Green at the End

The world outside had turned into a forest. She had not been out in weeks and had not known, but she was running out of all food, so she tied a camo tank top over her face and stepped out. It was quiet. She walked down the stairs and outside and into it: tall trees stepping into the sky, moss beginning patchily on the street like an early beard, small red beetles, decaying logs, mud and unknown puddles of water. The supermarket was a hothouse, flowers lining the shelves. There was a purple flower that she thought had risen up from the inside of the earth, exposing the inner, shivery part of earth, the fullest and most muscled part. She held out a hand to pick it but pulled back. She went home again to open all the windows, in case the flowers would grow in themselves, perhaps winding around the radiators, up the walls, the curtain rods, nesting in the cool dank space under the sofa and behind the refrigerator. She locked the door behind her so that they would stay inside, maybe, so the secret would not overflow into other apartments, though it was all over the world. She put her keys in her jacket pocket and left.

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The Dogwood in Early June

I’ve waited seven days for this dogwood 
to unfurl its white cups, to drink the light
it gathers. Other flowers have passed
their season, our path matted
with pink rhodie remnants,
but the dogwood shows off 
in open space between cedar
and fir. 

Sun fills each cup as I witness
from shaded days steeped in protests
heated to burning, to melting, 
to truth yelling and tears. 

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The resemblance

The resemblance another existential morning and I’m having a coffee peering through the blinds at the chittering sparrows surveying the camellia bush at the centre of my lawn which the gardener has shaped into a giant ball dotted with blooms pink buds quivering like sea-anemone in the mild April breeze then it strikes me in […]

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Brother, Can You Spare The Time?

Brother, Can You Spare The Time? To be fully present for the sensation of a moment where you can discover what lies behind the human masquerade, and have the chance to make everything in your life new again. You’ll uncover grief, sorrow and passion in the sensing of the body armor. The tragic spiritual mediocrity […]

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Bones

Bones Where I am from, women have broken fingernails that dig in the dirt like badgers, looking for bones. Bones mean yes, a lovely spot for pansies. Plant two there. We scrub our hands before dinner. We get the dead dirt rubbed off our palms like it was bad, what we did in the garden. […]

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Mongering

Mongering what is the space between the brackets when the sky bruises easy? I am tired of pretending pink where much is grey. There are no lions this side of the fence yet we carry knives, whisper the beasts asleep like he himself. I want to rest the dust, quell the stampede that makes animals […]

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Heavy Flowers

Heavy Flowers The hairbrush waits patiently, bedside. The mirror is off-duty. There’s a plane of quilted flowers. Breath is heavy. You feel loosely-built. The soft music of the body rocks you in the room’s warm coat. The world, large and lost, vast and wondrous, diminishes. Years will come, sweep you away. But this is where […]

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Nature is Calling

Nature is Calling Grass of mysterious light, Do you become dry from lack of love? Nature has this bearing on all of us, Take out a white paper. Draw the red cardinal bird Singing wet songs for your neighbors. Purple lilacs left a trace of dry dirt But for once They were alive with love […]

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The First Year of Marriage

Jennifer Lothrigelis a poet and artist residing in the San Francisco Bay area. She has just published her first chapbook through Liquid Light Press, titled ‘Pneuma’. Her work has also been published in Arcturus, Deracine, Rag Queen Periodical, Poetry Quarterly, NILVX and elsewhere. The First Year of Marriage We signed a contract, and mailed it […]

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I-90 West, South Dakota

Sydney Holets is a poet, editor, environmentalist, intersectional feminist, and vegan who is getting her Creative Writing degree at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN. In December 2018, Sydney self-published her first chapbook of creative writing titled In Full Bloom. When not writing, she can be found in various coffee shops, studying aromatherapy, or tending […]

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