July 2022 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
The Very First Venus Flytrap
Who could blame your delicate flowers
For growing sharp teeth, for learning that flesh
Is so much tastier than sunlight
You found out it’s more satisfying to snap shut
Than it is to bloom, that it feels good to bite back
After being chewed on for so many centuries
Jaws of slender grass. Jaws of patience.
You opened your jaws once and wow
How delicious the world tasted
Look how your body transformed into a throat
Your roots into tongues and your blossoms into fists
I can hear your flora siblings whispering nervously
About the one who speaks in needles, who prefers
Blood to dew, pink fanged, an angel
With sharp wings of green, fallen straight into the dirt
Your life is now a feast of moth hearts
And iridescent beetle wings, bee stingers
With spider’s silk used as elegant floss
For your delicate lips of chattering
Knives, lips that wait patiently
To be kissed again and again
That’s why you were named after Aphrodite
Because eating the world counts as loving it twice
And who doesn’t want to die in the mouth of a flower?
Who doesn’t want to be sipped up by the Earth, cradled
Unconscious in the arms of soft petals, suffocated by sunshine
By the plant that turned into death itself?
Finally Appreciating the New Moon
It’s a blank slate, black-blessed, a moment
To enjoy the stars, not named
Like its big bright brothers are
But it should be, it’s a testament that huge unseen things
Can be floating directly above our heads and we’d never
Be the wiser, that even the persistence of sunlight
Needs sleep, no more secrets spilled
Under the moon’s sweet silver, no need for blankets
When you are concealed like an earthworm, a cavern
It’s the moon as whole as we’ve ever seen it
A clasping of two dark halves, providing rest
For our werewolves, a holy day of obligation
For all things nocturnal, if you picnic
Underneath it you enjoy the sensation of being swallowed
By the universe itself, returning to pre-light
When we didn’t have the sun to depend on
And the endless night sky
Was more comforting than any ball of fire
Phantom Hugger
Science has proven
That humans need at least eight hugs a day
And by golly I was going to get them
One way or another
I picked my targets carefully
Drooped shoulders
Downward glances
Unpresumptuous auras
All dead giveaways
I began with quick squeezes, innocent
Shoulder-to-shoulder
Single hand behind the back
Over in a second
Painless pats
Short and sweet and good for everybody
But soon it wasn’t enough, the embraces
Were lasting longer, becoming vulnerable
Soon we were eye-to-eye
And it was becoming embarrassingly difficult
To let go
People began seeking my services
On busy sidewalks and crowded nightclub
Dance floors, a vigilante
Of touch therapy, of a new
Public service
And it wasn’t long before I perfected
My technique, transformed my hugs
Into something sacred, something
Soul-to-soul
An embrace that turned me into Atlas, and you
Into the world
That wrapped around us
Again and again
Until we were lost
In a land of each other’s palms, that proved
The Earth really is
The center of the universe
That dissolved
The very concept of stranger
What I do is illegal in nearly 38 states
But if you ever need me
Go out on empty nights and raise your hands
To the dark lonely air
I promise, eventually, I’ll be there
Dante Novario
Dante Novario is an internationally published writer from Louisville, KY where he works as a therapist with special needs individuals. Nominated for both the 2022 pushcart and rhysling awards, his writing has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Firewords Magazine, KAIROS Lit, Coffin Bell Journal, New Contexts 3, Nimrod International Journal, Thin Air Magazine and others. His poetry can also be heard on the literary podcast Strange Horizons. Find more of his writing on Instagram @dante_novario
April 2021 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
Bench Warrant Wednesday
You’re finally back in your hometown,
only snow greets your arrival.
Court date’s in a few hours,
just time to check into some
cheap hotel and change into clothes
that say I’m a good girl, clothes
that’ll be dumped at the charity shop
after free breakfast, local bank,
and go pay the fine tomorrow.
No time for visiting or sightseeing—
you’ll see all you want from the train
on the head-out-of-town express.
Window cracked to let a thin stream of smoke out,
you breathe in the incense of pines,
catch a quick glimpse of your old house
a little more canted, a lot less yours.
