ISSUE 89
CONTENTS
AUGUST 2022
Pam Sinicrope
Geraldine Connolly
Malaya Stanger
Rayne Alarcio
Shlagha Borah
Rachel Neve-Midbar
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza
Bri Stoever
Batnadiv HaKarmi
Talya Jankovits
CONTRIBUTORS
Image description: An abstract digital collage with a background of faded newsprint and paint splatters in gray, pink, and purple. In the foreground is a swallow perched on top of a clock face. Dangling from the clock face are three skeleton keys. It looks as if they are blowing in a light breeze. In letters that look like they have been cut from magazines, the text reads, “I still carry a torch for you.” Below “you,” there’s a burning white candle in a gold candle holder.
Pam Sinicrope
FLARE WITH SALMON
Pain comes to visit, then it goes—
I ride the storm with dreams of fish,
salmon swirling against the flow
slickened with butter on an empty dish—
they leap and slap, but muscle through.
Pain comes to visit, but then it goes
as I nook into an eddy
neither daunted nor disheartened—
salmon swirl against the flow.
They slalom and spiral side to side,
an epic struggle to find a way—
pain comes to visit, but then it goes
deep into a twisting abyss—
I search for pathways to resist
like salmon swirling against the flow
or a sailboat tacking upwind,
zigging and zagging— time moves slow.
Pain comes to visit, then it goes—
salmon swirling against the flow.
Geraldine Connolly
IN THE ELEVATOR
he’s trying to pull me in,
no one nearby to watch
as the door ripples shut
and I see only
the burning ash,
his dyed locks,
nicotine-stained teeth,
Hi doll he whispers,
yellow claw twisting
my hand and the fear
like a sharp wind in my chest
there in my tight dress
and sling-back heels I see
no way out of
the terrible quiet, then
creaking, the rumbling down
please, no, please
I have to get back.
not down the elevator
with this man in a blonde wig
and felt hat, not his stale breath
fouling the air
the white shell and hot red edge
of his cigarette
the creaking, the rumbling down
as ashes scatter like red stars
and I not knowing
if or when I’ll ever
Malaya Stanger
CARRION
The Butcher is unfeeling. / Knows your anatomy / like the back of His hand,/ hangs you by
the feet / upside down / to bleed out like a pig./ It all flows down a drain./ Skin scraping skin
scraping skin./ Hell-bent. / Eyes rolling like / newborn maggots/ in diseased swine./ The
Butcher is unfeeling. / You are unseeing / third hole gouged / between your brows / & yet /
you still surrender.
Rayne Alarcio
LA GRADUATION: ABSTRACTION
Cap. Gown. Shivering in dresses and dress shirts.
Soaked socks cling
to toes like plastic-wrap to skin.
Violet-tinged
lightning
strikes cement.
Commencement of the rest
of your life.
On the corner, there’s an ancient sofa
sopping, sooty, stained with that dead person stench.
Graffiti sticks to stucco, and May Gray chokes downtown
skyscrapers like a musician grips a guitar neck
about to drop.
This type of life is not a pipe. Dream for the bedhead deadbeat
who shoves a stolen shopping cart from 99 Cents, across from the tent
cities of freeway bridges. This life is death in a glass elevator,
ceiling invisible, yet, you see the shoppers clearly.
And they see you
on display in HD
as you descend, salt
through a strainer.
The city is
not a movie.
That trench is
not a river.
This is
real life.
Palm tree
trunks bend
like the
backs of
ballerinas.
This is
the Treachery
of Images
in motion. Pictures on postcards
deceive dreamers.
The L.A. River’s a misnomer.
So is the City,
of Flowers and Sunshine.
Shlagha Borah
DAUGHTERING
I stretch her skin to fit mine.
