Emma Atkins
You took an opal ring from your pocket the second time we met.
It sparkled in the sunlight like ice-cream frost.
Secretive and sombre, you launched it into the water
and watched it sink ‘til it was lost.
We’d waved at two boys floating past,
buoyant with youth and taken by the tide.
As it had them, the sea would steal away that past lover’s ring:
another opal pebble for the ocean to hide.
R Hamilton
This time’ll be different, you’ll see.
This time, in the future I’ve laid out
for us together, the icicles are thicker
and colder and the snow much more
firmly packed as we retreat messily
before the burgeoning, hot-breathed
Spring. It will all work out fine, I know
now, if we can only unhear the squeals
and cracks of our self-absorbed footsteps
splintering the bright veneer of blinding,
frozen crust stretching out endlessly to the
North, South, West and East, and elsewhere.
Danny Fantom
In the hands of desperation
crystals are transaction pieces
for a mystical barter, between
our spirits and Our Gods/Ancestors/Selves
Rose Quartz to love myself once more,
as I once did long ago in a threadbare memory,
Angelite to pretend I was pure, untainted,
by smog and existential despair,
Volcanic Rock to protect myself from the
demons I flirt with in inexorable pitch black
I collect them like credit, at first pleading, earnest
ceremonies and rituals, devoted
to their secrets, their powers, their cures
Then patient, grim, anxious, I demand from them
things I have no true ability to give, nor did they,
the sum of all my hopes, delusions, crashing
into the shining, popular illusion of comfort
Shattered, I lock them away, the sensation of
nostalgia bundled in orange silk, patiently waiting,
abundantly forgiving even choked by
shadows and frankincense
I pull them out one day and lay them all out,
arranged by type, shape, richness of memory,
and realize their true power comes from me
Sarah Beck Mather
In the eyes of your surfaces
The cartoon pink collection
I see my face –
On the periphery
Dropped in puddles.
When he read the story to me,
I dreamt of twinkling lights
Eyes shaped like oranges
Honied surfaces
Sparkling beams.
As his hand held mine,
I looked at the Smokey light
Beaming from crystal –
Jagged edges, (split)
Hard corners
But soft lines
And felt at
Home (for a day).
Jesse Breite
When color comes through
the windows—red, green, blue,
the picture pieced together
is always a shattered scene.
Even revived, cathedral glass
is never quite healed by the light.
But this—no brittle crazy glass,
this—the brushless milky opalescent
plating of Louis C. Tiffany
who knew, unlike his father,
that the only jewel was
light breaking through light,
that glass could be the paint,
that it could feather, ripple,
flash with every dimension
of distance: Louis Comfort
who knew the Hudson River,
heeded Ruskin’s call to return,
brought back the Golden Age
with pursed lips on colorless faces,
made his name a brand—his brand
a promise that we would never
be alone in steepled buildings
of cherrywood and Gothic stone.
Poetry
A.K. Shakour has a bachelor’s degree from The University of British Columbia in English literature, with a minor in creative writing. She has work published in Orange Peel Mag, Room Magazine, yolk literary, and others. She lives in Philly with her roommate and a plethora of potted plants that desperately need to be watered.
Poetry Contributor
Danny Fantom is a writer with work in Defunct Magazine, Vocal, and can be found on Twitter retweeting pictures of desserts and skylines @ThrillandFear.
Poetry Contributor
Emma Atkins is a Bexhill-based poet fascinated by small and unobtrusive things: the overlooked gems. She started writing poetry in 2018 and has been finding footholds in the creative world ever since. Her poetry has been described as bizarre and thoughtful, with a deep connection to the natural world.
Poetry Contributor
Jesse Breite’s recent poetry has appeared in The Chattahoochee Review, Tar River Poetry, Fourteen Hills, and Rhino. His chapbook is The Knife Collector (FutureCycle, 2013). He is also librettist for Atlanta composer Michael Kurth’s choral scores. Jesse teaches high school in Asheville, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and two kids. More at jessebreite.com.
Poetry Contributor
R Hamilton (they/them) is returning to poetry as a means of filling the vacuum left after a fifty-year career backstage in the performing arts, a retirement handily but unexpectedly coincident with the pandemic. Since then, Hamilton’s work has been presented by Boats Against the Current, Caesura, the Ekphrastic Review, and Oprelle Publications, among others.