< 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

Third Issue ................................................................................................................................................................... "BREAKTHROUGHS" - 2025/2026 Poem Approaching Four Past Tenses Lauren Camp Read Sight Lauren Camp Read Double Life Mike White Read Stones Mike White Read boy Jamison Conforto Read Antelope Boy Jamison Conforto Read Chalk-white, Canyon-deep Nano Taggart Read On Selecting the Contents of Care Package Number Three Nano Taggart Read Trigger Alert Robert Okaji Read Relentless Robert Okaji Read Our Big Toes Barbara Huntington Read Shift Barbara Huntington Read A Whispering Beetle Nancy Takacs Read Sweet Peas Nancy Takacs Read Almost Stacy Julin Read Last Meal Stacy Julin Read Ballad of U and Me klipschutz Read Hymn for Lorca klipschutz Read It's Okay Andrea Hollander Read Living Room Andrea Hollander Read Blood Draw Karin Anderson Read Yes, Emily, Hope Jan Mordenski Read How to Make a Basket Jan Mordenski Read Crash Ruminations (excerpt) Karin Anderson Read Incunabula, Mother Tongue Max McDonough Read One Small Change Max McDonough Read facing it Shanan Ballam Read The Long Haul Shanan Ballam Read An Amicable Correspondence Scott Abbott Read I Saw Her Standing There Scott Abbott Read Cold Marble, Hot Memories Lev Raphael Read Hard Times Lev Raphael Read Bird News Cynthia Hardy Read Rude Weather Cynthia Hardy Read Ghazal with Coyotes, Gaza and Healing Herbs Pamela Uschuk Read Bluebird Abecedarian Pamela Uschuk Read Review of El Rey of Gold Teeth by Reyes Ramirez Willy Palomo Read Mama's Hands Willy Palomo Read Vocabulary Robbie Gamble Read Gamble Patrilineage Robbie Gamble Read West on Piccadilly Shauri Cherie Read huntington beach, march 2 Shauri Cherie Read The Birdwatcher Stephen Wunderli Read Angel's Diner Stephen Wunderli Read How to Turn a Hate March into a Jubilee Procession Dana Henry Martin Read Five Cows, Two Calves Found Shot Dead in Pine Valley Dana Henry Martin Read Seasonal Shift Beth Colburn Orozco Read Dear Carley Beth Colburn Orozco Read BACK TO TOP

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Fake Soldiers by Kase Johnstun With fake soldiers in fake armies, we fought over fake boundaries, rivers, mountains, and countries. Our fake generals led men on fake horses into fake battle, and the roll of the digital dice decided who stayed alive and who died on the electronic battlefield made up, at its core, of ones and zeros. On December 31st, 1999, my older brother and I, in our midtwenties, played RISK, the game of world dominance, on my PlayStation 2. We retreated to our cabin at the edge of Yellowstone Park on the Idaho and Wyoming border with enough wine, beer, and potato chips to make it through the apocalypse. It was the eve of the Y2K disaster, when the world’s computers would send nuclear missiles into the air, where the World Bank and credit history of all the world’s people would crumble, and where fires would spark from the fingertips of civilized people thrown back into savagery without computers. Walls of snow, stacked five to six feet tall, surrounded the little cabin. The tops of baby trees peeked out from the snow, their lives too short to stand above the wintery ground like their elders that stretched up to the blue sky and, during the day, sliced the snow with their shadows. The sun dropped down behind the mountains before five p.m., and clouds drizzled more snow onto the already thick base that covered the ground. It was cold outside, but inside, the fire burned. Two cigars sat on the end table near the sliding glass doors that opened up to the deck. They would be saved for midnight. In the mid-1980s, my brother beat me at everything. It didn’t matter what we played, he had the upper hand, and as most older brothers do, he played the upper hand with a lot of weight. He bankrupted me in Monopoly— I went for the fat pigs on Wall Street—Park Place and Boardwalk—while he became the slumlord of the Avenues (Baltic, Mediterranean, Oriental, etc.), stacked up hotels, and made the district right after “GO” a money pit for my flying shoe. He outwitted me at UNO. He knew when to back things up, when to keep things going, and when to turn one of the wild cards I had saved up all game into my own demise. One day, sitting on the floor of his bedroom, bored in the late days of summer when the 103-degree heat finally pushed us indoors, my brother laid RISK out on the floor. I was sick of losing, so earlier that year I vowed to never place another soldier in harm’s way. Hadn’t I killed enough men? Hadn’t I waged pointless battles on imaginary borders that never ended in peace? Countless lives of men thrown to the ground on the whims of their leaders who looked down on them from the comfort of a carpeted room in the middle of summer. Hadn’t I learned my lesson? No matter how much I fought, I would always lose it all, eventually being pushed into exile with no capital or government or land to call my own. “Let’s play