Buttons

Naila Buckner

I underwent
A change and
So did
Mother

She became a child
I became a woman
And as we grew up
And down
We fought to
Occupy a
Single womb

1

Chickadees

Genevieve Jaser

I walk under chickadees puffed big to stay warm
Their little legs moving quickly to keep balance on the wire
Look up see their cream colored bellies

Her hands have beehives around the knuckles and she is dressed neatly
The sound of the paper cutter crows wings and a dry cough
Worried that the speed of light outdoes the speed of hands in the end
Taste is of muddled strawberries and an injured tongue
Smell is like an airport, feel is half cotton-half polyester the fox around your neck is awake

Movies in your sleep go: middle beginning end end beginning end or end end end
My sister points and tells me I’ve always loved those
Those are wind turbines big enough to swim with the whales

Of course now there’s images of manatees in warm shallow water
And all I can think of is how my father wears his pants higher like my grandfather wore his
How every time my mother naps too long I worry how when my sister says she’s a loser and means it
I want to rip these pains from them like old dirty overalls I am a blanket of white and blue over those I love
And those I have yet to Promise you’ll look up to the chickadees

2

At the Trampoline Park

Devon Neal

I thought I might write while the kids
bounced around in sock feet until
their faces blushed with red. Now
that I’m here, though, music blasts
from metallic speakers, kids shout
as they bounce high up to the rim
of basketball goals, cut in line
at the obstacle course, thunder
across the platform with heel-heavy
steps. Teens cluster, hair slicked back,
babies waddle with a drunk precision,
and sweat-slicked water bottles
suction to gap-toothed red lips.
I remember a time when the only concerns
were physical—could you jump high enough
for your fingertips to reach the door
frame? Could you spider across
the swingset without touching the ground?
Could you run faster than the snarl
of the neighbor’s fenced-in dog? One
night, the kid from down the street
jumped so high on our trampoline
he swore his hand touched the threads
of the night sky.

3

Hard Tomatoes

Paula Frew

It was the summer
of hard tomatoes.
The heat had burned
the grass around
Momma’s garden.
The tomatoes grew
hard in response.
Momma’s heart was
a hard tomato in
the long, hot summer
months. Daddy had
turned too many
fields into hay, and
He never stayed
for the harvest.

4

Quietly, my Mind Sends up Shoots

Sara Collie

Flowers without names emerge
from the dirt in the vast spaces
of my childhood garden. I rearrange
these strange approximations every night,
playing hide and seek with whatever
is coming to get me. Ready or not,
I must find meaning in the muddle –
quick – before I wake up bathed in sweat,
the years in-between gone again,
buried in the dust.

My garden now is small,
my roots, a double bind.
I have been digging for years
with spades and rakes, grappling bare-handed
when that's what it takes. The dirt under
my fingernails will never quite wash clean.
Come the spring there will be flowers
here too – real ones with real names –
blooming amongst the rubble,
right on time. Isn’t that enough?

5

Sea foam eternal

Ren Pike

sword in the stone has nothing
on the tub in the basement

been there three score, sea foam green
furred-up and flaking, perchance

leaking, since the bills geysered
we've been asking what's behind

styrofoam, apparently
put in past problem-solver

revelations, industry
history, right there, beneath

floor tiles laid with labor and
asbestos, watermarked, warrens

cheap-source copper pipes, re-homed
solder and flux, puzzle box

excavation, whole thing, place-
cemented, obsolescence

once an infant, bathing in
sinks, been toiling now for weeks

sanitary tees, water
hammers, sweaty connections

traps and snakes, even strapping
young men cannot set us free

6

Preservation

Bruce Spang

In eighth grade, Denny Lazaro hid
a mason jar in the crook of an elm.
Each week, faithful to his mission
he’d climbed to retrieve it.

By the end of eight grade, the jar
was nearly filled. He took special care
of it. Inside the beveled glass was
a frothy egg white liquid—his semen,

little rollicking spinners with
a suitcase of chromosomes
he offloaded in a tool shed
and kept like evidence

not so much of lust or longing
nor for proof of his manhood
nor for his genetic line as much as

an offering, a sacred potion,
set aside in the crotch of a tree.
His little immortal semen swam
in a jar, hurrying from one side

to the other, intent as always
to arrive yet in circles, bumping
into each another, the gene for
blue eyes, the one for brown,

swiveling for years, his legacy,
his seed, his contribution to preserve
what came from him and would
remain in the deepest winter,

in the oppressive heat of summer
after the Kennedy assassination,
his boy children, his girls
in their glass pool orbiting

like secret galaxies, unknown
increasing in volume day by day.
I once held the jar. Briefly.
Then gave it back.

