Dear Reader

Firewalker faith must be required to hop this white-hot sand and now all zones are tinged with fear of sunburn or combustion. We stretch naked in the dunes until guards arrive on decency patrol, ice cream sellers melt away, persistent surfers finally desist. The sea’s an aquarium of coke cans anyway, and plastic in the throats of birds. Intrepid snorkellers beware: just man-made stuff to find down there. --- John Short lives in Liverpool again after a previous life in southern Europe. When not writing he still persists in trying to play Greek music. He’s appeared recently in Pennine Platform, Flights e-Journal, Foxglove Journal and the Bosphorus Review. His fourth poetry collection In Search of a Subject is due from Cerasus Press in 2023.

  One of several children, the author was born in the postwar boom to parents of the middle class. The family lived in suburban New York. The boy babbled early and learned to read spontaneously. Engrossed in a book, he forgot all else. Fairy tales were insipid. He liked ancient history and archaeology—tombs and ruined cities.      Public schools provided an education. He evinced a knack for languages and memorized yards of verse. At Alma Mater University, he studied classic and modern literature, and emerged in a daze. After a year to collect his wits, he attended graduate school in architecture, and got a job.      A lucky chance transported him from Manhattan to rural Virginia, where he worked for the gentleman architect Fletcher Banister. Houses, apartments, schools, and private offices were the firm’s stock in trade. Banister had a rich wife and connections. The grand old man made social rounds and brought in clients. His assistant drew in pencil a...

spilled peas if the next day i feel a burst beneath my pinky toe lift my foot in disgust to find a dime of green mush ground into the tile’s grout i will probably not cry despite my pulsing eyelids the way my head whirs and burns and the poison swirls in my lower gut i will not growl either i have no propensity for anger i think i will sink to the floor curl up in a pea and press my cheek into the caulking hard enough to leave an impression --- Washing Up What strikes me most is how implicit it is in writing to self-condemn before you’ve even begun. Words wrung from my folds like an old dish rag, starved over the faucet only until exposed to the stream then for the wringing. The echo of a landline brr-inging  through an empty home, hiss of a lit match and the whir. Smoke wisps and dissipates the thin line of motivation dwindling. Or is it fear? A lost voice when you need to scream for safety. An intermittent lapse in judgement  When you’ve assumed yourself sound.  Can I b...

Offer everyone else a piece of coal and a packet of pink popping candy. Sit those with handkerchiefs on one side, those with tissues, or nothing, on the other. When no one is expecting you to stand, rise up,  wink at the celebrant and smile. Lean on a pillar sing Misty again for me. Raise your eyes to the roof as if you think a part of me is rising to heaven. Note those who follow your gaze. Nod a bow  and gesture to my coffin  as if I should take one too. Tell everyone I always wanted to hear the collective sound of open-mouthed mourners  popping candy. --- Sue Finch was born in Kent. She now lives with her wife in North Wales and enjoys exploring the coast. Her first published poem appeared in A New Manchester Alphabet in 2015 whilst studying for her MA with Manchester Metropolitan University. Her work has also appeared in The Interpreter’s House, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Poetry Bus Magazine and in Crossings Over, an anthology published by Chester University Press. Ha...

waits at the Hungarian border.  Listening, it hears a smörgåsbord of languages.  Cries in Magyar, Polski, Romani, Russkiy, and Ukrainska  among many, many others.  As its boy’s train pulls away it sighs as if deflating. Accepting that it will never see him again.   Quarantined, despite possessing the appropriate papers.  The monkey waits.  Listening to passing children laugh.  Hearing gunshots and       answering with smiles.  Hearing screams but       trading in laughter.  The monkey has not forgotten its boy  but, it has a new job now.  Watching the future come and go.  Come and go  on trains that have been  coming and going  for years. --- Ian Brunner is a writer from Buffalo, NY. He has most recently been published in Ghost City Press, Selcouth Station, and the Comics Cabinet, and is the author of the  chapbook: Ruminations published through the Cringe Wo...

Autumn has called this rugged child dog out of sleep when the sun is still just flexing her fingers.   He has been a restless sleeper lately, two days ago he was chasing something in his doggy slumber, and   we didn’t wake him, because who would do that, or undo it, bind his little wildness? But yesterday   it must have been a nightmare, because he leapt suddenly upright, growling, terrified in our quiet bedroom but   furious to protect us from his transient intruders. He is a loyal boy, fully dedicated to his life’s work –   to the vanquishing of all the small noises at his great noise, to the unbroken light at the front window.   This will be his first autumn, the first ever in the whole world to a doggy, and thus, I guess, his restlessness:   big paws in the leaves, trusted teeth on dry wood, cotton ball head,   tail like a plume he flies, waking suddenly into triumph. --- Jesse Miksic is a graphic designer and writer living in the suburbs of...

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...