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Past Lives... That's Still a Thing, Right? by J. Diego Frey In my most recent past life, I was almost exactly the same I am now (same job same body shape and fear of spiders same wrinkled cotton wardrobe) except that my hair was curly my name was Margery and my beard was longer. Oh, and I had tentacles where my ears are now. Personal-sized octopus arms, about the thickness of a Marks-a-Lot brand magic marker and long enough to hold in front of my face a cob of buttered corn, which I would eat using the same chewing motions that I do now. In the life before that, prior to the great gene wars of the 2050s, I was shorter, and chubbier, hairier in all the wrong places. And I sold pet insurance to the nervous widows of Omaha. There must be some record of the life that proceeded that but the ether is murky. I was a sort of famous vaudeville act a few lives prior to that. On stage, animal noises would resonate through my enormous, hairy proboscis. In make-up, I had the head of a donkey. My showbiz-name was J. Donkey Frell. A big nose and a fey artistic tendency described my person through an extended series of lives during a dozen generations preceding this, always one of many similar, short, hairy men, weak of will and chin falling always to the sad symphonies of war or at least the singing telegram of venereal disease. Little known fact: Chlamydia…got its name from a character in an unpopular satiric opera I wrote in Vienna in the 1800s. Mostly, though, the spirits describe me as just a surfer of the lower to middle layers of society in a succession of Balkan territories. Notably, once, in the 17th century, I was, due to a clerical error, the Pope for three weeks. Remarkable—my eyeglasses prescription has been almost the same in every life. I don’t want to brag but the gypsy told me that a few thousand years ago, I was a red show pony named Fernutis— rumored to be quite handsome. The gypsy rules our lives. She twists the fabric of time and reality into dental floss. Do not forget to tip the gypsy. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue This is a newer poem by me—first draft written maybe 3 years ago. It’s a much longer poem than the previous example. I’ve always felt more comfortable with the short poems, always worrying about overstaying my welcome. But lately I’ve been trying to stretch things out a bit. Mark Doty talks about pushing yourself past the end of your draft to discover where the poem is going to go after your current last line, and it turns out that can be a fun exercise. Mostly I hope that I am keeping the energy all the way through this poem. It starts out with a nice juicy image, so most of my revisions have been along the lines of enriching the subsequent imagery (hmmm…just noticed how close the word imagery is to the name Margery…). Thanks for sticking with the poem over all 23 stanzas! I hope this poem will be an anchor for my new, yet-to-find-an-interested-publisher collection, Froot Loop Moon . .................................................................................................................................................................................... J. DIEGO FREY is a poet living in the Denver area, which is where he grew up and never completely escaped. He published two quite likable collections of poetry, Umbrellas or Else and The Year the Eggs Cracked with Colorado publisher Conundrum Press. jdiego.com Next - Interstellar by David Romtvedt Next

Predictions of the Past by Alison Moore Maybe I need an excuse to come here. The dog needs a walk, and during the day nothing is half as haunted as night. There’s evidence— the dead have been reading, not nineteenth century novels not personal letters or sweepstakes rules, but the Northwest Arkansas Times. The pages are all over the graves. Not the section called “Living,” not the horoscopes, certainly not the future which no longer concerns them, but the wants ads, all those vacancies: rooms with views, sublets, yard sales, must-sees and have-to-sells. Possibilities of one sort or another. Are they planning on coming back? Or simply curious about the places that have opened up now that they are gone? I wonder— is there such a thing as the Reincarnation Times , a deity writing the personals: Middle-aged couple in Des Moines looking for eleventh-hour child, orphans a plus all expenses paid. Lonely heart takes a beating, apply within. My dog runs among the papers, spooked by the way they ride the wind, rustle and snag on the tilting wire stands that once held ribbons and wreaths. She flushes a cardinal and it lands in a nearby cedar, a red gash in the wood, watching. There are families here, but none of mine. My father, who art in Virginia, a drifter reduced to ash. I threw him to the wind five years ago, from a rusted bridge over the Rappahannock. He’s drifting, still. He won’t stay put, certainly not beneath the stone that bears his name in Orlean, in the family plot next to his sister, the one he didn’t mean to kill. He was