October 2024 | poetry
1900’s high tech vocabulary comes to mind.
Following the stapler, stethoscopes, steam locomotives, safety pins,
and tungsten steel much spoken of in our metallurgist’s family
where Dad won a Bessemer medal and we all hazarded a worry
while stepping into the Barney’s department store elevator
about metal fatigue, came this rearrangement
of antique comforts and distresses. Camphor,
eucalyptus, levomenthol, thyme, and cedar oil:
call them to mind and hearing this
you can feel already the aromatic stirrings swirl
up your sinuses. I think of embalming — myrrh
in the exotic garden setting the space ajar between death
and preservation. I thought it was named after my Dad — Vick’s —
and remember dimly him circling it on my chest
at night through the crush and press and gasp
of pertussis, how he sat by my bed through the night
when I was four, and camphor swirled like saints’ ghosts
up from the sheets. Bitter bewitching notes of turpentine
made me dream of his soaked rag in a tin in the cellar
for wiping oil paint splotches off our hands;
and paraffin — that lit my Nana’s glass lamps before the cords
came spidering across the ceilings. These ancient consolations
cleansing, opening, embrocatory magic
worked their mending sorceries toward sleep.
I have only to unscrew the small blue jar
from the shrine of my medicine cabinet’s back shelf
and trustworthy hands are anointing me again like hierophants
by night, whispering: rest and mend, and then,
you, too, go out and heal and make things strong and well.
Jennifer M Phillips
A much-published bi-national immigrant, gardener, Bonsai-grower, and painter, Jennifer M Phillips has lived in five states, two countries, and now, with gratitude, in Wampanoag ancestral land on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her chapbooks: Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity (i-blurb.com, 2020) and A Song of Ascents (Orchard Street Press, 2022), and Sailing To the Edges (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming 2025). Two of Phillips’ poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her collection is Wrestling with the Angel (forthcoming, Wipf & Stock).
October 2024 | poetry
Today’s sky is a weak imitation of blue.
She slips in the back door, a line cook
at the brasserie in Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
well-known for duck, well-known
for drifters and dreamers, lovers long gone
and those newly found. The man at the bar
will lie his way into any woman’s good graces
but that’s not her problem today, even though
they talk about him in back in many languages.
Duck perfectly rendered, apricots
tender and jam-like as they let go
of summer to tantalize with their scent
before the lunch rush,
haricots verts amandine butter-basted,
and if she has a few extra minutes, help
the pastry chef with crème brȗlée.
Curtains sweep open to her childhood
cooking with maman before the postcard—
dashed off in pencil—au revoir my child,
be strong, love well, you will always
be in my heart. She grabs a small glass
of almost-going-bad Bordeaux
and a bummed-off-a-bad-boy cigarette,
takes a quick break outside,
torn between the touching young words
of that postcard, and the yelling going on
in the kitchen.
She wears drab clothes one could call
military castoffs, and clogs, the footwear
of all kitchen personnel. She walks
the streets of the city before her shift,
goes to the markets, feeds heels of bread
to the fish in many different parks,
watches a gulls wings widen
in the coming-up sun, and greets
the old men playing morning chess,
espresso carts waiting to serve them when
they break—she plants a maternal kiss
on each man’s forehead, she’s known them for years.
They will always be in her heart, even the ones
whose weary eyes are shut against the world.
By Tobi Alfier
Tobi Alfier’s credits include Arkansas Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Cholla Needles, Gargoyle, James Dickey Review, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Louisiana Literature, Permafrost, Washington Square Review, and War, Literature and the Arts. She is co-editor of San Pedro River Review (www.bluehorsepress.com).
October 2024 | poetry
Hook mouthed; a cadaver turns to kiss me—
Danny—adrift through skin, grabs
my filament of fishing line, pulling back
to bloom. He wears a lesion,
maybe three, dark and almost blued
to midnight, tells me it’s a birthmark
I’ve forgotten. The dream is 1986—
when death was stored in a dimpled
bottle, amethyst, scented, Halston Z-14
in every cabinet. I wake, find myself
poolside with shadows of old friends.
Gifts of age creep pockets—cock rings,
magnifier wipes, phones programmed
with reminders. Tired of survival,
dried like air cured cod, I flee Danny’s
pancake-hidden lesions, step into the afternoon.
Timeless scrotum by the pool, I swim
in yet another hour, outdoor showers and cabana
crypts. Lounging, friends and I are varicose,
a clot of sixties, seventies, a murder
of anniversaries breaking loose
and traveling to the heart. Time repeats,
a second AM/PM pillbox. I’m losing them.
I’m losing them all, again.
Robert Carr
Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published by Indolent Books, and two full-length collections published by 3: A Taos Press – The Unbuttoned Eye and The Heavy of Human Clouds. His poetry appears in many journals and magazines, including the Greensboro Review, the Massachusetts Review, and Shenandoah. Forthcoming collections include Phallus Sprouting Leaves, winner of the 2024 Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series, Seven Kitchens Press; and Blue Memento, from Lily Poetry Review Books. Additional information can be found at robertcarr.org
October 2024 | poetry
Alice Chu lives in Chongqing
and she attends classes online
loves hotpots and her friends
never submits work on time
can’t follow essay instructions
but she speaks perfect English
and writes crystalline sentences
a potential poet or a novelist
but her father has other plans
One day Alice logs into class
splotchy bruises on her arms
a heavy cast around her ankle
every part of her looks broken
but Alice Chu is still smiling
her dad shoved down the stairs
for a C plus grade on her essay
Who do you call when the
abused live on other continents?
and what’s there to be done
about never-returned messages?
and how do you tell parents
your child’s not doctor material?
and how do you lift someone
when you can only reach so far?
