spring 2020
Table of Contents
Return to Home PageBreathturning Chris Checkwitch
Communion of Tongues
Hege A. Jakobsen Lepri
A Twohanded Cut
The Tornado Cut
The Pandora Cut
Torben Robertson
There Is No Substitute for Good Planning
Erin Kirsh
she is in the kitchen now
Nora Pace
Humid Weather
Me of Me
Catherine Strisik
Monologue of a Fly's Shadow
Monologue of a Cow's Shadow
Danielle Hanson
Another Vision
Patricia Nelson
Six Gray Moons on a Screen
Eleanor Kedney
Stem of Old French Creistre, To Grow
Of Stinging Nettle
Page Hill Starzinger
blue light
Stephanie Yue Duhem
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Nachos
Jessica Covil
Like the best myths
Medusozoa
Sarah Lyons-Lin
Moon Turned Her Half Face From Me
Lawrence Feuchtwanger
sold separately Lesley Battler
A Symptom of Resignation
The Gee Whiz Element of Tropical Storms and Symphonies
Jen Karetnick
Supermarket Lobsters
Robbie Gamble
Tchaikovsky, Age 52, Finds His Inspiration
John Barton
Family Dinner
In Which I Re-name My Father
Poem Containing Only Words I Hate
griffin epstein
Breathturning
and of your fire and breath,
melt down and integrate
—“Tribute to the Angels” by H.D.
Bronchioles,
fractal, diminish in
diameter while on they
lead air thereto open
into waiting
alveoli.
The diaphragm-drawn swell
of an inhale:
to tissue, given
as enjoyment.
Wider open, sampled,
altered in the cycle’s
half-point lull. Exhale
could not precede
osmotic stride to equilibrium.
Gaseous vegetal by-product
nourishes blood
which offers ash in turn
that it may float its way
once more to patient leaves.
Liturgical, this dance
maintains the wheel
that swings the scythe of harvest.
Separate, interior system:
you melt into the world.
Self, other-leavened: cells
swallow the warmth of an intimacy.
Respiration fuels a heartbeat
midst its gas economy:
this instant-red
blood cells swim counter to
those blue with carbon waste.
Dance of living anchored in the element.
Rhythm interlinking
every life, the latter
yet remaining free.
Through lipid temples,
sunk in living
water, fire
breathes in
me.