RISK,” he said. His eyebrows and lips turned upward with the vision of another imminent victory and the slaughter of my men. “No,” I said. “I’m not playing again. I always lose.” “Come on. What else are you going to do?” he asked. At the time, he was right. “I’ll even spot you Australia.” My greed welled up inside of me. I could own a continent right from the start. I would own all its extra armies. I could demolish Indonesia and its people with two turns. “I’m in,” I said, thinking he had sealed his own fate. I owned Australia, and with much bravado, I pushed forward into Indonesia and Thailand before his Asian forces punished me on the Indian mountains and forced my troops backward. Then the onslaught came in full force, and within two turns, he had vanquished my armies, rolling the dice and his forces across the globe, pushing me out of Kansas and Ontario, cornering and conquering me on the Sahara, and, one army by one army, killing my Australian stronghold until I had one guy standing on Cape Pasley, begging for mercy. I had enough, and instead of waving my white flag with honor, I flipped the entire board upside down, tossing armies across the room, into the AC vent, onto piles of dirty clothes, and beneath my brother’s bed. I was done losing. If I couldn’t conquer the world, I couldn’t handle the thought of anyone else doing it. It was supposed to be mine, all mine. “You cheated!” I yelled, the world upside down at my feet. “I can’t cheat,” he said calmly, which made me even angrier. “ The dice do what they do. I’m just better.” “You cheated,” I yelled. Then I stormed out of the room and vowed to never play him again. In 1999, some people far away from our secluded cabin partied, some sang along with Prince, some prayed, some hid in shelters, and others slept without worries—midnight in 1999 had finally come. We held our controllers in our hands and watched our armies fight on the screen. Our brains floated in a bath of wine, and our game of RISK had yet to be completed. We knew the game could stretch out for many more hours, so my brother grabbed the cigars from the table, and we walked out onto the snow-covered deck and beneath the moon. The cold surrounded us. It was quiet, very quiet, like there-wasn’tanother-soul-for-miles quiet. My brother looked at his watch and counted down to the end of the millennium, a slow methodical count that added to the feeling of seclusion. We knew that if things really did go to hell that night that we would be together out there in the wilderness. “It’s time,” he said. “Let’s do this,” I said. I wish I would have said something less cheesy, but none of us really believed in Y2K. He handed me one of the cigars, lit his own in his mouth, and then handed me the lighter. I clumsily lit mine and inhaled the rich smoke into my lungs. It warmed my gut. We stood in silence for a few minutes. Snow flickered on its descent. At the end of my cigar, I saw the bright red flame that circled the cigar edges like the sun burning at the edges of a solar eclipse, bright reds sparking out from behind the curved edge, but beyond the cigar, no fires burned, no sirens screamed, and no missiles cut through the sky. We stood in the snow until the cigars burned down to the edges of our index fingers and thumbs. Then we walked back into the cabin to play a game between brothers. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link First published in 1:1000 . “Fake Soldiers” was published a decade ago, but it is the one I read 7 out of 10 times for nonfiction readings. It is by far a favorite, still timely and sadly, timeless. Back Back to Current Issue .................................................................................................................................................................................... KASE JOHNSTUN is an award-winning essayist, memoirist, and Manager for The Utah Center for the Book (Library of Congress). Kase is the author of the award-winning memoir Beyond the Grip of Craniosynostosis (McFarland & Co., 2015), the award-winning novel Let the Wild Grasses Grow (Torrey House Press, 2021), and the novel Cast Away (Torrey House Press, 2024). kasejohnstun.com Next - First Sighting by Trish Hopkinson Next

northern climate II by Gabriela Halas New morning ice floats the bay, or old fragments that calved as we blinked the days past. The scour of stranded crystals unfold as water resigns to stay. Once this bay held fast as I moved the dogs across — unsheathed the shape and shiver, the steadfast lock of mid-winter. Now I watch the land emit another kind of chorus, a cacophony of flats and sharps unfamiliar to my ears. The dogs, unable to match the measure, fall through thinned aufeis, halt in lead — my urging ended in spurious falsetto. Lungs work at half capacity, the patterned inhale and exhale of an un-patterned bay. Faithless in a future we thought would never arrive. The water, bewildered, as loosened methane destabilizes what we once trusted. Lost in a seismic language, untranslatable as a colonizer’s tongue. The dark imprint of unrequited ground. I hear an old man speak of glacier’s gone: will the river flow, it’s steady lilt, by rain alone? We should fear the shoals who rock glinting bodies out of time. In the retreat of all named matter, I hear the discord rumble on — the fight of voices gathers. A recoil from our role in all things large, mysterious. The dogs turn to me, huddle in question, eyes as brown as an Arctic March. No answer for the soft ground pressed between their toes. I unhook each in turn, let the lead run on, while the others collect in whimpered harmony. