April 2026 | poetry
Cardboard Car Hanger
Its needle-sharp smell
penetrates the cheap shop,
the type where people riffle
through racks,
thoughtlessly throwing
underpriced things into carts.
Intended purchases left behind
in places different
from where they were picked up.
It isn’t supposed to be lying
between the car window screens,
let alone stripped
of its plastic wrapper.
In my father’s post-divorce car,
its cardboard twin had dangled
along with turns,
unexpected,
like the changes in his mood.
As I tense up,
my three-year-old squeezes my hand,
pleadingly persuading me
to leave
with Miffy-shaped screens,
the hanger staying
where it belongs.
Josje Weusten
Josje Weusten (she/her) is a Dutch writer/poet living in Belgium together with her partner and two daughters. She holds a PhD in literary studies, is an alumna of Faber Academy London, and teaches English literature and creative writing at Maastricht University. Her debut novel, ‘Fake Fish’, was published internationally by Sparsile Books (UK) in 2024. Her poems and shorts have appeared in various publications, including Litbreak Magazine, The Bookends Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Brussels Times. In 2025, she won the Short Story of Belgium Competition 2025. For more information about her work: https://josjeweusten.co.uk/
April 2026 | poetry
Bettor in the Giant’s Den
The heart of the stone sweats
In the foothills of some place or another
(I forgot where now in Nevada).
The wet stone, moldy-in-sweat,
Moss drenched, marinated in
Fungus-warmth, red-splotched.
The casino is a lichen (or a mold)
In dragon colors and scaly,
Smelling of synthetic pine.
Somewhere in neon exuberance,
A casino ca-chinging or so,
Cradling addiction in the harmony
Of cigarettes and vapes, all tabac
And forth, back and forth,
Coral ashtrays, and a deck of dealts.
Tobacco and the backs of cards,
The intricate carpets like soil:
Straight spades almost flushed through
And digging into the foundations.
The casino sweats like a
Filthy giant lying down naked,
Slathered in Axe Body Spray
Lazing across the rocks.
Daniel Thompson
Daniel Thompson was born in Tübingen in the Black Forest of southern Germany and moved to New Orleans at six years old. He lives and writes poetry there to this day. His latest work can be read in The Banyan Review, Sojourners Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and will be upcoming in The Chiron Review, New Square, and The Delta Review.
April 2026 | poetry
Unfavorable Weather Over the Bay
All week the wind pushed rough water
up over the bulkhead, wave on wave
as far as you could see to the other
side of the bay. Buffleheads and gulls, unfazed,
bobbed up and down like surfers calmly waiting
for the perfect ride, disappearing,
reappearing. A week of alternating
rain and sleet, then a brief clearing
just in time for one riotous sunset.
Overnight the wind did its best
to blow the house down; the sudden onset
of a wintery squall was the final test,
splatting windows with wet snow that obscured
the bay, then froze on power lines, knocking
out traffic lights along the Boulevard –
but it was our boiler’s failure that finally sent us packing
back to the city, the car’s heat cranked full blast,
wipers going like the dickens, the boys
asleep in the back seat, and you driving fast
as if we could somehow outrun this winter malaise.
Brooke Wiese
Brooke Wiese’s work has appeared most recently in Snakeskin, Persimmon Tree, The Orchards, The Road Not Taken, Voices and Visions Journal, New Lyre, and Spoon River Poetry Review. Her second chapbook, Memento Mori, is available from Finishing Line Press, and a third, Allen Ginsberg is a Mensch, is now out from Bottlecap Press. After a very long hiatus, she has been writing furiously again. Brooke lives with her wife and sons in New York City and currently teaches at a special education inclusion school in Manhattan to high school students of all abilities. www.mbrookewiese.net
April 2026 | poetry
Are You Coming Back
Last night I tossed and turned, the night
torn mad with slamming doors and clanging radiators.
I threw pillows and covers all over
the room, woke in a terrible cold sweat.
I walked to the kitchen gingerly, feeling
the swollen, sore pad of my foot where I
picked up that barbed sliver of floorboard
like a prison shank. How sweet,
thinking about that splinter
and the way you came to me then, bent
to your knees, and pulled it out.
The kitchen was dark, the sink full of dirty plates.
I opened the refrigerator door,
the light illuminating everything. I pulled
the half drunken quart bottle from the door,
unscrewed the cap, and inhaled
the miasma
of tired, flat beer.
It smells so much better
on your breath, tastes better
on your mouth. I twisted
the cap back on, set the bottle in the door
and let it fall shut. Everything was dark
again. I lumbered to the sunroom and sat
in the red leather chair where you fold yourself
behind half-smoked cigarettes.
The leather was cold as was the streetlight
shining across the floor where windblown
ashes scuppered into dark corners
like paper thin insects. I sat
the rest of the night on the mattress
in the living room, washed in the glow of the TV,
a pair of pliers in one hand,
needle nose in the other, fixing
the bracelet that broke in the dining room
that night I tried to link it round your wrist.
It’s fixed now. Are you
coming back for it?
Dawson Steeber
Dawson Steeber is a union carpenter working, reading, and writing in Akron, Ohio. His poems and fiction can be found in Thank You For Swallowing, Pink Disco, Halfway Down the Stairs, CC&D, and elsewhere.
April 2026 | poetry
Angels in the Architecture
Suppose there are angels
in every room, sometimes seen,
at times confused with ghosts,
but no, ghosts are impatient wanderers,
quick to put on boots &
stomp through the hedges.
Angels, half-asleep, thinking of cellos &
the flicker of a candle flame
reflected in a lover’s eye
Angel in the kitchen adding sugar
to the batter—vanilla too. Angel
in the bedroom stroking your hair
back to sleep at quarter to three.
Angel in the entry hall
trying on jackets, taste of rain.
Another angel in the attic
reading classics & teaching
mice multiplication tables.
In the basement, dirty feet,
bored & sometimes tapping
on pipes, music angel in a
choir of dark.
Forgotten, the angel in the bathroom,
unkindly lit, strong enough to
keep that razor locked in a
cabinet, ready to distract you
with a perfume trace of yesterday.
Travis Stephens
Travis Stephens is a tugboat captain who lives in California. His book of poetry, “skeeter bit & still drunk,” was published by Finishing Line Press. Visit him at: zolothstephenswriters.com