nine, lifting his father’s shotgun. She was seven, and simply walking up the stairs when the bullet met her, one step below the landing. And so—is this why I’m here— to summon my father, former journalist, to a cemetery in Arkansas to read the paper? He won’t look for a job; he never did. For once he’s not going to comment on the headlines, give a lecture about the whims of the gods, the cost of hubris, or the Real Reasons for the War Between the States. He will concern himself, finally, with what he might need, beginning with minutiae, the useless and marvelous he can now afford: Hermes Typewriter (letter X sticks, otherwise excellent condition ). Printing press (needs work, runs good ). Trunk of Confederate Bonds (like new! ) And best of all, a 1912 Remington rifle (never fired). He can barely bring himself to lift it. It’s heavy and I have to help. It’s all right , I say, I’m right behind you. He closes his eyes, squeezes the trigger. The sound that should have been thunder is no more than a harmless click, the most beautiful of vacancies, the empty chamber. No child will fall. The bird watches from the tree, a red ribbon with wings, ready to disappear. It won’t. It stirs; it stays, sings. Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue “Predictions of the Past,” was awarded an Honorable Mention by the Patterson Review for the Allen Ginsberg Prize. The title came from a billboard in North Carolina advertising a palm reader who offered “Predictions of the Future and the Past.” It struck me as ironic and perfect. We think we can predict the past with some certainty, but what if we could revise it? This poem is ultimately about a family tragedy. My father, as a boy, accidentally killed his younger sister with a double-barrel shotgun. He never spoke of it. So I did. .................................................................................................................................................................................... ALISON MOORE is s a graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and a former Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing in the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Arizona. She is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in fiction, and tours with the multi-media humanities program, "Riders on the Orphan Train" which she co-created with the musician Phil Lancaster. ridersontheorphantrain.org Next - The Queen of Hell by Karin Anderson Next

we've been out dancing by Gabriela Halas Throb of blood flows like sweet sap to rhythms both old, and unorthodox. Could the pluck of grass be set to measure? The pull of water from an upturned palm be set to song? Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Currrent Issue Sometimes the beauty of poetry is in its simplicity—the ability to convey a lot w ith so little, in tangible, literal words. Nothing shrouded, nothing obscure or abstract. The word 'simplicity' is not often used in a positive way with poetry but I feel like that can be such a strength. The poem "we've been out dancing" is just that, a way to celebrate movement in our bodies that feels both ancien and like we are experiencing it for the first time. .................................................................................................................................................................................... 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 - northern climate II by Gabriela Halas Next

Hiroshi Tanahashi by Jerry VanIeperen echoes travel across the icy sea foam in cherry blossom sundown the Dome crowd quakes Hiroshi Tanahashi leaps from the top rope falling in love, frog-splashed against the mat in magnitudes in cherry blossom sundown the Dome crowd quakes Tanahashi wasn’t born a constellation falling in love, frog-splashed against the mat in magnitudes all the neon signs illuminate the borders of ropes Tanahashi never born a constellation when the world swoons in uncharted patterns of lava and stars all the neon signs illuminate the borders of ropes the sweat and spectacle captured in a camera’s eye when the world swoons in uncharted patterns of lava and stars Hiroshi Tanahashi leaps from the top rope the sweat and spectacle captured in a camera’s eye Tanahashi echoes a constellation over the icy sea Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to First Issue I arrived at a point of liberation where I decided I was going to write poetry about pro wrestling—former Utah Poet Laureate David Lee said that may be the greatest oxymoron of his time, which I took as encouragement. I watched wrestling with my grandpa, it was the topic that got me back in touch with a dear friend after years apart, and it was also common ground, for a time, I shared with my son. So, it’s fairly meaningful to me, and I’m especially proud of how this poem about a Japanese pro wrestler turned out. .................................................................................................................................................................................... JERRY VANIEPEREN lives heartily in Utah with two children, two dogs, and one wife. He earned an MFA from the University of Nebraska and was a founding editor of the poetry journal Sugar House Review . Next - Pissing Towards the Sky by Jerry VanIeperen Next