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue First published in The Louisville Review. "Northern Climate II" is about being on a northern landscape and witnessing change. The body feels and conveys all in these poems. .................................................................................................................................................................................... GABRIELA HALAS immigrated to Canada during the early 1980s, grew up in Alberta, lived in Alaska for seven years, and currently resides in British Columbia. She has published poetry in a variety of literary journals including The Antigonish Review , Cider Press Review , About Place Journal , Prairie Fire , december magazine , and The Hopper , among others; fiction in Room Magazine , Ruminate , The Hopper , and subTerrain, among others; and nonfiction in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Whitefish Review , Grain , Pilgrimage , and High Country News . She won first prize for her poetry chapbook Bloodwater Tint from Backbone Press (forthcoming). She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives and writes on Ktunaxa Nation land. gabrielahalas.org Next - Some Things to Do in the Face of Death by Jim LaVilla-Havelin 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

Pilgrims in Argyll by Joseph Riddle We drove through a cloud on the way to Oban passing by Loch Lomond the peripatetic wind slapped the rain sideways then up the other side a thorough baptism from every end This is July! we marvel Mother died in May she taught us to distrust each other Why aren’t you more like him? she’d say to me, and to him Your brother does it better Did she think we would gang up, united, and drive her from the house? We might have, had we thought of it Her funeral was all St. Daniel: Angel Brother, dead at five a tragedy. We miss him. Yet— sympathy suffocates and compassion corrodes at the foot of a cross We are still here , we cry Won’t you join us? Her tears were accusations; friendship, our rebellion At her wake, over whisky, a dawning To Bertha, we say, may she find peace Clink. cinis cinerem Scottish blood is a mystery (if you have some, you know it) Let us go and seek the source, we say, and toast the life of this teetotaler in the amber of our ancestry A lark! Yet here we are. You are a bad driver. Even sober, even driving on the right so it is I, driving drunk, on the wrong bloody side as we fight through clouds to Inverness (for a tiny place, it goes forever) a shaft of sun chokes out over Loch Ness stalked by gloom The valleys wail, green and barren lichen and gorse and granite bluebells rattle desperately clinging to whipped soil Can we really have sprung From a place so fierce? we say ferocity is a foreign drug but we feel it pulse in our DNA and, embarrassed, look away I never liked you, you know. I know. I loved you but I never trusted you. Clink. in cupam veritas We understand it better, now t hat we’ve seen this lonely, lovely place the silence inside and the vastness without and the fierce little bluebells raging against the rain Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue The poems that move me are the ones that tell a story and evoke emotion. "Pilgrims in Argyll" is the kind of poem I enjoy reading. .................................................................................................................................................................................... JOSEPH RIDDLE took a break from corporate work in 2020, after more than 20 years as a media and marketing professional. And then stories started flowing! His first attempt at a novel was a fictionalized memoir of his own life. He’s since tried his hand at genre fiction including mystery, romance, and fantasy—he is the author of the Seventh Talent trilogy (Psi House, 2021). Joseph studied psychology at the University of Utah, and economics at Johns Hopkins. He lives with his husband in Bellingham, Washington and Mexico City. Next - Motives for Theft by Joseph Riddle Next

