RogueAgent

ISSUE 99
CONTENTS

JUNE 2023

Victoria Lau
Amanda Hawk
Smitha Sehgal
Jasper Glen
Nikki Ummel
Jessica Lee McMillan
Callie S. Blackstone
DS Maolalaí
Carson Wolfe
Bea Bolongaita

CONTRIBUTORS

Victoria Lau

ABECEDARIAN CONFESSION

A is for his Adam's Apple that I ate. To you I turn for penance.
B is for the Babbling, Constructing a Death sentence,
the Envy that fueled me to steal your Flame, your match made in heaven
for seven minutes in heaven.
G is for my Gluttony and Greed; listening to His Hisses,
he whispered: “Ignorance is not bliss.” Chose wisdom sealed with a Judas Kiss.
My Lust for Love, Murder: a blood honeymoon, my fifty sisters and I killed
fifty grooms, condemned for the blood spilled with endless water vessels to refill.
N, my Narcissistic selfies, I fell in love with my idealized doppelgänger,
my dependence on the kindness of strangers.
The Onerous tasks, and the ass undoing my hard work behind my back;
Opening Pandora's jar, the inability to swallow my Pride, the Pact
I made with the devil, pressing flowers, draining like Queen Anne's lace,
my Instagram feed, the black mirror who told me another woman had a prettier face,
and now I am forced to dance in Red-hot iron shoes. I once cheated
on a trig test, pegged as a Sloth but had a learning disability untreated,
couldn't figure out the value of Sin ø, or the value of me, and thought
I was ugly as sin, sailed off with a guy with a Sinbad tattoo, on his father's yacht,
took a wrong turn to Sin City, swan dived into the burning lake, skinny dipping;
then, he sold me out for thirty Silver bullets, like an Amazon package with free shipping,
I was out for delivery. Tantalized with the grapes and water I can never reach,
for feeding rotten baby carrots, baby cabbage and baby breath to a bunch of leeches;
cursed to keep rolling a large rock up a hill in the Underworld, sweat wiped by
Veronica's veil, the Werewolf's Wrath, the sins of Gen X becomes the sins of Gen Y. 

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was years ago—
an e-Zpass to cross the River Styx. Don't turn around, just go. Charon rows.

Amanda Hawk

DOCTOR

Doctor enters the room with hypoallergenic smile
and stethoscope noose.
His gaze is sterile, and he opens up my charts
to expand the volume of my waist.

He asks me if I like cake, and I shake my head no
I ask about the pain- the last flair up of cellulitis
rests in my nerves between my hip and knee.
Whenever I move my leg, it comes alive

in an army of snaps and spasms.
The doctor talks to me about Mediterranean
and hands me a piece of paper
full of low sodium shores and romaine resorts.

I ask again about the pain and its cripple kiss
which has left me off balance and a gradual growing limp.
He wants to discuss an exercise routine of small walks around the park.
I pull out my fitbit, and show him the map of electronic steps.

He talks about kale, and I show him pictures from 5Ks.
The doctor tells me I need to stop eating,
and I tell him I want to discuss the pain in my legs.
It hums and strums my muscles every time I move,

and my legs tighten as the pain cinches its grip tighter.
He tells me I need to stop eating cake,
and plucks my blood pressure from my chart and pins it to my chest,
then tells me he wants to retest me for diabetes, because my results must be wrong.

His face bloats and whitens, while his chest fluffs and expands
with his monotone speech on personal health.
His jacket drips over his frame in white frosting and he jerks my
arm into the blood pressure machine then squeezes me tighter and tighter.

I ask the doctor again about the pain, and he asks me-
Don’t you want to be thin; don’t you want to disappear-
then he shoves my hands full dietary pamphlets
and pushes me out the door into my fear.

He calls me a week after our appointment to talk diet plans
and I tell him I am limping now, and I miss weekends
dancing until my feet screamed my name and my body soared to the beat.
The doctor tells me he is going to prescribe me blood pressure pills.

The clinic sends me a text to ask to rate my service.
I respond with the word afraid over and over again,
and my mobility declines more and more each day.
I don’t give them number ratings

but leave emojis of crutches, skulls, needles and legs.
My fear keeps me company at the phone receiver,
while I wait for them to call about the pain
and my hands shake with the realization they will never respond.

