin to hiss once more, then you, an American in a country that isn’t your own, step off the Tube and onto the platform, careful to mind the gap. "West on Piccadilly" was the first poem I wrote for my European travel lyric sequence as an undergrad. It was originally published in Outrageous Fortune , but this version has been edited in preparation for a chapbook. It's sensory-focused, meant to capture the barrage overwhelming the senses of someone from a rural Utah town in the heart of London. It was a breakthrough experience that boosted my confidence, and rereading it brings the Tube vividly back again. 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 Incunabula, Mother Tongue Max McDonough My mother—blogger, doll addict cyber queen, sniper at the eBay auction computer screen— mixed her idioms. From the get-go , for example, became From the gecko when she said it. Not the sharpest bowling ball in the shed. He side-blinded me. Shithead thinks he’s cool as mustard. Thinks he’s right up my sleeve. I escaped from New Jersey for college, which opened up a whole nother can of germs. In emails I wrote: Professor, I’ll have to mow it over a little longer. Professor, without a question of a doubt. I didn’t realize I made switches too until I re-read them—a nervous, first-gen scholarship student— as I’m sure my mother didn’t think she’d altered anything in her life. But that’s a different chiasmus for a different line of thought, not for nights like this one, alone and happy mostly, my heart at the peck and call , though, of those suburban woods of my childhood again— the ultraviolet yellow feathers of witch-hazel thicket, serrated huckleberry leaves—the understory so dense, tangled to itself, that walking a straight line becomes a tight circle, and my mother’s voice is mine. "Incunabula, Mother Tongue" was first published in Best New Poets . I’d been writing poems about a difficult estrangement from my mother only to realize that half the reason I love language – love to bend and break and rearrange it – was an inheritance. Suddenly grief had a meaning. Maybe even, can I say this?, it glittered. Previous MAX MCDONOUGH'S debut poetry collection, Python with a Dog Inside It, won the 2023 St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press. His work has appeared in The New York Times , AGNI , Best New Poets , The Adroit Journal , T Magazine , and elsewhere. maxmcdonough.co Next