Motives for Theft by Joseph Riddle That evening, 90 minutes from the school for paranormal children and the murder about to take place there, the city of Washington, DC lay under a haze of humidity. The sun had been down for an hour, and the temperature still read 96 degrees. Ugh, thought the woman in the black mask. She wished her Talent could control the weather. To anyone looking, she would have appeared to be a shadow against a building. A hot, listless breeze wafted from the west, from over the Potomac tidal basin. She took a deep breath of it, then wrinkled her nose in regret. Rather than refreshing, it carried a raft of unpleasant scents. Rotted vegetation. Hot garbage? On nights like this it was easy to believe tales about America’s capital having been built on reclaimed swampland. A handful of tourists could be seen in the distance, and a masochistic jogger was about to pass her, drenched in his own sweat. With its museums long closed, the usually bustling National Mall felt deserted. Even so, habit and caution kept the figure in black silent and hidden. She checked her watch. Where was John? He was rarely late. The pandemics of the early 2020s had altered global economies and norms, but one or two good things had come from them. Wearing face masks became common during that period, and for some it never went away. The woman in black was one of these. She’d taken to wearing a combined domino/breathable mask that covered most of her face. Just her eyes were visible. She loved the anonymity of it. Truly, she was a creature of the shadows. Few people called her by name anymore. She was just the woman in black. Despite this lovely assurance of invisibility, the need to scout an escape was so ingrained that she began eyeing one of the enormous wastewater drains that lined the pavement along Constitution Avenue. She idly calculated how long it might take her to lift one of the metal grates, estimating its weight. As she tried to figure out where she would end up (in the River?) if she needed to disappear by that route, she noticed with some amusement that even the city’s enormous cockroaches were affected by the heat. Instead of scurrying busily to the drain in a straight line, the one passing at her feet was lethargic, weaving left to right as if drunk. She directed a tiny tendril of energy toward it, and it leapt as if it had been shocked, hastening to the safety of the huge drain. Beneath her mask, she grinned. She hadn’t lost her touch. Even insects didn’t notice her unless she wished them to. Glancing up, she noticed that the sky was quite dark. Well of course it was—the whole point of doing this tonight was that there would be a new moon. There was Saturn, pulsing angrily at her, unusually prominent in the night sky. Is it true, what people are saying about unusual signs in the alignment of the planets? She grimaced, and wished that she’d paid better attention during Prophetic Astronomy. Then her earpiece beeped. John was here. Finally. She sensed him and turned to see a lean, auburn-haired form moving purposefully toward her hiding place. He wasn’t that much taller than she was, but he was strong. Remembering his whipcord strength caused her to shiver in spite of herself. No! She had long since decided she wouldn’t be bullied by this man. Stepping from the shadows, the woman in black put her hands on her hips authoritatively. “You’re late.” Her voice was flat. Disapproving. “Awww. Did you miss me?” His eyes glinted with humor. Or malice? A black mask, like her own, covered his face except for eyes and chin. She couldn’t see his expression, but she was sure she heard tension in his voice, a tension he was attempting to conceal with his teasing. Something was up. Not for the first time, she wished she could read his thoughts. She cursed the universe for the fact that their powers were so complementary. “Perfectly in sync!” everyone said. How she hated hearing that. “Not funny, John,” she replied, glancing at her watch. “If you intended to keep me waiting, you might have given me a heads up.” She fought to keep a bored tone in her voice. She was grateful, once again, that he could not read her thoughts. The advantages he had were terrible enough. She continued briskly. “Time is money.” “And money is drugs, hmm, darling?” His voice was soft. The woman in black didn’t respond. Her eyes glittered dangerously. “This job pays well—you’ll be fine.” John checked his watch. He was doing an adequate job of sounding casual, but he was distracted and definitely hiding something. It made her uneasy. Despite the heat, she shivered again. He tugged at the collar of his black long-sleeved shirt, continuing. “Did we have to do this in bloody August? I’m dying in this costume.” She ignored the comment. DC was empty in August. Congress was out of session and everyone who could afford to had fled to the Eastern shores, escaping the heat. It was a perfect time for a job like this, and he knew it. “Are you ready?” She asked. He nodded. “Okay. I’ve had a chance to assess things, and I think this will be easy. We’re going in right through the main doors on the south side. There are trees there to break the visual field of the security cameras.” She pointed up. “The cameras are multidirectional, and we have to assume we’re in a direct line of sight. Even so, I think from this angle, with enough shadow, I can obscure us so we won’t be visible.” “Or I could disable the blasted