Dear Reader

I’m not entirely convinced that these bodies have memory, which is the type of thing people tend to say in poems.   Mine barely remembers how to do the Macarena.   But my dog (bless him) has no memory but his body’s memory of the forest.   And just this past week my son’s body remembered how to roll over, back to tummy, and next I hope the reverse.   Perhaps the body is a temple dedicated to the earth that it has disfigured.   Perhaps forgetting is a gift, bitter chocolate always arriving.   Perhaps my pantry is empty. Perhaps my pantry is full. --- Jesse Miksic is a graphic designer and writer living in the suburbs of  Philadelphia. He spends his life writing poetry, ruminating over  philosophy and pop culture, and having adventures with his endlessly  patient wife, two awesome children, and hyperactive dog.  Recent  placements include Pink Plastic House, Moist Poetry, Selcouth Station  Press, and Hearth & Coffin. His work and musings can be found at  @miksimum on Twitter and Inst

Freya, a walrus, named after the goddess, Norse, of beauty and love, chases a duck, provokes a swan, feasts on molluscs, shrimps, crabs, lounges on pleasure boats  that strain under her bulk. The Oslo fjord is chosen as her summer residence after a long European tour: the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, making headlines between twenty-hour naps, so far  from the northerly latitudes of the Arctic, so far from home. People love a spectacle, a curiosity, and so, they flock to photograph the six hundred kilo beauty, everyone’s beloved Freya, stray too close, condemn her with affection, rob her with a grin and a flash. “The decision to euthanise was taken  on the basis of a global evaluation  of the persistent threat to human  security. We carefully examined all the possible solutions. We concluded  that we could not guarantee the wellbeing of the animal by any of the means available.” We end this bulletin with pure anti-news, a constant, like a stagnant war: beastly ego will scalp the ear

At top of the path to the beach I show him the tennis ball. He crashes off a little way, jerks to a rigid stop, alert, envisages its flight ahead of him as it bounces down the steps to shingle. I launch it as far as I can and he darts away, wolfing the metres between him and his quarry. He pounces on it, already panting. I call to him, clap my hands, half believing it might work this time. After a thoughtful chew he clutches it in his jaws, trots off to where the waves lap, barks muffled by the ball. He drops it in the sea, bobs it like a Halloween apple, enjoys the taste of salt before the tide catches it, draws it away, back, then further, beyond the limit of his courage. --- Ben Banyard's third collection of poetry,  Hi-Viz , was published by Yaffle Press in November 2021. He edits  Black Nore Review  and blogs at  https://benbanyard. wordpress.com . 

I am proud of wearing something superfluous, I don’t need to reapply Ruby Woo, but I do, habitually, after coffee, after crying, when I fuck you, which I don’t, this is pure fantasy, something I want to do. I meet you in a car park of a National Trust Garden, hold your face, tell you I love you, stand between outstretched legs, reapply Ruby Woo . I want to see the red of my lipstick smeared on your face, for people to know just how much you make me red inside. --- Wendy Allen has been published in Poetry Wales and Ambit, and has poems forthcoming in Banshee, The Moth and The North. Her pamphlet, Plastic Tubed Little Bird, will be published in May 2023 by Broken Sleep.