A splinter pierces my left heel

but I’ll stay in these woods

for you, Alice

Pick dirt from under fingernails

flick crescent crusts

at two kissing snails

They dance so quietly

for each other

They dance like us

Three years ago

I wrote you poems for

Valentine’s Day

Scraps of similes

on receipts and Post-It notes

You glued my love into your

red leather book

with an A on the cover

More Scarlet Letter

than our initial to me

I take cover under snail shells

as the rain rolls in and

tell the two lovers how

my mother 

spat Whore when

I kissed your cheek

Lightning rips trees

down in one strike

Snails ask about

the A sewn into my hem

My mother used to sharpie AW

on my daycare shirts

so no one would steal them

I steal glances at two lovers

kissing in the rain

The snails are lesbians

I can declare this because

in this poem I am God

Did their mothers ever

initial their swirling 

shells for safekeeping 

or pinch them in church 

for being too loud?

Alice, you were my wild treetop

mossy root religion

To snails I am not God, just

a fragile giant filled with

You aren’t allowed to see her again-

Don’t tell the neighbors-

Shame

I tuck one lover behind each ear

let them nibble at my neck hairs

Yes, Alice, I am selfish but

these snails have never seen the sea

So I am taking them 

there to you

walking splinter-footed 

towards your boardwalk

Amanda Wolf

This morning the

cat lays on your back as

I count the freckles 

on your shoulder. They

cover you like glitter, 

like raindrops, so

delicate I’m afraid to 

touch you, lest I 

disrupt the cat or your freckles. 

Your face is turned away 

from me, and 

it is raining, tapping gently 

on the window.

Last night it 

was pouring, slapping 

against the window. 

We kissed so hard

we tasted 

blood. You kissed your 

way up and down 

my body we tasted each 

other, and you 

killed me, we 

both died only 

to be resurrected by 

the cat’s demand for food.

Olivia McKnight

A girl flickers by. 

She skates skillfully over the ground slick. 

The lights are burnt out, but still, she skates. 

Her head tilted towards the sky and stars, 

She lifts her hands up and in and she twirls, 

The world around her a snowy blur. 

It is cold, but she can’t feel a thing skating above the clouds.

 

Leaving trails of frost, 

She twirls in sync with the constellations 

And all the empty space in between 

And she is lost in the beauty of it all. 

She and her partner, 

A searing cold star, 

Glide across the rink. 

Hand in hand. 

In a slumping house hit hard by a winter storm, you might just find

A grinning girl in her warmest winter socks 

sliding over newly mopped wooden floors

With a glowing handheld lamp to guide the way.

Caroline Quan

The baby began to kick halfway through the service. Olivia winced with every spasm, hoping others would interpret her pain as grief. As she bent down in front of the casket, the baby administered its hardest kick yet, causing her to cry out sharply and fold forward across the body. Aunt Jean rushed forward to guide the young woman away, murmuring condolences through wrinkled lips. Olivia’s eyes watered from the pain, and she let the tears fall, composing the best melancholic expression she could manage. Just pretend, she reminded herself. A couple more hours, and you never have to see him again.

After the service, an unending stream of faceless people passed by her, squeezing her hand and uttering “I am so sorry for your loss,” or “Your husband is in a better place,” between perfumed hugs. Olivia could barely breathe in her black wool dress. From the punishing kicks coming from her stomach, it seemed the baby couldn’t catch its breath either.

Sixteen days later, the boy kicked his way through her body and into the world. Purple and screaming, he flailed and beat his tiny fists at the doctors. Just like his father, Olivia thought, barely conscious and covered in blood. His final goddamn gift to me.

***

In the cemetery, a young woman walks towards a fresh grave. Placing a small, squirming bundle in front of the tombstone, she unleashes an agonized wail. The unwanted bundle echoes her cries, their two screams vibrating off each other like bats hunting in the night. The woman scratches at the marble lettering of the new tombstone. “You forced this into me, now take it back!” she sobs, looking at the bundle with hot hatred. The man in the grave does not answer. Hanged men never do.

Amanda Wolf

I wonder: 

Is this a new story, or a very old one? 

Send your rain in a square envelope 

The color of a paint swatch — 

Skyfall Oslo Cobalt Misty Blue. 

You can have 

my sunrise. We cover our mouths but not our eyes.

Check your mail for a square envelope Solid and

warm to the touch 

And full of light that distance never dims.

Grace Regnier

Allison Tsai

The insides of my thighs are sore,
And my mind numb.
Summer is still young,
And I already feel regret welling up
Inside of me
For every moment spent with you.
I bet the water would’ve felt nice —
Better than those stale sheets
You insisted on swimming in,
Midnight to three,
Nine to noon…
And my Banana Boat gathers dust.

 

Raegan Allen

Allison Tsai

If you rack your brain looking for that
one sign of a lingering attraction that
may or may not have ever existed,
then you will find it.
Like searching the dark for monsters in your
room, you will start to make a coat rack into
something it’s not and will never be, and that
monster just might kill you.

 

Ana Vasquez

Helen Bradshaw