things,” he muttered. “Negative.” She dismissed the idea. “Unless your range has expanded significantly, you wouldn’t reach all of them. And the whole point of us doing this job together,” she emphasized the word, “is that your skills alone don’t cut it.” Her voice hardened. “Nor do mine. Anyway, one thing sure to bring attention quickly would be a disabled camera.” “So what do you have in mind then?” He grumbled. “First,” she said, “from this distance, can you lower the incandescence of the lights illuminating the entrance? That streetlight overhead,” she pointed up, “and this row of spotlights.” She indicated the lights directed at the building. “If you can lower the lights without destroying them,” her skepticism was evident, “the trees will take care of everything else.” He only grunted. Within seconds, the harsh glare of the spotlights had lowered considerably. It was a smooth, gradual change too, as though someone had used a dimmer switch. Anyone nearby would notice only a mild change in the ambient light level, as sometimes happens randomly with streetlights. In spite of herself, she was impressed. Other paranormals who possessed kinetic Talent, if they could do this kind of thing at all, would need to physically touch each mechanism to affect it. She could tell he was concentrating, but he’d just simultaneously manipulated a half dozen objects from meters away. A dangerous enemy indeed, she thought. He was better at this than he used to be. “What’s next?” he asked. She suspected it required effort for him to sound casual after that exertion, but he pulled it off. She was impressed again. “This,” she said, frowning. She muttered something and as she did, the edges of her form grew blurry, until she all but faded from view into the shadows around her. John had seen this particular trick many times, and it never failed to startle him. How could his eyes go from seeing her one second, to convincing him he’d just imagined her the next? He looked down at his own body and registered shock. Only his nerve endings told him he was still standing there. He couldn’t distinctly see his own arms, only blurred shadows. He’d never seen her obscure herself so quickly before, and to do it to another person, too. He couldn’t imagine how much practice it took to master this. Shit, he thought. Her power has grown. She’d always been good. Now she was scary. “Okay,” she said, keeping her voice light. “This method isn’t foolproof when video surveillance is involved. But if we move slowly, we should be fine.” The rest was simple. Entering through now-unlocked doors, with alarms and laser sensors disabled in each room they passed, the two figures moved through the museum, silent and invisible. The cameras would register only a blur when the footage was reviewed. Their only hiccup was the need to disable a guard who wandered too close. Unfortunately for the guard, somatic work wasn’t a natural skill for either thief. Their methods were rough. Between them, they managed to incapacitate the poor Normal without (hopefully) doing too much damage. Twenty minutes later, they emerged onto Pennsylvania Avenue with two prizes. The man carried an insignificant looking piece of a rough, silvery meteorite, the size of a baby’s fist. The woman carried a beautiful yellow beryl jewel, cut square, the size of a watch face. If they hadn’t understood the purpose of tonight’s mission before, each knew it now. “My god,” John whispered reverently. “Can you feel it? Do you know what we’re holding?” She knew. Oh, yes. The surge of power she’d felt the instant she’d picked up the jewel had been unmistakable. With this in her hands, she could probably compel someone to harm himself from blocks away. Recalling her earlier relief that her companion couldn’t read her thoughts, she tentatively directed energy toward his mind. The attempt was haphazard, as this wasn’t one of a cryptic’s natural skills; she’d only once successfully linked with someone else’s thoughts, and that person had been a willing participant. But like all trained PSIs, she understood the basic principles. Linking worked this time. She sensed his wonder at what he held in his hands, his astonishment, and his deep distrust of the woman standing beside him. In the background there was a glimmer of the thing that had worried him earlier, the trouble that had made him late. Curiosity made her incautious, and her attention drifted toward that worry. Lack of experience tripped her up. He sensed her in his thoughts, and gave a retaliatory mental shove so hard she experienced it as pain and stumbled. Pure instinct prompted her to raise defenses as his consciousness came slashing toward her, intent on wresting control. She only just held him out of her own thoughts. Ugh, she thought. This is why everyone hates telepaths. Constant vigilance was required. On a quiet, heat-soaked DC sidewalk, two figures in black stood staring at each other, panting from the effort of their silent battle of wills, each determined to best a bitter rival. The struggle was