All the wildflowers buried deep until spring
do nothing to coax you back,
and you leave this town that doesn’t bear repeating
once again, the stillness of dusk broken only
by wisps of winter shadows through the trees,
a jukebox song of wild horses in your mind.
The Year of No Men
Granny’s on the front porch with me
playing gin and drinking gin.
I have a Jolt Cola to keep awake.
Mama’s coming to get me soon,
take me to the monthly family day
at the corrections house just down the road.
They call it “house” so it sounds nice,
but you can’t just leave when you want.
Daddy’s there for a while and that’s all I know.
We got a one-year lease on a nice double-wide,
Granny’s a couple rows over.
Other ladies and kids mostly fill in the rest.
Mama goes over to our real house every few weeks,
waters the plants, grabs up the bills,
cleans the messages off the garage door.
I don’t get to go ‘cause those messages—
they’re not too nice most times and mama says
I’m too young to understand.
So she brings me back a lemon pie
from the gas station mini mart
and I watch Granny get stuporfied.
Took a lotta years living
before I could sift through the truth
of our time at the trailer park,
and I made a lot of promises to myself
after that: no bail, no messages
written on any garage doors cause of me,
and gin would always be cards, jelly jars
only for juice and for baking, and “house”
would mean house, with toys in the yard.
Tobi Alfier
Tobi Alfier is a multiple Pushcart nominee and multiple Best of the Net nominee. “Slices of Alice & Other Character Studies” was published by Cholla Needles Press. “Symmetry: earth and sky” was published by Main Street Rag. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).
April 2021 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
The darkest hour is just before
the middle of the night.
Mishka Shubaly, “Destructible”
I climbed the infinite staircase
that leads nowhere;
it took me almost a decade,
a fractured ankle,
a fractured rib,
a broken tooth,
my peace of mind,
and half of my soul.
I played the eleven games,
those were happier days.
But I remember the rejection,
the taste of blood in my mouth,
the humiliation,
a pitch-black bottomless pit
of youth and sadness.
I know how it feels to be depressed
at your aunt’s birthday party,
to think about death at the dive bar,
I know the strange looks you get
when you make jokes about misery,
I know how it feels
to spend the entire weekend
under a fortress of shadows and blankets.
Endless Sundays,
unnerving Mondays,
Advil and beer for breakfast.
I know.
I know.
There, there.
Black and white movies,
empty bottles of cheap white wine,
broken glass on the carpet,
suicidal fantasies at the supermarket,
tears at the airport,
cold sweat at the parking lot,
hot coffee and antidepressants,
shattered dreams and broken hearts.
That’s all that’s left:
Bad memories of the good old days.
Juan David Cruz-Duarte
Juan David Cruz-Duarte was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He lived in South Carolina for 10 years. In 2018 he earned a doctorate degree in Comparative Literature from the University of South Carolina. His work has been published in Five:2:One, Fall Lines, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Jasper Magazine, Blue Collar Review, Burningword, Escarabeo, Máquina Combinatoria, and elsewhere. He is the author of Dream a little dream of me: Cuentos siniestros (2011), La noche del fin del mundo (2012), and Léase después de mi muerte (Poemas 2005-2017) (2018). He lives in Bogotá.
April 2021 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
Like eyes in a skull,
riveted on me,
I see the windows
of a white van
in my rearview
mirror.
I speed up
so does he
and we keep
going like this,
the sweat of fear
stinging my eyes
till I am racing,
a rabbit, with
a fox that covets,
gaining.
A sign for a business district–
the car, and my heart, slow
down. I turn off, spy a gaggle
of little boys headed home
from Cub Scouts or Bible School.
Grateful to them, I stop, roll down
the window, tell the nearest child:
“I am being followed.
Could I use your parents’ phone?”
“OK”, the kid says “I live over there,”
pointing down the road. “Get in,”
I say, “I’ll take you all home,”
and seven small boys
climb in.
I am driving slowly
when the sheriff
curious
at the sight,
of a white lady’s car
bursting
with black boys,
stops me.
I look back and see
the white van
at the turnoff
to the town,
waiting.