Alice—this dreamy teenager
not quite ready for university
a poetic giant, ready to awaken
with more guidance and patience
her father demands perfection
but Alice Chu’s already perfect
Brendan Praniewicz
Brendan Praniewicz earned his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State in 2007 and has subsequently taught creative writing at San Diego colleges. He has had poetry published in From Whispers to Roars, Tiny Seed Journal, That Literary Review, and The Dallas Review. In addition, he received second place in a first-chapters competition in the Seven Hills Review Chapter Competition in 2019. He won first place in The Rilla Askew Short Fiction Contest in 2020. He was a Pushcart Nominee for poetry in 2023.
October 2024 | poetry
Post Break-up Souvenir Shopping, Naples
No to the limoncello, liquid sunshine in hand-painted glass bottles.
No to the porcelain-handled pizza cutters poised to slice a pie.
Nope to the floral-print tablecloth/napkin sets, nope to Deruta pottery blue-rimmed with lemons.
No to the prayer candles, neither Madonna and Child nor Madonna Ciccone.
No to the mother-of-pearl music boxes tinkling That’s Amore.
No to a Sexy Priests 12-month calendar— but Father August is devilishly hot!
Nope to Quentin Tarantino prayer candles— enough already.
No to Mount Vesuvius snow globes, though the ashes are quite fitting.
But to the wicker baskets brimming with little clay heads— I say Yes!
and pay three euros for the one that looks like yours.
Dreaming of the Jersey Shore
The Muffin Man woke at 4 a.m., turned on
the lights at Drury Lane. He gathered ingredients: lemons,
flour, eggs, sugar, poppy seeds, baking powder, milk, butter, salt.
It was Tuesday, a lemon-poppy seed bake.
Everyone knew The Muffin Man. Or thought they did.
In the solitude of pre-dawn, he was not above smoking a cigarette
while he stirred, flicking an ash or two into the batter.
And it wasn’t even Ash Wednesday. People didn’t know him,
only that Thursday was cherry chocolate, Friday was blueberry crumble.
Muffins weren’t the only thing crumbling.
For years now, The Muffin Man dreamed of a different life—
one where he braised osso buco at a seaside café.
Where he worked side by side with a soulmate wife
while the kids played underfoot, and his friends— those guys
he should have stayed tight with since high school—
came around on Saturday nights for a plate of oysters
and a bottle of pinot gris. Things hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped.
He took another drag on the cigarette, greased the muffin tins.
“After the morning rush,” he said aloud to no one but himself,
“I’m going to post my profile on one of those dating sites— Binge,
or Yes, Chef, or maybe FreshCatch.com.” But The Muffin Man knew
he was all flour dust, no yeast.
He’d spend another afternoon in the safe embrace
of Zillow: commercial zone, large oven, ocean view.
Ann Weil
Ann Weil is the author of Lifecycle of a Beautiful Woman (Yellow Arrow Publishing, 2023) and Blue Dog Road Trip (Gnashing Teeth Publishing, October 2024). Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Pedestal Magazine, RHINO, Chestnut Review, DMQ Review, Maudlin House, 3Elements Review, and elsewhere. Her poem, “Moon Child,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Burningword Literary Journal and selected for inclusion in the 2024 Edition of Best New Poets. She earned her doctorate at the University of Michigan and lives with her husband and soul-dog in Ann Arbor, MI, and Key West, FL.
October 2024 | poetry
my mother dreams of taking off
in a hot air balloon, not exactly flying
but rising, a slow-motion escape
fueled by the hiss of flame
parachute silk and her breath-
held longing to be lifted
from ground
she collects postcards and prints
of antique airships and dirigibles
turn-of-the-century flying machines
captained by men in waistcoats
and bowler hats – she has a flight
plan of her own, a Magritte fantasy
to disappear
from suburbia to surreal
in a swirl of sun and fringed scarf
glinting spyglass held to her eye
she will launch in a basket
packed up like a picnic
rainbow canopy overhead
she will ascend with a whoosh
and a wave from bumpy field
tedium to aerial parade – high-stepping
above trees and cow leas into clouds
as the earth below grows as small
as she knows it to be
grasslands and cul-de-sac
homes, cars ferrying families
to church, bridge games
and laundry days, blackberry
bushes to pluck, gardens to weed –
and we three
watching her float in the gondola
of a full-moon balloon, circled by birds
bon voyage cries and those on the ground
clapping leaping reaching –
‘til all that remains is shadow
big and round as a basilica crown
Lucinda Trew
Lucinda Trew lives and writes in North Carolina with her jazz musician husband, two dogs, one cat, and far too many (or never enough?) books to count. Her work has been featured in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest, Mockingheart Review, storySouth, Eastern Iowa Review, and other journals and anthologies. She is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Best of the Net nominee, and Boulevard’s 2023 Emerging Poet Award recipient.
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