I find the doctor on Yelp with sugar sweet smile
and the crumbs of his words settle upon my keyboard.
I wrap my legs in diet pamphlets but they still throb
and wobble with each step, but fingers work fine

with rage clatter speed and grim smile determination
And I type I hate cake, I hate cake, I hate cake
again and again, while I look
him straight in the eyes.

Smitha Sehgal

MOUTH PART

faint light folded in perplexity,
the art of sinking chelicerae,
cross diagonal web,
a voice that drops like a swamp
before the night washes in,
vowels fizzling out into the hollow
of the sea, claiming lower lips,
fangs of venom,
limbs paralyzed in the sugar garden
where you pre-digest me
liquified on the first poem
about migrants and flamingoes.

Jasper Glen

MY DAD’S RADIATION MASK

A sudden white hood
Over the dining room table.
A Birdman revival; a gaudy
Article: plague doctor snout.
Something anti-biological about it.
The plastic chain-link; the leaving
Of the mouth and eyeholes.
To hold the head and neck still.
There is something beautiful about
Facing sunburn with peace of mind.
Lay on the table; play a chess match.
Just cancer logistics: kill
Percentage vs. risk. Nuclear
Therapy. Head in the private
Death chamber. I put the mask over
My face to see what he saw:
‘Cancer survivors are transforming
Their radiation masks into art’.
I have never felt so close to my father.
Sculptures, mostly, paper mâché
Faces softened, painted red ochre.
Somber, tallying straw around them. 

Nikki Ummel

AIRPLANE HEMORRHAGE

next to me, a stranger huffs,
his head lolling with each spat
of turbulence / eyes me every time
i ask to stand / the plane’s bathroom stall
humid with my spilling, blood tipping
from each edge of my pad / smells like
pennies the child by the door says
on her way in. You must be pregnant
grunts the stranger, fills the seat between us
with his frame. I cradle the words I cannot say
to my husband, a hundred miles away / settle
instead on shaking my head but he’s already
turned back to his seat, sighing. 

Jessica Lee McMillian

HOW TO RECOVER

one of the first steps
is learning to rewire.

filament becomes so intense
it burns out.
field of vision narrows.
then falls dark.
the people in the room
black out.

it's best to unplug
directly from the outlet. cut
the wire. undress
the metal shell from paper nest.
extricate the old
cord. feed the new,
allow extra length.
tie an underwriter's knot
to reduce stress.
to insure
be sure
to know each pole
has a metallic hue,
like sun and moon.
for even distribution
of power,
secure the hot wire
around the brass terminal
and the neutral wire
around the silver.
turn gently
rest
back into the socket.
illuminate
again.
see the room.

Callie S. Blackstone

GLAMOUR MAGIC

Dyed my hair one shade darker
            You are the only one who noticed
Started lining my eyes with black
            You asked what I was doing to my beautiful face
A lip treatment every night
            I am ready for your mouth
Lettuce          Avocados        Bananas          A variety
            of produce to tighten my waist
            You laugh at what I consider healthy
Smooth lotion over tattoos so they remain bold and bright
            You laugh at the impermanence of    it          this      you      me
Carefully select the right push-up bra, slip of underwear
            Nervous laughter about the idea of you gazing on my body
Ass and pussy, carefully shaved         Long legs        shaved             Armpits, shaved
            I am shaved
Beauty rituals
            to bring up the dead                to conjure you up
                        to conjure you up inside me
                                        my love

DS Maolalaí

YOU LOVE ME, IT’S TERRIBLE

and I might as well
enter our bedroom
naked and carrying cherries –
at parties, trying wit
in front of you is just
the same. I've seen
it, heard recordings
from behind the wine-
piled doggerel.
there's something you see
in my excitement
at landing a joke
and following it;
like a dog being walked,
wanting more. and you
encourage me – it's terrible
to do that. you like it,
it's awful, it's bad;
because of you
everyone thinks
I'm obnoxious.
and you'd like it too
if I fed you cherries
with sheets covering you
like heather on hills – my body,
this clumsy dough of bones, and fruit
pinched with dirty fingers.