taxing them both. The man’s skills were blunt, but effective. She could feel their effect in her numb arms. This jewel she was holding was suddenly . . . so. . . heavy. It would be such a sweet relief, if she could set it down. She fought with all her will against a sudden, agonizing weariness in her hands and arms. It’s not real! S he kept repeating. Her skill was illusion, and she had particular expertise with attraction forces. The better one understood one’s target, the more effective compulsion became. She’d had a great deal of practice on this particular target. Channeling the jewel in her hands she focused all her power on his solar plexus, attempting to redirect his intentions. You don’t want to fight me, John! Remember how it felt, to love me? Drop the stone! She saw the trembling of his hands, the sheen of sweat on his brow, and was glad. She could imagine what it cost him to resist her. It angered her that he could do it. She hoped his suffering was acute. “Well,” he whispered quietly. “Perhaps we’ve learned another reason why two of us were sent on this mission. If they’d just sent one of us, what guarantee would our employers have that these special objects would wind up where they are supposed to?” She hit him with a last, useless surge of compulsion. Holding the stone, he was too strong, deflecting it with ease. Through gritted teeth, she said “I hate you.” “Hmm,” he replied softly. “I know. And they know it, too. It’s their guarantee. The two of us would never willingly cooperate.” He raised a hand involuntarily. For an agonizing second she thought he might caress her face. The noise of an engine caused her to turn then, as a dark sedan entered the otherwise deserted street. The woman in black offered a silent prayer of thanks to the universe. She used a tiny thread of conscious will (all she had left), directing the driver to pull up to the curb. A well-dressed Normal young man leaned over to open the passenger door for her. “Hello?” he said in surprise. As indeed, he probably was surprised by his sudden decision to stop and offer a lift to a stranger. “In the nick of time” she said sweetly, lowering her mask and offering the stranger a dazzling smile. She couldn’t disguise the relief in her voice. Turning back to her erstwhile companion, she said, “Do me a favor, John. Please drop dead before I see you again?” As the car pulled away, she set her jaw firmly and covered her eyes with one hand. I will not cry! * * * John muttered softly to himself as the car holding the woman in black pulled away. “It’s not over, Kasa,” he whispered. Seconds later, John’s earpiece clicked and a voice spoke. “Do you have the item?” “Yes, I have it.” “And the woman?” “She secured hers as well.” “Any trouble?” Only us trying to kill each other. “No, none at all. Went off without a hitch. The whole thing took half an hour.” “That’s good. But there’s been a change of plans. I need you in DC for another week, at least.” I have things of my own I need to do! Swallowing his frustration, he replied evenly, “Of course. I was scheduled to lead the team in the Hague. I guess I’m off that assignment?” “Correct. You should plan to remain in the DC area for most of the fall. We’re hearing about unusual goings-on at your old school, and signs point to something big, right around the Winter solstice.” “I can’t wait.” He hoped his voice didn’t sound as grim as he felt. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue When I set out to write something, I do it in part to create the kind of work I like to read. This chapter from my novel, The Seventh Talent (Psi House, 2021) is character-driven, with a central moral conflict that is more ambiguous than the usual good guy vs. bad guy trope. There is good and bad in every person, and I try to reflect that reality in my writing. .................................................................................................................................................................................... JOSEPH RIDDLE took a break from corporate work in 2020, after more than 20 years as a media and marketing professional. And then stories started flowing! His first attempt at a novel was a fictionalized memoir of his own life. He’s since tried his hand at genre fiction including mystery, romance, and fantasy—he is the author of the Seventh Talent trilogy (Psi House, 2021). Joseph studied psychology at the University of Utah, and economics at Johns Hopkins. He lives with his husband in Bellingham, Washington and Mexico City. Next - Flag (2024) by M.L. Liebler Next