E. Laura Golberg
Laura Golberg’s poem Erasure has been nominated for a Pushcart 2021 Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Poet Lore, Laurel Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Spillway, RHINO, and the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, among other places. She won first place in the Washington, DC Commission on the Arts Larry Neal Poetry Competition.
April 2021 | Best of Net nominee, poetry
Honestly, I can’t be bothered to find out
Whether there is already a poem
About how to draw a horse,
The words brushed sleek as the roan mare
You curried the summer you were fourteen
And horseshit was a perfume you sniffed
Eagerly as lilac, as bread broken open,
The linseed funk of a boy two years older,
His voice beyond breaking; his long lashes
Pretty as a forelock. Stables call for pen and ink
And a sure hand; you can use charcoal for a canter.
How to draw a horse– you’re thinking the horse
Stands for something else and it may,
They come standard in quartets for an apocalypse,
Well-matched, ready for a chaise and four
Like Bingley had, along with Netherfield
And Darcy’s impossible friendship, fronting
A dusty stagecoach in the Wild West. You listen
For hoofbeats similar to your systole
If you are not terrified, in a tizzy, falling in love
The way I fall down the stairs in my dreams, endless,
The fall through clouds on a gas giant, pocked Jupiter
Or Bespin, an asymptotic descent I cannot complete.
How to draw a horse:
Simply,
Using your dominant hand,
Knowing the crest and the croup,
Still, breathless, tasting
The sweet green scent of masticated hay,
The antithesis of your adoration,
Knowing you will fail.
Daisy Bassen
Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing physician who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at The University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has been published in Oberon, McSweeney’s, and [PANK] among other journals. She was the winner of the So to Speak 2019 Poetry Contest, the 2019 ILDS White Mice Contest and the 2020 Beullah Rose Poetry Prize. She was doubly nominated for the 2019 Best of the Net Anthology and for a 2019 and 2020 Pushcart Prize. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
April 2021 | Best of Net nominee, nonfiction
Grace in Four Parts
I
My mother enrolled me in a tap-dance class when I was five; I hated it. The little outfits hung awkwardly on me, the sequins always falling off. The shoes hurt my feet. My steps were uncoordinated and always three beats behind everyone else’s. I couldn’t twirl without stumbling. Everyone else got that lovely tap sound as they danced across the floor. “She’s very pretty with those blonde curls,” the teacher told my mother. “But she has no grace.”
II
Grace was my only friend in sixth grade. I was hers. We sat alone at our lunch table. We laughed together. If one of us had money we bought a candy bar to share. We exchanged books. One day I invited her home after school. My mother bought cookies. Her parents didn’t want her to go, but she came anyway. We were happy walking home as I told her about my games and chemistry set, but when we got to our apartment my mother sent Grace home. I didn’t understand. My mother said, “I’m sure she is a lovely girl, but she’s colored. She belongs with her own kind.” “She is my kind: we read the same books, laugh at the same things, like the same cookies,” I insisted, but my mother walked away.. Grace’s mother told her that she couldn’t have anything to do with me. The rest of the year I sat alone at lunch; no Grace.
III
My grace period for paying my student loan was up. The credit mafia made threatening calls, sent threatening letters, even knocked at my door. “But I pay everything I can at the end of the month. I’m supporting two kids,” I told the man on the phone. “Sometimes I give you ten dollars, sometimes twenty-five but I always pay” The man scoffed; “Your money problems aren’t ours.” A friend who was a lawyer worked out a credit plan with them, but I was broke halfway through every month and lost any line of credit for seven years.
“Grace period is over,” they repeated to my lawyer. “No grace left.”
IV
“Forgiveness is an act of grace,” My husband told me when he broke my jaw after a disagreement about nothing important, something I can’t even remember. “Just let it go. I’ll never do it again,” he insisted. Then he repeated, “Forgiveness is an act of grace.”
I laughed and told him, “Everyone knows I have no grace.”
Michelle Cacho-Negrete
Michelle Cacho-Negrete is a retired social worker who lives in Portland Maine. She is the author of Stealing: Life in America. She has 80+ publications, 4 of which are among the most notable, 5 in anthologies, 1 won Best of The Net and another won the Hope Award.
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