Poetry
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By E. L. McKee Scorpio 𖤓 | Cancer ⏾ | Sagittarius ↑ I think I’m finished with waiting for the stars to align. I’d rather not be at the behest of their fickle twinkling. The Big Dipper doesn’t get to decide, the Ram and Bear be damned— I won’t be governed by The Celestial Body…
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By M. B. Duffy Capricorn 𖤓 | Capricorn ⏾ | Virgo ↑ Is this body an anchor or a penal colony? A moot memory, a book etched in bone, Untranslatable as your dead grandfather’s extinct mother tongue, Still lingering in the syntax of your sleep As a ghost, harsh words pass through me As flesh, our hologram lifespan…
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By Molly McDonough I Warm salted water tumbles me like laundry to land. I swim back out unafraid. Wave after wave buoys my eleven-year-old body. It’s my favorite week of every summer—visiting my great aunt at Myrtle Beach. On the shore, my mom waves with her whole arms, cups hands to mouth and screams something.…
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By Najla Elmachtoub This piece has been selected by our editors to be nominated for the 2026 Pushcart Prize. “Bokra1, I will visit my brother in America,” you tell me, more like a fact than a desire. Every exhale of your cigarette affirms this belief and kisses my nose with our family scent: farm-soil-sweat and tobacco. You’re talking about…
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By Sandra Beth Levy I love flowers, especially as they roll open, surprise at each angle and iteration. But from you afar,always choose a phone callover a bouquet, the gift of your voice is more velvet.Always choose a home visit to sharefamily dinner over connectionat large lavish events, abundance is in the contagion of our…
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By Paul Hostovsky I used to think spring was the sexiest seasonbut now I think it’s fallwith all its burning smellsand the musculatureof the impatient trees with theirred pants down around their kneesalready—and all this talk of peakfoliage, which reminds me of the talkof orgasms, which are both the point andso beside the point. I…
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By Mahailey Oliver Mahailey Oliver (she/her, Pisces 𖤓 | Capricorn ⏾ | Pisces ↑) holds an MA in English from Stephen F. Austin State University. Her work has recently appeared in The Raven Review, Spark to Flame, and Blue Daisies Journal. For a full list of her publications, peruse her author website: https://sites.google.com/view/mahaileyoliver
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By Sarah Olive Full moon, cloudless skya child’s eye peering throughcardboard telescope Sarah Olive (she/her) is a writer from Kentucky. She earned her MFA from Western Kentucky University in 2023. In a past life, she served as editorial assistant for The Hunger journal and as a reader for Autofocus Lit. She can be found walking…
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By Joshua Lillie If I were a saguaroI’d only be two feet talland if I walked outand stood stillin that flat stretchof wild desertfor at least three years,pincushion cactuswould begin to corralaround my feetand fence me in andthey wouldn’t growmuch higher thanmy ankles but Iwould continueto grow olduntil I collapsed inon myself like a galaxyfizzling…
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By Christina Polge i gave up playing god on a thursday afternoon2pm walking homeshirt sticking to my backhumming that song about the willow tree peeling a scab off my forearm with one handwondering how much i could make myself sufferpraying in spurts of painthat’s what it was for me back then, religionblood drying on the…
A Curious Moon 