The Captives

Nestled deep in the clutter of dad’s dimly lit garage,
past the dartboard and the Budweiser poster,
above the lucky rabbit foot and below his black cowboy hat,
the snake hid in the aquarium.

I was seven when dad let me watch him feed the snake.
When dad dropped the frantic mouse,
the snake lowered its head reverently,
an alien wetly opening a pink, glowing mouth.

The snake’s discarded skin was covered in sand,
last night’s crumpled gown. In its barren eyes,
I searched for a glimmer of cruelty or guilt,
but I’d read that snakes can hardly see.
Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right place.
Its soul must have been in the dark corners
of its black, forked tongue,
sewn in skin
that glistened with fiery beams
under the vanishing light of a single lightbulb.

The mouse – I almost forget.

The silent air
kept the secret of death,
whether it mattered at all,
from me.

Reflected in the dark glass
are four lonely captives,
blind to nature’s love for devouring whole,
her genius for letting go.

By Yvette Saenz

Biography:

Yvette Saenz is a writer from Alice, Texas. Currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona, she received a Del Deo Foundation Artist Grant in 2020 and Honorable Mention for the 2023 Academy of American Poets University Prize at the University of Arizona. She received a BA in Social Studies from Harvard University.

GREEN BEANS ALMONDINE

It is hard sometimes, this infinite joy.
My world is shadows, sure, like yours.
But these are rendered thin, backlit
by the blaze of green beans almondine, bells
that ring loudest when ringing not at all,
the triple sun that is the nape of your neck,
and me watching it, and you not knowing
I am watching it. What is darkness
when there are marigolds and marzipan?
Where is death when I am in love
over and over and over with you,
when you pass me in the street
a hundred times an hour as a mother
with her carriage, as the old men in their tweeds,
the pickpockets and grifters, the ones
that chase me, the ones that don’t? To keep
my head I hold all this on my tongue, roll it
into something safe, and when you ask
what I am thinking, tell you olive juice.

By Jacquelynn Berton

Under the Thatched Roof

a place of humble beginnings,
where walls of clay stood proud,
and under the thatched roof we called home,
we learned the beauty of hard work and respect.

days were long and the sun blazed,
my mother toiled over the wood stove,
her love poured into every meal,
and my father worked the fields with unwavering strength

but it was within these walls,
under this thatched roof that we found refuge,
where we shared beds and whispered secrets,
and dreamed of a future where our struggles were nut memories

our home was small,
but it held much love,
and even in the face of poverty and hunger,
we found comfort in each other’s embrace.

under the thatched roof,
we learned to find joy in simplicity,
to cherish the bonds of family,
and to never lose hope for a better tomorrow.

our house was a sanctuary,
a place where we grew and learned,
and through it all, we remained resilient,
held together by the love that was poured into every brick

now, as i look back on those days,
i am grateful for the lessons learned,
and the strength that was born under the thatched roof,
a symbol of the unwavering spirit of its people.

By Erinola Daranijo

Biography:

Erinola Daranijo is a poet and writer from Nigeria. He is the founder of Akéwì Magazine and the author of the micro-chapbook, An Epiphany of Roses, forthcoming from Konya Shamsrumi. His work is published/forthcoming on Brittle Paper, the Kalahari Review, the Hooghly Review, Isele Magazine, Auroras and Blossoms, amongst others. When he isn’t writing, you can and will find him taking a nap in his bed. He tweets over at @Layworks.

An Ode to Cycles, Until It Isn’t

chickens lay the eggs lay the chickens / listen, the roads have not stopped
being paved / children lay bikes beside sidewalk streets / there is yelling
in the yard / the silence that follows / the hollow creaks beneath tip-toe’d needs
met wherever the food is kept / eat, sleep / “I’m softer on you than my old man was
me” / repeat history / love sounds like anything else / “help” / empty echoes / pain
we didn’t mean to spread / stains we can’t get out / washers / dryers / spinning, spinning,
spinning / words that live rent-free between our ears / empty beer bottles / dishes pile high /
generation after generation asks the sky “why?” / liquid evaporates into vapor, tapers off to
condensed clouds, down to earth for rain again / this precipitation feeds the seed stage,
germination, growth, reproduction, pollination, and yes, more seed dispersal / each performance
a dress rehearsal for someone else / the deprived student turned giving teacher / the abused child
turned loving parent / there is adjustment in the air / it takes care / we are after restoration /
observe the plane confirm there are patterns we can break from / it is well / despite the migraine
of endless repetition, spun out from that cycle can come something else.

By Joel Holland

Biography:

Joel Holland is a 2019 college graduate from Union University and 2022 professional program graduate from UCLA. Joel’s first poetry collection, After All, is available on Amazon or wherever you can find your books. Joel is currently sitting in a church in Kansas City, rewriting a poem, and missing Jimmy McGill. He would like to thank his wife, Chlo for encouraging him to send things out.

undomestication

horses
in the walls of my heart.
horses whisking,
manes like waterfalls.
my ribcage swells:
a wooden pin
thrashed against,
impacted by restlessness:
receptive as a gong,
defined by vibration:

each brush incapacitating.
thought stampedes.

derealized,

under an ominous sky I see myself
to an extent, as though beyond
mounding dust
the hooves of my mind send up
running from itself.
running after itself.

sometimes, I will catch a horse.
I try to make it drink
from my hands, yet private ponds
cannot host. yet I must
teach my pervicacious horses
to sip without rippling.

shivery flexes.

sometimes my horses cannot stop shuddering.
sometimes I cannot help

but wish I could see myself straight,
rather than merely in peripheries.
overcast,
the pupils’ moonless wells
amplify wildness…

sometimes, I will catch
the horse’s insolence
to discipline.

By Emily Ellison

Biography:

Emily Ellison is a graduate of Texas State University’s MFA in Creative Writing program; she was the inaugural interviews editor of their literary journal Porter House Review (winner of Best Debut Magazine during the 2020 CLMP Firecracker Awards), in which her conducted interviews are located. Her poetry can be found in Southword: New International Writing, Breakwater Review, and Foothill Journal, among other places; she was also a runner-up for The Raw Art Review Walt Whitman Prize for Poetry in 2018. Currently, Emily and her cat-in-crime Pancake are appreciating the pacific northwest.

updates from when we last saw each other

other let’s be honest – i sucked at the violin.
there’s that one video of us playing “Ave Maria,”
the sound of you strumming the guitar so beautifully
interrupted by my bow hitting notes
too flat or too sharp.

you would’ve never seen it coming,
but Caio plays the guitar just like you.
music made from “Eterna Saudade”
sounds like eyes pooling with water
and i love you and i want you here.

i remember when you watched me dance,
cried like i was performing at the bolshoi
even though i still didn’t understand beats
or how i was supposed to communicate grief
with a body i wasn’t living in.

i still recognize you through Cavatina,
hear you telling me to sit with you
to drink a little coffee and split a baguette.
i wonder whether you’d recognize me too.

By Caro De Sa