Carson Wolfe

ELEGY FOR THE BIRDS

Kasey put her budgie in a shoebox and shook
until the tweeting stopped. She grins,
knowing this confession will impress the boys.
I feel a lump of beak in my throat for the bird,
which could be the bomb of MDMA scratching
my oesophagus, or, that it lived its short life
in a cage, that it ended alone in a box.
I want to smash my glass in Kasey’s face
but don’t want to be the shard puncturing
the mood. Who am I to judge when I pointed
a gun and killed two birds with one bullet
because my boyfriend told me to. Who am I,
stood in the kitchen, laughing.

Bea Bolongaita

ECON MAJOR TRIES TO FUCK MY BOYFRIEND

Before he loved me, before I was brave enough
to give my desire a name,
I’d watch his Adam’s apple bob against his neck
as if it were a Red Delicious floating in the water.
I remember the first time he touched me:
The cardigan slipping from my shoulders.
The bench barely hidden by a bush.
Two days removed from my first kiss:
I tell him to choke me. How else will I learn
the weight of his palms, my neck
the willing handle of a watering can, the sugary duck
hanging at the back of a Chinese grocery store?
I have to know: Were you looking at his hands?
I ache in the tradition of every person
who came before me: When I’m drunk,
the heart between my legs
begins to beat.

Issue 99 Contributors

Callie S. Blackstone writes both poetry and prose. Her debut chapbook sing eternal is available through Bottlecap Press. Her online home is calliesblackstone.com.

Bea Bolongaita is a Filipina American poet. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Whale Road Review, Good River Review, and elsewhere. She has been recognized by the Ohio Poetry Association and is an Editorial Associate at the Kenyon Review. Bea’s debut chapbook, The Tomato Woman, was published in May 2023 by Sunset Press. She studies Political Science and Chinese at Kenyon College.

Jasper Glen is from Vancouver, BC. He holds a BA in Philosophy and a JD. Poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Posit, AGOTT, Amsterdam Quarterly, Poetry Pause, The Wild Word, and other journals. 

Amanda Hawk lives in Seattle between the roaring planes and concrete jungle.  She splits her time with her son and friends, and the city’s neon lights.  Recently, she has been published in Volney Road Review, Drunk Monkeys Literary Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, and the winnow magazine.

Victoria Lau is currently working on her MFA degree at Lindenwood University. She was the 3rd place poetry winner for the Random House Creative Writing Competition in 2013. Her poems have been published in Rogue Agent, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Gyroscope Review, and The Olivetree Review. She was also the 1st place winner for the Nancy Dean Medieval Prize in 2020. She was a poetry reader for GASHER Journal and is one of the marketing coordinators for The Adroit Journal. She has taught poetry at Sadie Nash Summer Institute and is writing assistant at the Borough of Manhattan Community College Writing Center and an English adjunct lecturer at Queens College. Follow her IG: victoria.lau_calliope_poet.

DS Maolalaí has received eleven nominations for Best of the Net and eight for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in three collections; "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016), "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019) and “Noble Rot” (Turas Press, 2022)

Jessica Lee McMillan (she/her) is a poet and civil servant whose work has appeared/is forthcoming in The Humber Literary Review, Train Poetry Journal, Pinhole Poetry, Blank Spaces, Tiny Spoon, Jersey Devil Press, SORTES, Short Édition, and others. Her first chapbook is coming Fall 2023 via Rose Garden Press. Jessica lives in New Westminster, BC with her little family, large dog, and shelves of books and records. See more about her work on jessicaleemcmillan.com.

Smitha Sehgal is a legal professional and poet who writes in two languages-English and Malayalam. Her poems have  featured in contemporary literary publications such as Usawa Literary Review, Madras Courier, Panoply, Shot Glass Journal, Marrow Magazine and elsewhere.

Nikki Ummel is a queer artist with work published in Painted Bride Quarterly, The Georgia Review, & others. She is the 2022 winner of the Leslie McGrath Poetry Prize. She is an editor at Bear Review & co-founder of lmnl lit, an arts nonprofit. She has a poetry chapbook, Hush (Belle Point Press, 2022) & a hybrid chapbook, Bayou Sonata (NOLA DNA, 2023). She calls New Orleans home. You can find her on the web at nikkiummel.com.

Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet. In 2021, they were an Aurora prize winner and a Button video contest winner. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming with Fourteen Poems, Rattle, The Penn Review, and Button Poetry. You can find them on Instagram @vincentvanbutch.