Hope breeds hope. If the opposite of hope is despair,
it breeds itself too.
she spent eleven grand on a giant moon-
stone. I called it what it was:
ugly. now I buy crystals from online thrift stores.
reliance on anyone but kin, is what I learned
from her. the mole on her chin is the colour
of my iris. beauty mark versus bastard.
when you simmer coffee beans, what is its
aftermath. incense persists. unlike carrots
cushioning with heat. I remember where she lost
her softness. Queen’s Mansion, Esplanade,
gustating the music teacher. let me ask again,
when you simmer coffee beans,
what is its aftermath. nothing
is what I yearn to be. the least touched key
on the keyboard. now we sprinkle black salt
over all our fruit – papaya, cantaloupe,
heir. and pray it doesn’t burn.
Rachel Neve-Midbar
REFLECTION
Would you last more than a day without breath?
Oxygen withheld.
Then how did you last thirty years?
The woman within dissolves.
It happens.
The mirror leaks, her body contorts,
breasts erased like rubber
rubbed until pilled.
The house of her body pitted
as old fruit; left, the neat darkness
of pubic hair defining her
still: woman—
a bit of belly and bare
toes exposed to report:
she was here—in a mirror
that brims with emptiness.
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE STAY-AT-HOME POET
Put away the dishes, wipe the counters, sweep
the tumbleweeds of dog hair off the floor; move
as if the fear this work would keep you bound,
useless, adrift, forgotten, weren’t lodged stiff
between your lungs. The mirror fogs beneath
your breath, no matter what you ask of it.
Time bares its metal teeth, tick ticks the list
of things you could have, should have done and been.
Once wilder, now the chimney swift will nest
in any of a house’s narrow pockets—
winged things survive on less sky than you think.
Some stains settle; still, some lift. Let the ink
sit, soak in it, seek some subversive sonnet;
sort the laundry, pair the socks in couplets.
Bri Stoever
TRIPLE CHECK
The house will burn down, I know it
Triple check the unused stove is off
Stop thinking about fire fire fire fire fire
you can never be too safe
Triple check the unused stove is off
wiggle doorknob twice for good measure
you can never be too safe
all your stuff will be stolen, destroyed
wiggle doorknob twice for good measure
take a picture of closed garage, to be sure
all your stuff will be stolen, destroyed
you'll lose everything if you don't
take a picture of closed garage, to be sure
Go through this list five times
you'll lose everything if you don't
the thoughts will never stop if you're not sure
Go through this list five times
Stop thinking about fire fire fire fire fire
the thoughts will never stop if you're not sure
The house will burn down, I know it
Batnadiv HaKarmi
AFTER BIRTH
they punch you down. Kneed.
Fallen dough that won’t bake.
No one warns about the aftermath.
Belly moon beat
by asteroids; navel
a black hole.
Invisible umbilical
snakes down the hall—
connected to no one—
connected to no thing—
cry for baby
cry for mothers
cry for your mother—
did she go
down this way before?
distended belly crater—
how it is punched down.
Was life here? It is gone.
Was life here?
No place your own, no part
untorn. In the cold
hospital rain, look
at the glaring eye in the sky
navel twisted. Yeasty
hollow, how
it is punched down.
Dough body laid out—
unshaped. Naked
as never.
Punched.
Red rain. Distended
snake. Belly a hollowed tomb,
Your moon maw.
The mother’s
intimate navel. No yours.
No landscape for mothers.
Just the baby’s sad lone cry.
Talya Jankovits
IMPOSTER SYNDROME
I wish that when you reached
for me at night you could see
how tired I am how truly tired
not just from how sore my nipples
are from nursing the baby or from
how many times I mop up spilled
orange juice but from my lack of
self-worth how my student loans
are deducted each month from the
bank account you deposit money
into or from the growing silence
from the digital abyss that swallows
my queries whole in one bite until
maybe one agent might respond
with a rejection that explains why
I will never be a writer and how
no one ever asks you if you are a
professional veterinarian but I am
always asked if I am a professional
Issue 89 Contributors
Rayne Alarcio’s (they/them) work is published or forthcoming in the winnow magazine, Rogue Agent, Wrongdoing Magazine, Exposition Review, at LAX’s Terminal 7-8, and elsewhere. They are a Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Silver Medalist in Short Story. They attend Kalamazoo College. They tweet @raynealarcio. Their Instagram is @raynealarcio. Their website is raynealarcio.com.
