Poetry Contributor
Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. He holds a BA in history, and has no affiliation with any writing programs. The winner of the 2022 Slipstream Press Annual Chapbook Contest, his work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Vox Populi, Big Windows Review, Evergreen Review, and elsewhere.
Poetry Contributor
Faith Allington is a writer, gardener and lover of mystery parties who resides in Seattle. Her work is forthcoming or has previously appeared in various literary journals, including FERAL, Cosmic Daffodil, Gold Man Review, and Crab Creek Review.
Poetry Contributor
Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young, femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag (thesprawlmag.ca). They like learning theory and writing spec poetry. Their debut chapbook, Claw Machine, was published by Anstruther Press in 2020. You can read more of their work on their website: MahailaSmith.ca
Poetry Contributor
Jennifer Skogen is the author of the young adult series, The Haunting of Grey Hills, and her work has been featured in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of San Francisco. Jennifer lives near Seattle, Washington, and tries to go hiking in beautiful places whenever it isn’t raining.
Pushpanjali Kumari
You fail to notice the narrowing of the
Passing days until you find yourself at a
Shallow juncture of softening seasons,
Your body, deoxygenated,
Silently urges the fire in the hearth
To linger on like a ghost awaiting
A second death.
It is winter and you still carry the music of
Last summer’s hailstorm,
Its tune a rich hum in your ears.
The outline of your palm, aglow, waits
For its translucence to be rooted
To your memories of that distant
Storybook summer with its tales
Of djinns and draughts.
The embers show you the worlds
They ate up,
In dancing shadows
Of flickering moths and other hidden
Nocturnal,
This unfurling bloom of warmth
Reminds you of the hibiscus
And its fire-crowned pistil
You sucked dry of nectar,
Letting the small bead of stolen sweetness
Diffuse on your tongue.
How magical it is
To consider the possibility of anything
Disappearing in your mouth at all—
A taste, a texture, a truthiness
Of the god that exists within the things
That remind you of nothing but
The grace of tenderness.
Maggie Frank-Hsu
Often hard or poor soil
is a fragile, complex mix.
a single season of flood
makes for wild
hurried blooming,
the rare chance
to be too much
before drying to stiff
bayonet-like leaves
that catch fire and burn easily;
a bell of sacred smoke
seen from a straight-back chair
beside the bay window
where nobody ever sat.
I have asked for so little, just
a drop in the dry season
to take hold on the soil surface.
Poetry Contributor
D.W. Baker is a poet and teacher from St. Petersburg, Florida who writes about place, bodies, belonging, and the end of the world. His work appears in Gastropoda Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, and Modern Haiku, among others, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. He is a poetry reader for Hearth & Coffin. See more at linktr.ee/dwbaker
Faith Allington
We met on Bonfire Night
before the seasons turned
too likely to ignite.
The stars were affixed
to the velvet dusk
while flames blossomed
on our cheeks.
Bright sparks of laughter,
the arc of your smile,
and dark rich scent of apples
rising from the cup.
We offered the fire
our twigs of hawthorn.
I thought we were gold,
even knowing Robert Frost’s
admonition—
nothing gold can last.
But in that night we remain
etched in firelight,
flickering selves that never
break or rust.
Mahaila Smith
People are setting fires because they’re frustrated, angry, hopeless. They have no power to improve their lives, but they have the power to make others even more miserable. And the only way to prove to yourself that you have power is to use it.
—Octavia E. Butler
All of your objects will outlive you.
Here they are:
haunting your line of sight.
So set them aflame.
As in:
The whole world will outlive you
As in:
You are a dying god.
As in:
Welcome to Ragnarök,
welcome to the burning of the world.
A layer of ash coats the sides of trees,
cars, sidewalks, schools, deer,
lungs, arteries.
It is a dry summer.
There have always been fires,
they say,
These are no different.
They start with a spark of static,
a misused chainsaw,
a lighter
a can of gasoline
a metal shovel striking a rock.
We stay inside for days.
The burnt wood floors
and walls and wires
desensitize our noses
to the smell of lilacs.
Poetry Contributor
Pushpanjali Kumari is a native of Jharkhand, a state in eastern India, and is currently pursuing an MA in English Literature. Her writing has appeared in More than Melanin, gulmohur quarterly, Narrow Road Journal, and elsewhere. Her work chiefly explores lasting impressions of her own rural Indian identity.