there is a delicacy

to the way the days change hue. 

a tenderness that rips

from gray to blue

and back again.

AA

there is a terror

in the way that the weight

comes and goes, gold-heavy

and then light as browned leaves,

long-fallen. thick as a river

flowing blood-red, gushing and

dry with only a whisper.

AA

it is not an embodied thing, the weight.

it is a folding from within, a crumpling

like wet paper and a never-drying drip.

AA

it is a surrender of will, a passive fight

against a wind that sets whenever and wherever

it may. a well-held breath like a promise, a

well-kept secret like a curse, murmured over and

over and 

over like a command.

AA

tonight I feel very alive.

Nathan Rubin

Dina Sofair

You lay your heavy bald head on the white–– 

exhausted, whiskers still wet and 

dark like my father’s beard after a steak

bloody on the inside, just seared along the edges.

It is clear you know how to eat 

from the streak of red in front of you,

a bruise on the light skin

of ice. My boat quietly rocks on the water,

in your place of hunt––I am now prey, by definition,

I have known this. My careless wrist slips,

and the paddle slaps 

the surface; I gather my breath

as if anticipating the strike from a hand. 

The rolls of your neck fold back

with great force, and your eyes, black as 

the small room a boy is sent to, lock

with mine. You see me 

how my father does: foreign, benign, 

but also, with teeth. 

Blood beats harder through 

the pulse in my throat; though I fear 

being consumed,

how much worse it must be

to swallow everyone around you.

The few hairs along my smooth belly

pitch up with gooseflesh

as you open your mouth,

pink tongue big as a skinned 

salmon. I see your teeth,

mammalian like mine,

but we have evolved too far apart

to tell. I pity you 

how I do my father: impudent, brutal,

out of place. 

I paddle away. 

You tilt your head to the sky.

The lonesome song of the leopard

seal drifts out to sea.

Matthew Buxton

The receptionist rides her swivel chair, 

gliding with minimal exertion,

directs us 

routinely:

AA

the 7-year-old body lies before me 

so small. 

Sunken into the bed, 

hidden by a waffled sheet.

Parts exposed are

knotted to haunting tubes and bags—

all plastic 

AA

it’s so loud 

I squint

eyelashes are blackout curtains 

AA

iridescent strings of

cocky “get well soon” balloons

trickle down from the ceiling,

swaying

calmly,

tickling my neck with

phantom pains,

outsmarting me;

the casing of my throat is

accordion-creased;

pinholed airway,

hungry and wordless

AA

I balance the hospital tray on my lap,

puncturing it 

with my chewed up nails

AA

They screech

at the styrofoam

Jordyn Libow

As the call to prayer fades

into the shadows, echoing

against a dark sky, after

orange tracings have deepened

to maroon tattoos, after the vows,

my daughter removes glittery bangles 

from her arm, sharp

and loud like glass shattering.

AA

she stares in the mirror.

her husband quickly looks away, but his gaze

wanders back to the reflection

of empty wrists.

AA

she wipes off the coal streaks 

encircling her eyes, lipstick

next, her face is a blend

of watercolor, until it slowly returns

to even shades of amber.

It is muscle memory to her.

To him, it is new.

He says she looks beautiful.

AA

But as I leave for bed, I see

his hand trembling while he 

pushes her hair aside

making sure not to touch her skin.

Carefully, like a child 

by a stove that is far too hot to touch.

Zuha Jaffar

Eleanor Byers

Jason Kraft

I am trying to land back in my body

after tired attempts to make things

go away that don’t ever go away

(like ankle scars and memories and

the list of boys I wish I hadn’t

opened myself for). it seems my body

does not want me back. she is in bed

with a boy. she is telling him in naked

conversation that she hates being 

fingered—that it feels like pressing

a bruise—and I watch how he believes her.

he prods that bruise, knows the pain

will put her on her knees. her mouth

is wetter and takes him more easily.

AA

he falls asleep, so she and I head

home. she and I relearn each other’s

sad shapes. from within me

she says, a boy’s insertion is never

to please; it is only to render us

helpless. she says, will you try to keep me

safe. I do not love either of us enough

to mean the promises I make. I get in bed

with that boy again—admire his cruelty,

make sure he meant it. he thumbs

my hip bone like a broken button,

commands my legs to open,

and I wonder: will I ever come

to know how mouths speak?

Macy Perrine

October comes again and I am still a child, a speck 

lost on the water’s violent stillness. My face fat

and boyish, I am wasting away inside, cocooned

AA

in morphine’s black embrace. The days are waning, pulling

goosebumps from my skin. I hunker down behind my eyelids, 

staying warm. I am opening my throat, taking gulps of acrid syrup.

I am falling to the floor. 

AA

I’ve convinced myself my youth is used up, like

I’ve somehow spent it all in fifteen years. I am turning 

away from the world, slumped over a bus seat. I dream

AA

of dying, standing over the rocks at night, staring

out past the sea. The whitecaps lapping at one another like rabid dogs, 

their mouths frothing with salt. 

Averett Hickey

Matthew Buxton