Worry Poem after Barbara Ras by Alexandra van de Kamp I worry about the sighing of my mother’s bones each time we hug. That a tornado-sky, that low- humming, humid clutch of clouds, will zero in on my heart one June night. I worry that I won’t hide under the butcher-block table nearly fast enough to dodge the bullets, sooty rain, golf-ball-sized hail, and pigeon shit a life can happily fling our way. I worry I’m just a story tucked inside other stories, like the hatboxes my grandmother stored in her dank, Rhode Island basement. A teetering stack with department store names like Bonwit Teller printed in black dusty script across the round lids. And let’s not forget the invisible: the mosquito the size of a torn eyelash, the grudge that lodges in your chest for years, and the virus mutating with the giddiness of a party guest who keeps pouring herself new cocktails from the vodkas, gins, and tequilas lined up at the bar by some generous host. I worry I worry too much. . I am not the problem-solver our world craves. I am no beekeeper, no geneticist mapping DNA. I’m a shy activist and a distracted cook, inclined to burn boiling milk and peas, to leave the tea kettle shrieking. Each thought a firefly with its tipsy glow careening inside my head as if it could answer a question I’ve not learned to ask yet. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue Previously published in my third book of poems, Ricochet Script (Next Page Press, 2022), this “Worry Poem” is one of my favorite recent poems because I could list a wide range of worries I had experienced but had never put into words yet. It was partially inspired by reading Barbara Ras’s poem, “In the Last Storm I Tried to Write the History of Secrets” (The Blues of Heaven , University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), which has a wonderful list of worries within it. I also can struggle with endings in poems, and, thanks to a fellow poet’s advice, I played around with rearranging the original order of the last 5-6 lines and ended up not needing to come up with a new ending—it had been in the poem all along, just in the wrong place. This is a poetic lesson I have applied to other poems—rearrange lines if you are stuck and see what the poem unlocks! .................................................................................................................................................................................... ALEXANDRA VAN DE KAMP is the Executive Director for Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center. Her most recent book of poems is Ricochet Script (Next Page Press, 2022). alexandravandekamppoet.com Next - This Poem is Backlit by Alexandra van de Kamp Next

Michaelmas by Lisa Bickmore On Michaelmas, the day the gold drains into the lake, the equinoctial sun tilts, sinks to the bottom, stays there for months, the day the rents came due for the quarter, when they baked the bannock and roasted the stubble goose, the day beyond which the blackberries must not be eaten, since Satan once fell and cursed the brambles, the day with the same name as the daisies I will soon pull up by the roots because their color displeases me: on that same day, when the archangel, warrior and tutelar, flourishes, trampling, if only briefly, a fallen Lucifer, a glory round his head, I see the dark-lashed, dark-browed boy, unsmiling, drive past him as he looks up, hooded, unkempt, skateboard under his arm. He emerges under the bridge. Today the day lasts just as long as the night, a balance listing to dark till the dark has had its say. The daisies I planted, thinking they were asters, are a thicket, of no use to me, though they grow tall, flower when there are few other flowers, their petals forming a pale, feathery corona round a golden eye. Brush my hip as I take the step. Back at the underpass, I correct myself: surely he must have a home. I exit the highway, pass under cars speeding and fuming their smoke above. My heart is a weight. The flowers arch like a Roman bridge over the walk. The boy’s hair’s a blond halation. He pauses, sees only movement, just a parting where he might take the road. Genius who does not meet my eye, whose gaze rakes over ripple and heat, whose titular flower I’ve let flower, your silks unfurl before me in a brief flame but I regret them, I’ll unroot them, tear them out before snowfall— you, whose hymn is unvenerated, whose home is shadow. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue My friend Ann identified a little fringe-petaled flower that blooms in autumn for me—among other names, it is called a Michaelmas daisy. They grow quite prolifically in my yard, and once, she even gave me a start of a particularly lovely variety. This prolificity ends up being an analogue for the recurrence of figures, ideas, stories, especially ones that seem at this point to be locked into a season, an annual moment, a certain slant of light, as Dickinson said. Michaelmas is, of course, a very old festival on the ecclesiastical calendar. I loved finding these things out, and making a poem out of them. .................................................................................................................................................................................... LISA BICKMORE is the author of three books of poems and is the publisher of Lightscatter Press . She is the poet laureate of the state of Utah. lisabickmore.com Next - For Hank Williams by Lisa Bickmore Next