Knotted Wrack by Maureen Clark I can see now that it was a winter for travel although I never left the house in Bountiful and the cat rarely traveled far from the southern windowsill I traveled to the edge of belief my religion like seaweed tangled around my ankles pleading to some God: help me traverse this trouble the loss of the religion I traveled with my whole life I am searching for the right word to describe this battle with my old self those unpredictable words that I see out there beyond my small life I want to travel to those exotic places where I might find the woman I believe I really am the woman I want to be authentic and unrepentant as thunder and lava the woman just out of my reach the object of all my inner battles I have been defined: weaker sex helpmeet the kept woman goodwife better half one of nature’s agreeable blunders the woman behind the man sister second-class citizen, I live in the heart of Bountiful where my story is full of women ruled by religion women sacrificed to religion for man’s love of God more than woman the tangled sacred sense of God turns out to be the Devil’s shoelace seaweed in thin filaments that trip the logic beached lumps of seaweed the smell of salt a time of wrack and loss and women cast up cast out scapegoats I want a word to describe this kind of wordlessness I am labeled by this language so many words none of them written by women I am not a consolation prize a word that can be underlined pinned down I am the word dangerous the word wild I can only travel in one direction I’ll be a scalpel cutting out the words that insist I take someone else’s word for it not my own here in Bountiful I will weave an elaborately and bountiful life of shells and string and the words I’m not supposed to think question I can’t ask caught in this seaweed my whole life a sweet tangle of weeds separating the self from the saint/sorceress/sinner/seaweed the colors of the ocean I drown in I collect words for kelp: knotted wrack sea whistle gulfweed the cottage industry of green bottle seaweed the metaphor for a woman’s hair what is acceptable what is not chenille seaweed black tang lady wrack carrageen mermaid’s fan I will find a way to travel away from my past unknotting myself travel to an ocean big enough for Saturn to float surrounded by seaweed I will find answers there that I can’t find in Bountiful where I drown in the unappreciated bounty of identical houses a cherry tree in each yard bountiful place in the desert of roses near the Great Salt Lake where no seaweed beaches just crusted salt oolitic sand the bounty of silence of being silenced how ironic that Bountiful is the place where I lose my religion where it’s not just a word for abundance where I am finally full of loss enough to let go and accept the bountiful imperfection of myself this is where I live just a woman who is naming herself one letter at a time a woman who lives in a kind of poverty so rich I can be full of questions my feet bare I carry a jar of ointment I am a traveler looking for answers I will choose what I need to take with me I travel towards my own definition the one I choose I travel alone into this bountiful place to become a woman who gathers words and stones shells and seaweed a woman who hoards her verbs Share: Facebook X (Twitter) Copy link Back Back to Current Issue I wrote this poem about fifteen years ago. I was reading the poem “Lennox Hill” by Agha Shahid Ali from his book Rooms Are Never Finished (W.W. Norton, 2001) and the repetition of the Canzone was mesmerizing. This was a poem that took a long time to compose. Any kind of poetic form needs to work without drawing attention to its rhymes and repetitions. The Canzone felt like the perfect form for the project of trying to explain the journey o f a woman leaving the religion she has always belonged to and arriving at a place where she could define herself. The repetition was a good tool for this often-circuitous journey. [Editor’s Note: “Knotted Wrack” has since been published inThis Insatiable August (Signature Books, 2024), and was nominated for The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best of the Small Presses .] .................................................................................................................................................................................... MAUREEN CLARK retired from the University of Utah where she taught writing for 20 years. She was the director of the University Writing Center from 2010-2014, and president of Writers@Work from 1999-2001. Her poems have appeared in Colorado Review , Alaska Review , The Southeast Review , and Gettysburg Review among others. Her first book is This Insatiable August (Signature Books, 2024). Next - Acrostic Lifeboat by Maureen Clark Next