Luck with an F

January 2025 | poetry

When my children ask me who won

the world, fear grabs all 78 places

American women used to think of as

autonomous. Here in Spain, the news

 

corners me from 5000 miles away,

its claws sharp but intangible—

a lucky escape, friends say. Luck,

that four-letter misnomer, swaggering

 

as if clad in tuxedo and bow tie.

Charlatan in a gentleman´s getup,

raping my tongue for days.

What is luck if not unpredictable?

 

I can´t tell them which natural

disaster he has up his cuffs next.

The number of people who will suffer

or die as he rattles our planet, lunging

 

for loose change. How many countries´

pendulums have swung perilously

to the right, even ours? The chain

dolls my children made for Halloween

 

break my gaze, like a bullet through

an eye—if I sketched an oppressor´s face

on each one, they´d stretch the length

of our home, all frown line and sneer,

 

creepier than ghosts and goblins.

Is anything bad going to happen?

they ask. I say, L and F aren´t so

different, with their rigid right angles.

 

Their fiery exclamation.

 

 

Julie Weiss

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay Books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, is forthcoming in 2025 with Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja,” was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize, and was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite´s 2021 Microchap Series. Her work appears in Chesnut Review, ONE ART, Rust + Moth, Sky Island Journal, and others. Originally from California, she lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.

Minseo Jung

January 2025 | visual art

Stacked

 

Minseo Jung is a junior at Seoul Scholars International Art and Design, and her work primarily focuses on identity and the exploration of self. She understands herself by expressing her personal experiences and emotions through art. Using creative ideas and unique approaches, her work reflects the ongoing exploration of her identity, inviting the viewer to connect with their own experiences. For me, art is an important tool for self-expression, and through her work, she aims to create moments where people can reflect on themselves and feel a sense of connection with others.

Night Drive

January 2025 | nonfiction

Steam rises in swirls, wisps, moves like a candle snuffed out, then smoke curling. This road on a Wednesday night in the middle of Italy is dark except for the headlights that cut through the fog, barely, and the city of Macerata in the distance. I know this land. I left an entire country for it and now I have it mapped on my palm, penned out in ink, twenty years — the up and down, the hills that move, shift, medieval towns that cluster and roll to the Adriatic Sea. The soft grain, fields of sunflowers like matches lit, crimson poppies that carry the wind on June afternoons. It is a homeland perhaps, and for years now I’ve been pretending it’s mine.

But tonight the road is unrecognizable. On the drive from Ancona, where sunset strikes at 6 o’clock and you can watch ships sail into harbor, see the sky go blue, my American friend Ruth is still in the hospital, one more night and then she’ll go home to her Italian town  — I am not myself. I didn’t know these years would pass so quickly. I didn’t know the waiting for home would turn to wonder, turn to this shape shifting, these fields like blankets on my own made bed. What if it’s time to get out of here, to leave this place behind, opt for Lesley Avenue, Washington Street, the Taco Bell on the corner of Arlington and 10th? What if I should have left years before, back when the maps were still open, unfolded, brand new? Would I know how to get home, if I needed to? Would I recognize myself, twenty years later, on the front porch of my city? Or will I live and die right here insead? I take one turn, then another. The radio off, silence beats as softly as a newborn heart. A cat huddles on the roadside. Power lines catch the light – a swooping pterodactyl. The night shivers, goes dead. A porcupine, pale and prickly, crosses quickly just as I start to drive by.

Jacqueline Goyette

Jacqueline Goyette is a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared in both print and online journals, including The Forge Literary Magazine, trampset, JMWW, Lost Balloon, The Citron Review, and Heimat Review. She currently lives in the town of Macerata, Italy with her husband Antonello and her cat Cardamom.

The Darkness White

January 2025 | visual art

The Darkness White

 

Alexi’s father was the family’s artistic soul, and his legacy influences Alexi’s appreciation for abstract art. Throughout his life, art and drawing provided Alexi with solace and joy, yet he never felt the need to share his work. After his father’s passing in September 2022, Alexi embraced his artistic expression. In the following weeks, his work became more vibrant and personal as he started printing and framing abstract digital paintings, driven by a strong desire to share them. Now, Alexi is passionate about his craft, having cultivated a unique style that stands out. He believes in the lasting strength of his artistry.

Kristin Lueke

January 2025 | poetry

i ask the sun too much

 

each plant i’ve kept alive so far i call my friend.

each of my friends has its own quiet prayer,

it’s called how i’d like to be cared for—

 

for instance, from a distance, please & gently,

within reach, without expectation but this—

i will try to stay alive if you try to understand me.

 

one is never not hungry for all my attention—

the gift of you bending you backwards

to please me. still another’s impossible,

erratic at best & unwilling to clarify—

you’ll just have to learn to learn what i want.

 

what i want? is a room where the light finds me

easy & all that we need, we have.

 

 

i tell my kin the world is burning

 

fetch a cool glass of water. this side of western ruin

we know as much about fire as we do about forever.

we have four words for the fear of everything,

start praying. begin with god / end with specifics.

ask—for your ancestor, the skill to keep all winter

a single flame alive. ask for revelation, for wanting

no weapon. to be closer, now, to you.

 

Kristin Lueke

Kristin Lueke is a Chicana poet and author of the chapbook (in)different math (Dancing Girl Press). Her work has appeared in Sixth Finch, Wildness, Frozen Sea, Maudlin House, HAD, and elsewhere. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she was a finalist for the 2024 Porter House Review Poetry Prize and received the Morris W. Kroll Poetry Prize from Princeton University, where she earned an AB in English. She also holds an MA from the University of Chicago. Kristin lives in northern New Mexico and writes at www.theanimaleats.com.