“Under the Sea,” Photograph by Fay Henexson

The hallway mirror is veined with gold paint,
each square a repetition of the last,
making the distance from the living room
to my bedroom look farther than it is.
One step, two steps, three and safe
to hold the door shut with thin arms
against whoever wants in tonight.
My parents buy a lock,
it’s broken within a month.
Replacing it would be a waste of money.

Jennifer Schomburg Kanke is originally from Columbus, Ohio and currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida where she teaches creative writing and critical theory at Florida State University. Her work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, and Nimrod.

Read an interview with Jennifer here.

“Tree Bark #2,” Photograph by Fay Henexson

From Barks, no title

Dante and William pulled Gabriel
by the hand, in just that kind of way
little girls would, dressed in lacy
Sabbath shoes, tip toeing to the attic
where someone hid a secret from old
grandmother, and if they didn’t put
up a finger to their lips — the cat
would rend the poke in two with so
many laughters. It is uncountable —
“Shh,” they said and brushed his
tawny feathers between their wide
open palms in turns, “We’re straightening
our scarves about your neck, for tomorrow
some sun would like to glance about your
eyelashes.” Gabriel blushed. How he did.

From Vois, no title

Lest a we
sunder the gravel toothed
yesterdays’ big burp,
I light candles
and make single
a self in knowing
there be another I
than me – hallelujah
the brain, the vat
and them birds that
call out how time
is not but space with
light and light
with space – and
the tree nymphs cackle the grandest
middle fingers with
the opal story of
stone and root
and ever green in
mind. And on Olympus
they draw straws
and make card castles
not batting an eye
on the difference
between Delphi
and Solomon –
drink up, Zeus thunders
a surely nominative thy
and begins to speak
in ships and in –
anon, anon, anew.

Magdalene Fry is a single-parent advocate from Wayne County, West Virginia, and was educated at Anglia Ruskin and Marshall Universities. She lives in Michigan with her daughter and works as a mental health and wellness coordinator. These selections are from her books Barks and Vois.

“Red Volcano,” Photograph by Fay Henexson

today is little white birds and the silent sun
and airplanes, repeating themselves
and sirens

where are you going, friend?
haven’t you heard?
the world is cold, and made of glass

Liam Cloud Hogan is a student in the Writing B.F.A. program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. This is his first professional publication.

“Broken Sunset,” Photograph by Fay Henexson

One day you imagine the grandmother you need
and find her living in a Swedish bakery serving
tea to customers in wooden booths on wooden
floors in her sweet and steamy shop where she
feeds your hunger for cinnamon and vanilla,
your dream of comfort from butter and baking, the
yeasty promise of pastry curling and browning.

You ring the bell and a door swings open on a
ritual you make so she can greet you. If she speaks
Swedish you will never know. Her intuition is precise
and proofed in silence. The blend of tea she serves
you cannot tell. Her cures are brewed in brightly
painted pots, steeped in mystery, poured into China
cups on saucers she sets steaming under your nose.

Her intention is to love you no matter what and you
learn to let that be a nice surprise. You learn to trust
she means what she makes you feel, warmed and
wanted, sweetened and safely seated, belonging.

Every time you ring the bell a door swings open and
she is there to greet you until the day she doesn’t
because she is dead. You thought she lived where
she would live forever, but your imagination means
more than that. What she leaves you is the shop,
your place in it, and the mystery of who you must
serve in her absence.

Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from the Boston area. Her poems are published in many literary magazines, including “Lumina Online,” “Corium,” “Cape Cod Review,” “Kindred,” and “Tupelo Quarterly,” and her award-winning poetry chapbook, “All These Cures,” was published by Lit House Press in 2014. Kelly’s award winning plays have been produced around the US and Canada, and are published by dramatic publishers. Kelly founded and produces the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights at Wellesley College, now in its 10th year, and she serves on the boards & faculties of The International Women’s Writing Guild, and the Transformative Language Arts Network. Her new book of poetry & prose will be published by Finishing Line Press in 2016. Her website is kellydumar.com

 
“Shimmer,” Photograph by Fay Henexson

When I woke I thought the sun was shining,
but it was only the overhead light
burning in my daughter’s pink and white room.

Grey light filtered through the leaves of the ash
that tapped on my bedroom window all night
making me dream of rain. I drew the blinds

on the tear-streaked morning, the muddy light,
the ash. I stepped across the hall to find
my daughter fingerpainting on the wall,

her hand a rainbow in mid-air. Still drenched
in dreams of loss, I leaned in the doorway
and watched her paint, one after another,

a yellow sun
shining on a red house
next to a green tree
by a white bridge
crossing a blue river.

Rachel Crawford is a writer, teacher, and editor whose poems and stories appear in Red Rock Review, Mudlark, Lucid Rhythms, The Lyric, Figures of Speech, Apeiron Review, Red River Review, The Yellow Chair Review, Illya’s Honey, Freshwater Poetry Journal, Adanna Literary Journal (forthcoming), Literary Juice, The Wayfarer: A Journal of Contemplative Literature, Anima Poetry Journal, Crack the Spine, Her Texas, Rock & Sling: A Journal of Witness, and RiverSedge. She lives in central Texas with her husband and daughter.