Shlagha Borah (she/her) is a poet from Assam, India. Her work is forthcoming or appears in Longleaf Review, long con magazine, Ninety Seven Poems (Terribly Tiny Tales & Penguin), LiveWire, Aainanagar, GroundXero, and elsewhere. She works as Associate Poetry Editor at Doubleback Review and Editor-in-Chief at Shabd Aaweg. She is the co-founder of Pink Freud, a student-led collective working towards making mental health accessible in India. Instagram: @shlaghab Twitter: @shlaghaborah
Geraldine Connolly has published a chapbook and four poetry collections including Province of Fire and Aileron. She has taught at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland, The Chautauqua Institution and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland Arts Council, and Breadloaf Writers Conference and her work appears in many anthologies including Poetry 180: A Poem A Day for High School Students and The Sonoran Desert: A Field Guide. She lives in Tucson, Arizona. www.geraldineconnolly.com
Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, writer, and photographer. She is a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops and a reader for Split Rock Review/Press. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Peatsmoke, The Dewdrop, Saint Katherine Review, and elsewhere online and in print. Violeta lives with her family in Western Pennsylvania.
Batnadiv HaKarmi is a writer and visual artist who currently resides in Jerusalem. Her work has been published in Poet Lore, Belmont Story Review, Gray Sparrow Journal and is upcoming in Radar Poetry. A graduate of the graduate writing program in Bar Ilan University, she is the recipient of the Andrea Moria Prize for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the Brideport Prize. Her chapbook is upcoming from Kelsay Books. More work can be followed on www.batnadiv.com and on Instagram @batnadiv_art.
Talya Jankovits’ work has appeared in a number of literary journals. Her short story “Undone” in Lunch Ticket and her poem, “My Father Is A Psychologist” in BigCityLit, were both nominated for a Pushcart prize. Her micro piece, “Bus Stop in Morning” is a winner of one of Beyond Words Magazine’s, 250-word challenges. Her poem, “A Woman of Valor”, was featured in the 2019/2020 Eshet Hayil exhibit at Hebrew Union College Los Angeles. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and resides in Chicago with her husband and four daughters.
Rachel Neve-Midbar’s collection Salaam of Birds won the 2018 Patricia Bibby First Book Award and was published by Tebot Bach in 2020. She is also the author of the chapbook, What the Light Reveals (Tebot Bach, 2014, winner of The Clockwork Prize). Rachel’s work has appeared in Blackbird, Prairie Schooner, Grist and Georgia Review as well as other publications and anthologies. Her awards include the Crab Orchard Review Richard Peterson Prize, the Passenger Poetry Prize and nominations for The Pushcart Prize. Rachel, a current PhD candidate at The University of Southern California, is also editor of Stained: an anthology of writing about menstruation for the AuntFlo2020 Project.
Pam Sinicrope served as an editor for Howling Bird Press and is an MFA candidate at Augsburg University. She is a senior poetry editor for the new journal, RockPaperPoem. Some of her poems can be found in Spillway, The Night Heron Barks, The Muse, Aethlon, Indolent Books: Poems in the Afterglow, Literary Mama, 3 Elements Review, and Appalachian Journal. Pam lives in Rochester, MN. She has a doctorate in Public Health and engages in research to eliminate health disparities with a focus on cancer prevention. She enjoys time with her family, hiking with her dog, tennis, and independent films.
Malaya Stanger is a teen Native American poet who currently attends Nixyaawii Community School. She has previously been published in Body Without Organs. Other than writing, she also enjoys dancing, working with animals, and studying herbal medicine.
Bri Stoever is most interested in the connection between humans and their environments. She is a recent graduate of Iowa State University with an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment. Her work has been published in Neuro Logical, Ample Remains, Analogies & Allegories, and Your Impossible Voice.