I drove across the Flagler Memorial Bridge
with a scarlet sun setting in my eyes
like red-winged thrushes fluttering in a pine
scrub forest. Turning onto the highway,
the streets were familiar yet strangely new;
light on the faux-stucco walls of a strip mall
broke into pinks and lavenders.

The world is a grand machine, isn’t it, Alex,
building, rending and rearranging itself?
Turbine tides never cease rolling, the stars whirl
across the sky, and if I reach for your hand
now, it’s because I’m hurtling forward
with the sun in my eyes, and it comforts me
to recall your pillowed palm.

In the Paris church of Saint-Eustache,
there was a sculpture––The Departure of Fruits
and Vegetables from the Heart of Paris––
that bore witness to the final closing
of the produce markets at Les Halles:
artichokes, cauliflowers, bok choy in baskets;
the grocers’ stoic faces, a hand-drawn cart.

Don Hogle’s poetry has appeared recently in Apalachee Review, Atlanta Review, Carolina Quarterly, Chautauqua, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and others. He received an Honorable Mention for the 2018 E. E. Cummings Prize from the New England Poetry Club. A chapbook, Madagascar, will be published by Sevens Kitchens Press in spring 2020. He lives in Manhattan. www.donhoglepoet.com

This is the night the dead unbury
themselves & sit at my table;
they do not know that they are dead
& how would I convince them?
After all, I have prepared, according
to their taste, the steaming peasant
meal set between their silverware;
arranged their shining shapes pulled
from the attic, with maudlin accuracy
& livened their very countenances
with the blush of poinsettias, hanging
from their picture frames. Yes, it would
appear that all is too in order at this
familiar hour, in this strange century
as we sit, together again, comforted
by the porcelain eyes of the infant
curled on the sawdust floor, nestled
among his happy & lifeless family.

At his home, we cook pasta,
the one I make for my parents, who crane their necks
to make sure I don’t burn burn myself.
Blue fire fogs the pan.
Steam slivers into the air.
Bunches of bubbles gurgle over
the heap of wheat penne pasta.
As you’re reading this,
imagine me with him.
After observing the pile of black tubes,
the stench burning into my nose,
he dares me to taste a piece.
My tongue dries up as it sticks against the leather cylinder.
You shouldn’t have turned the fire
on that high, I laugh.
You should’ve stopped me, he laughs.
His ha ha ha’s carol into my ears.
 
He listens to my worries.
The ones I’ve told my parents,
who waft their hands at me and say,
Stop worrying all the time.
But I always tell him that I’m afraid of
being The World’s Worst Author,
and sleeping, cooking, reading
alone forever because
everyone loves someone else.
He understands, admits that he
has the same fears, and tells me
that for now, we’ll laugh,
lemon slices curving across our mouths.
When he hugs me, telling me he’s afraid of
eternally working at Subway,
folding Black Forest Ham on Flatbread
just to support anyone, or failing to save
his loved ones, I tell him that
we’ll fail and succeed together.
 
I hold him
the same way he holds my lemon hips.

Trish Caragan is currently a second-year MFA student at The New School’s Writing for Children and Young Adults program. She graduated from the University of California, Riverside, where she earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in creative writing. She enjoys reading and writing romantic teen stories. Trish knew she wanted to write romance novels after reading This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen, her favorite author and biggest influence. Her other favorite authors are Jenny Han, Morgan Matson, Siobhan Vivian John Green, Stephanie Perkins, Huntley Fitzpatrick, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jennifer E. Smith, and many, many more. When she’s not reading or writing, she’s either talking to friends or listening to K-pop music. One day, Trish hopes to write books that will give Filipina girls their voices and impact people the same way that Sarah Dessen’s novels have impacted her.

You look up
out of your box
at a green green world,
grin on your face
overcoming the grimaces
of the likes of 
cauliflower, cabbage
and Brussel sprouts.
and wide enough
to show no shame
at your satiny red skin.

For there are others like you
sprouting in the field,
not burrowed into dirt,
or sitting like an overgrown
green frog in a nest,
but clinging to vines,
juicy and plump
and ready for plucking,
squeezing in beside you.

You’re headed for
the finest Italian restaurant in the city.
These greens are on their way
to suburban kitchen tables
where they will come between
mothers exhorting kids to
“eat your greens”
and those same kids pulling faces 
like a rabbit eating onions.

Some of you are for the sauce.
Some for the salads.
All for the same fat priest.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dalhousie Review, Thin Air and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Qwerty, Chronogram and failbetter.

i thump a spoon

against my tongue. 

the same thing every day 

i eat the same thing every day because

banana & peach & measuring cup. i crawl

into a bowl. i crawl out. 

i scrape a fork across the sidewalk. i drag my nails through 

a patch of dirt & stone. i eat the same 

thing everyday because of ribs & the centipedes they suggest. 

i eat the same thing everyday because of something

my parents did that i can’t remember. i buy shovels to try 

& remember. i go to a supermarket full of orchids to try

& pick something new to eat & i meet all the more-beautiful people who eat

only flowers. they put samples in their mouths

& wait for the petals to dissolve. there are white-pink orchids 

& purple-yellow orchids & orchids made of glass. people carefully sliding 

each face into their mouths. i eat

the same thing every day because the supermarket tells me to. i eat the same

thing every day because i have hands

& i can’t imagine living like these people who eat flower after flower.

i stay at the store for hours not to browse

but to watch people eat. they seem like they have never used utensils—

that maybe someone has always held a flower & told them to open wide.

i tell myself to open wider & i think of the way snakes unhinge 

their jaws. i want to unhinge my jaw & eat everyday—the whole fucking day.

no minutes left ticking in the dirt just a gaping hole where the day 

was supposed to be. they offer me flowers to try 

& i refuse but they insist. they say the flowers will 

make me feel better—that i would be less morose if i ate more flowers.

i eat the same thing every day because

the sun is loud & as indecisive as me. i accept a flower 

& stuff it into my pocket. i set the flower on my kitchen table

& cry at the flower who doesn’t know

how to cry back. i tell the flower i eat

the same thing every day because i’m scared.

i tell the flower i eat the same thing

everyday because rain is turning 

into seed. the supermarket snores 

loudly so i open my window & tell it 

to please please stop 

that i am trying to get

some rest so i can wake up 

& eat tomorrow.

Robin Gow is the author of the chapbook HONEYSUCKLE by Finishing Line Press. His poetry has recently been published in POETRY, New Delta Review, and Roanoke Review. He is a graduate student and professor at Adelphi University pursing an MFA in Creative Writing. He is the Editor at Large for Village of Crickets and Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. His first full-length poetry collection is forth-coming with Tolsun Books.

when the sun sits inside itself, he hangs in mind & lying
even in my bone hammock — pressing a pulse — everything is
a cipher & of everything he the theme — I was asked to dance,
to make light by my own hands, but they are blushing, they are
brackish, they are hints of penny & gushing mountains — darling,
of other, summers are what itched stitches —
I slid my tongue
into the crevices
where I’d bit

your light moves
in waves — remembers my howl & how I drew
young pinecones from paper bags — where exposure
begs the question of acquaintance — either hurt or go
demented, I remember, as he found me eating bark chips & bleeding —

Kristin K. Withers currently resides in the Pacific Northwest. Disciplined in analytic philosophy, her interests are harbored most broadly in epistemology & the metaphysics of consciousness. She is currently working on a forthcoming concept collection of autoscopic language poetry.