He swore me to secrecy
and tucked it away. I’m not sure
why I’m telling you about him.
Maybe it’s that I admired

how week by week, until the jar
was filled, he gave a special part
of himself, and then filled
how many other jars I never

knew. Nothing could stop him,
not the priest’s admonition
he’d go blind, nor the coach’s
warning he’d waste his vital

bodily fluid. He kept doing his job,
his genetic pool accrued
in the arms of an elm as if the fate
of the human race depended on it.

7

Stranger

Dallas Athent

frosted tops, wisdom.
these are the alps of your life.
crystal glazed over my love like woah.

there, the city,
the men with wool scarves
draped around their shoulders.
the scarf is readjusted.
money falls forever.
and for me
it’s probably
time to go home.

i’ve got too much.
i’ve got too much.

too much simulacrum in the frame,
too much simulacrum in paris,
too much choke in the throat,
too much pressure for marriage.

the way they dropped the ornate
quelle-style! women dressed.

the roll of the tongue to aperitifs.
the grenadine in your mouth.

the cherry in your mouth.

8

When I grow up I want to be a boy

Tara Dudhill

she said and we laughed so hard
fat fell from her frame so hard
her bones grated sharp
into plastic sheets
for weeks so hard
we startled her out of her body
and into the body
of another,
who did nothing but scream
himself into existence
the world's longest labour, birthing
a fully-grown boy a caesarean
a carving open of oneself
to be born anew or die

razor, sharp hospital bed
empty packets hospital bed
open windows hospital bed

trying to one day

grow old.

9

Endo-

Audrey Carroll

endangered – at imminent risk, as in endangered species; danger may come in the form of deforestation, the hubris of humanity, or the inside of one’s own body; some dangers are taken more seriously than others (those with uteruses need not apply)

endear – to charm, such as charming a medical professional to convince them that you are human (a mother, a student, a reader; recommending books can help, or talking about your daughter’s favorite animal—anything to endear them, make you human, motivate them to treat what ails)

endeavoring – to find solutions to blood (in excess), pain (in excess); clearly, the problem is excess, and the body can’t find its own way out from under, tissue growing where it shouldn’t be, intimacy with anatomy in ways that could only be born of the body trying to destroy itself

endemic – a kind of irony; diseased reproductive organs, certainly, and endemic seems now and forever linked to diseases (the threat of pandemic-turned-endemic-in-name-only), but the endemic should be restricted, local, and endometriosis is anything but—characteristic, yes; native to the body, yes—but it all grows wild as it likes, a body beyond control

endless – pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill after pill until such a time as a body rids itself of the ability to produce life from a seed

endoadaptation – fixing of interior parts, turning together like gears in an engine; a quieting of excesses; a balancing of organs; a harmony sung internally; as compared to exoadaptation, a fixing of functioning with the outside world

endogeny – imagine: growing from within; metaphoric, like coming to terms with a body that cannot be tamed; or literal, like wildflowers sprouting from a nexus of pain, a kind of magic to transform its nature

endow – the sound of grandiosity: rights, or land, or a large sum of money; but also, that which is naturally yours—a body, with all its quirks and eccentricities

endurance – a test of: time, persistence, weakness, strength, the desire to give up, the will to go on, pain tolerance, constitution, resolution, hope, sheer stubbornness

enemy – can take many forms, familiar and unfamiliar, exterior and interior, and suspicion becomes a game of puzzling out the enemy quicker than the enemy can strike—a delicate situation

energy – [entry not found]

en fête – the celebration of finding the right way to temper

enflame – to inflame body tissue, or to spark hot-headed feelings like anger and excitement; excess (again); to lose control; violence, fire, to cause some kind of spirited harm

engender – to produce, as in a child that you’re lucky to have in your condition

10

Growing Pains

Lo Beatty

When moms don’t answer phones
somehow
it adds insult to injury.
I’m an adult,
I don’t need to be parented.
I just
need my parent.
She’s busy though:
Working, gardening, reading, sleeping.
She’s an adult.
Adults just have to do things.
I just have to make decisions
on my own.
But I don't want to.
I just want my mom
to pick up the phone.
She trained me well
for adulthood.
I am prepared.
But I’m not ready
For her to not pick up the phone.