Stand Up Comedy by Joel Long Beauty is the joke at the gallows. Look at all this golden grass against the sky, tattered clouds. Look at all the water, hills in wrinkled linen. And the spine begins to laugh the center of soot. Look at the sheen beneath the cliff, the cliff inside it, the swallows cutting air in rainbow strips. I wave hands above me, likely to lift to the flight of swallows, their blue, precise tails like wood chisels. Beauty makes a crack at the funeral. Magpie falls from cottonwoods, inking calligraphic letters, the dead guy’s middle name, landing on a fence post, the barbed wire ringing minor key. Beauty punches the dumb boy, in the nose nods tiny flowers everyone ignores until they trip, come face to face with an aster— oh stars against me, so soft lavender. Disaster is a heckler behind the blind comedian, shut down with quick retort, the stars don’t give a damn about you, simian mouther, plankton, albatross of the flea. Beauty proceeds to dip the sun in pink and lower it over the farmhouse, the bottom road, cow sounds, birds, tractor humming, the broken field. Beauty collects the paycheck from the entrepreneur with the stolen cigar, gets into the broke-down jalopy and drives on. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue This poem was born out of grief in Montana where the beauty of my home state was relentless in spite of my suffering. I suppose there is a cynicism in the tone of the poem, but ultimately, I think it taught me that beauty sustains me against suffering. The line, “the stars don’t give a damn about you” is a paraphrase o f Neil Degrasse Tyson’s reply to my daughter Hannah (assistant editor for Cosmos ) when she asked him what he thought of astrology. .................................................................................................................................................................................... JOEL LONG'S book of essays Watershed is forthcoming from Green Writers Press. His book Winged Insects won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Lessons in Disappearance (2012) and Knowing Time by Light (2010) were published by Blaine Creek Press. His chapbooks, Chopin’s Preludes and Saffron Beneath Every Frost were published from Elik Press. His poems and essays have appeared in Gettysburg Review , Ocean State Review , Sports Literate , Prairie Schooner , Bellingham Review , Rhino , Bitter Oleander , Massachusetts Review , Terrain , and Water-Stone Review , among others. He lives in Salt Lake City. Next - The Organization of Bones by Joel Long Next

Waiting Around after Walking Around by Pablo Neruda by Trish Hopkinson It so happens, I am tired of being a woman. And it happens while I wait for my children to grow into the burning licks of adulthood. The streaks of summer sun have gone, drained between gaps into gutters, and the ink-smell of report cards and recipe boxes cringes me into corners. Still I would be satisfied if I could draw from language the banquet of poets. If I could salvage the space in time for thought and collect it like a souvenir. I can no longer be timid and quiet, breathless and withdrawn. I can’t salve the silence. I can’t be this vineyard to be bottled, corked, cellared, and shelved. That’s why the year-end gapes with pointed teeth, growls at my crow’s feet, and gravels into my throat. It claws its way through the edges of an age I never planned to reach and diffuses my life into dullness— workout rooms and nail salons, bleach-white sheets on clotheslines, and treacherous photographs of younger me at barbecues and birthday parties. I wait. I hold still in my form-fitting camouflage. I put on my strong suit and war paint lipstick and I gamble on what’s expected. And what to become. And how to behave: mother, wife, brave. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue “Waiting Around” has been published in Voicemail Poems , Nasty Women Poets Anthology , Thank You For Swallowing , PoetryPasta , Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness , East Coast Literary Review , Verse-Virtual , and was originally published by Wicked Banshee Press. This poem remains one of my all-time favorites. I wrote it before my first non-university publication and it received second place in a university contest, so this is the piece that really pushed me to seek out publication in literary magazines. I’d say in that way, it also led me to a very important step in my poetry career, which was to start my website to help other poets learn about how to get published. Today it is my most published poem and still a favorite to read at events. .................................................................................................................................................................................... TRISH HOPKINSON is the author of A Godless Ascends (Lithic Press, 2024) and an advocate for the literary arts. You can find her online at SelfishPoet.com and in western Colorado where she runs the regional poetry group Rock Canyon Poets. Next - The Problem with Mrs. P by Michael Shay Next