Lucinda Madsen She towers tall above the hammocked peace, her labyrinth branches piercing through the sky in claim. In sapling youth, she had to vie for space to stretch her limbs out first and seize the light to muscle down. Now she can cease the hustle. Now her waist grows thick, the ply of flesh… Read More Box Elder

Lucinda Madsen Here, the murres are all on the big sea stack, where that wave just struck. At the top you can see them huddled together, chatting, preening, mating– we can only presume, we can only see the crowd, white belly black body after white belly black body. Kinda like penguins–but not, of course, alcidae… Read More You can borrow my binoculars

Sydney MacGilvray standing in the museum of natural history I am struck by the comfort of bones, their warm interlocking symmetry: vertebrae slipped snug into vertebrae, ribs cradling taut air still soft from ancient lungs. the long slim femurs pressed strong into the arch of the spine– a body, a bridge. meanwhile, evolution smooths down… Read More natural history

Ciara Farris You weave across the dew-dropped fields out back of the old intermediate school, Harrumphing and bumping and stumbling along. Almost accidentally, you find the trail. Trodden by the pummeling of feet, it weaves through leaves, up and up. Left past the wicked, twisted oak, into the circle where A shrike of memory strikes,… Read More This story is not about you.

Lucinda Madsen To the put-in we go, jittering our way over the miniature canyons of the dusky dirt road. One day, we’ll know this dusty hollow. We’ll know the ochre shadow of crackle-dry cottonwoods, we’ll know the squilch of river silt on bare feet. The chocolate milk swirl of river sinew through stone will stain… Read More By the bank of the Green River

Elijah Elvin We eat Tom-Tom amidst Anse d’Azur’s breeze flicking away ticks with ease as street preachers get to psalm 66 from 4 tongue licks in front of Church St. Louis. We say Amen in unison to cure the wickedness. A wave of merchants carries me through packed markets. I harvest bargains of cacao beans… Read More Jeremi

Emerson Steady in deference to Andrea Carlson I cannot describe the heat of the sun beating down on America never was America but for the blade Of grass at the edge of the garden of time bitter and shorn far from the old- growth ash and oak You are in translation you are a beating… Read More In der Fremde

Elijah Elvin dear God                      this is George¹ mama told me            I’m gon’ meet you soon                                              she said you’re… Read More Bible Booster Seat

Emerson Steady Then light interrupted by leaves and drifting cars songs of speed— I remember swimming Scrambling down the sides of the embankment muddy shoes and muddy face mountains on the tops of mountains weathered arches stoned tunnel visions And once there was a man between our summer afternoon and the pulsing horizon swore he… Read More Dried Blood