11

Contents and All

Leanne Shirtliffe

When the farm sold contents and all,
all meant the junk pile that ran the length
of the shop, rusty bits and broken shovels
and dump discoveries almost hidden.
Outside the city, no B.Com kids
with lawn signs and logos offer to remove
the detritus of living. It gets swallowed
by the earth, like the people who are buried
with toothpicks in the pocket of the suit
they wear only to funerals, including their own.

12

Weeding the Path

Donald Zirilli

I call them weeds. I don’t know what they are.
One looks like trails of smoke.
Another might be wild strawberries if I let it. Miniatures
of standard stem and leaves, a mint plant in the wrong place, a star
flat on the ground like a painting of a plant,
roots straight down or stretching out to other shoots.
Some stems arc through air
and root themselves again. Popping them out saddens
and satisfies. The mulch,
a rich, ruddy brown, waits for clearing. I could do this better.
I could use black paper and stones to nullify the earth,
but I’m lazy and unconvinced
that what I do is any use, of any good.

The verdant rise of chaos, the stragglers and selfish imps,
compete, join, thrive, and deny
the map I’m drawing on my world
with work and worry, bouts of attention
on my knees on a trail of destruction
between a broken fence and a garage
heavy with the growth of what I didn’t do.

13

Buttload

Paul Hostovsky

“We have a buttload of catching up to do,”
says my best friend from the fourth grade
in an email that comes out of the cyber
blue. It’s a very large amount, possibly a variant
of ‘boatload’. I haven’t thought of him in forty years.
It’s also 108 imperial gallons, from
the MiddleEnglish ‘butt’: a large container
or cask used for storing liquids, especially wine.
“We sure do,” I write back and click SEND.
He pours forth about his life, wife, kids, kids’
colleges, house and square footage. And it’s more
than a person can hold in two hands, possibly
from the large size of some women’s behinds.
I’m clean and sober one day at a time,
twice divorced, peevish, bookish, parsimonious
with words, and disinclined to give him mine.
My emails grow smaller and more distant in inverse proportion
to his long and sunny ones, then die out altogether.
And it’s a surprisingly large amount
of something that a customs agent might find
hidden in someone’s rectum. It’s all these things.
And the bus driver’s name was Karl.
The school nurse was Mrs. Knapp

14

Idioms and Phrases

Sivakami Velliangiri

I remember the two notebooks Appa
slipped into my pinafore pockets, one for adamant
spelling, the other for phrases and idioms.
‘Don’t try to pull my legs’, is not the same as
pulling the teeth, so I turn to Sushruta—
I learn about ancient Ayurveda, about physicians
being poets first, how they watched the heads of birds
to make dog-faced, tiger faced, wolf faced, bear faced,
hyena faced, lion faced, crow faced, heron faced
forceps, how hammer, bone- saw, scalpel, nail- puller
lancet, sharp probe, tooth scaler (full caps) scissors,
sharp hook, awl, trocar, circular knife,
single edged knife, chisel, not to speak
of the suturing needle (they used ants for this,
live ants.)

‘Instruments were imagined for real pain.’

I kill my darlings, the cartoon of a calf elephant
pulling a string tied to a patient’s tooth,
and falling on its back.

15

Dementia Dispatch

Emdash AKA Emily Lu Gao

For 奶奶

Then the forgetting
began & you
would
scold
yourself,
irate with
yourself
for forgetting.

But soon, you
forgot you were forgetting.
Jubilee flickered in & out
of your mouth
again,
even though
you push
aside
gravel
to find my name,
or any of our names.

Baba spoon feeds you
activia, cut fruit—
pungent
goodbyes waft
through
the tepid
nursing home,
ricocheting
off my pó
mandarin,
Boost protein shake,
& your baby
blue wheelchair.

Your memory
sticks
together
like
a poorly
made
popsicle
stick
structure
& I don’t know
what else to
do beside
stand
beside
you
holding
elmer’s
glue.

16

mother

Hannah Rigoglioso

my mother, a hospice nurse, told me that
The two things people do when they are dying are:
revert to their mother tongue
and
call out for their mother.
she touches my cheek, daffodil petals
i cannot remember what is, what was, what will be
how tender, how difficult
to reckon with death, its ambiguity, its carelessness
my mother
i reckon

17