By SARAH STOLTZFUS ALLEN

By GRACE DION

Memorial Day, and I plant
yellow and white chrysanthemums.
Driving by the other family plot
I see Fred, my cousin once removed,
Fertilizing. The grass is the main thing,
he says. We visit. It’s cloudy, cold, windy,
the usual for Memorial Day,
but I hang around.
I eat Fred up with my eyes:
His long stride, his high bony shoulders,
his small beaked nose, the hands
that slant from the third knuckle,
the way the hair grows at his nape,
its pattern of grayness,
the shortness of his neck,
the way his cheek melts into it:
genetic nudging that revivify
my grandfather, uncles,
my father …

I make a grisly remark and Fred laughs:
it’s the family humor.
He’s eighty, I think, slim, looks healthy,
but has to rest after fertilizing,
or lifting the fertilizer into the trunk.
Still I linger. What else can we talk about?
When he’s gone, they’ll all be gone;
but for now, I have in my sight
that way of turning,
that tilt of head, that hat.

Grace Dion has an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Washington and has published poems and stories in various journals.

By C.Z. HEYWARD

The susurrations of His morning call
reflected in the morn as algid mist

In this ritual I love to watch dragonflies chase sleepless fireflies who wanted to be butterflies

My feet bare, as were hers
I mirrored my grandmother’s steps as we crossed the peacock and teal tapestry

My feet became bathed by Him as He had done for Peter
An asomatous cleansing that started with our soles

I often wonder why they’re called blades?
They should be called feathers
or wings, for my heart takes flight with each crystalized step

At the coup the symphony is predictable yet always delightful
Scratches and pecks

Scratches and pecks

And then I watch dragonflies chase sleepless fireflies who wanted to be butterflies o’er grass

C.Z. Heyward is a native of Harlem, New York, who cherishes his summers spent on the coastal isles of Charleston, South Carolina. His work has appeared in a variety of print and online journals. He has also presented his work at the Nuyorican Cafe in New York City, and the Artlinks Festival in Athens, Greece.

By KAYLI WREN

a girl washes dishes in place of her mother
frothy soap and sticky water
clean her fingernails as her father sits at the table,
chin propped on one hand

a boy plays with ants
crawling on his knees and pressing down grass blades
clearing a path to help them reach home

sweat beads on a woman’s upper lip
fingernails dig into soft skin
she screams and clenches and pushes
as he brushes back her hair

young people count down from three
they break each other’s hearts
and skip the part where they should
dance to old records
they carve hollow spaces in each other’s chests
leave the matter
lungs and heart and pieces of the diaphragm
back in the car where they said goodbye

lives intersect
people crack each other open and
heal each other again.
people exchange threads
from unravelling balls of yarn they hold,
collecting strands from the people who touch them

the world is getting thicker and fuller of yarn
that grows and overlaps and gets twisted
as we are born and kill and love
as we meet each other’s eyes and breathe each other’s air

when a woman dies,
she will drop her ball of yarn to the floor.
people will feel the slack
and her son will fumble along the ground,
reaching along the rope she isn’t a part of
hands deep in the spider web she made.

the childhood best friend
the neighbor who always smiled at her,
each on her line of connections.
having felt the slack and having followed it,
they will gather around her fallen yarn
and raise it off the floor together.

Kayli Wren is in her senior year of high school in Virginia. She has previously been published in Canvas Literary Journal, Literary Orphans, Quail Bell Magazine, and GirlSense & NonSense. In addition to writing, she enjoys acting in theater productions, knitting, and baking lemon squares.

By LAURA SHARP

We speak a language of eyes,
Conversing without words,
Perceiving without speaking,
Sharing humor and curiosity.
Is it only my imagination,
A story of wanting to be known?
A fiction of desired insight
Or truly a friend observed?

Laura Sharp is an accountant by day, obsessive cross-stitcher by night, and a mom of two hyperactive children 24/7. She and her husband Philip hail from a cozy house in Ohio, where they can be surrounded by verdant farmland without having to actually do any farming.