Poetry Summer 2016 fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Carly Larsson
Sarah Sansolo
Bedtime Stories
& other poems
Miranda Cowley Heller
Things the Tide Has Discarded
& other poems
Alexa Poteet
Escobar's Hacienda Napoles
& other poems
Cynthia Robinson Young
Triple Dare
& other poems
Nicole Lachat
Of Infidelities
& other poems
Amy Nawrocki
Bad Girls
& other poems
Lawrence Hayes
Winter Climb
& other poems
AJ Powell
God the Baker
& other poems
Gisle Skeie
Rearranging
& other poems
Bruce Taylor
Always Expect a Train
& other poems
Ricky Ray
They Used to Be Things
& other poems
S. E. Ingraham
Storm Angels
& other poems
Laura Gamache
Outing
& other poems
Keighan Speer
It Rained Today
& other poems
Emma Atkinson
Grocery Stores Make Me Feel Mentally Ill
& other poems
Erin Lehrmann
Block
& other poems
D. H. Turtel
Margaret, Again
& other poems
Chris Haug
Bovine Paranoia
& other poems
Kimberly M. Russo
Definitive Definition
& other poems
Holly Walrath
A Tourist of Sorts
& other poems
Angel C. Dye
Beauty in Her Marrow
& other poems
Emma Atkinson
So Loved the World
Maybe
only God loves the world.
I’ll admit that I have made
small sacrifices for my small life.
Here is a beige square
on my shoulder
distorted and discolored
by a nicotine patch.
Such furtive appetites
only disguise themselves
as connections to the world.
And it’s true
I didn’t leave my apartment today.
But my twin bed
is pressed by the window
so I can hear the rain at night,
and my two cats chase each other
from room to room.
Maybe
there are many ways to love the world.
Grocery stores make me feel mentally ill
It’s partly the space itself, white and cold
and endless and hollow at the center. It’s like Hell
masquerading as Heaven, you know, those thousands
of treats laced with poison. Everything is screaming for attention.
It’s partly the eyes. A dozen cameras, a dozen employees
stationed, a thousand glances. It’s the politics of movement,
and the two-dimensional gazes reflected in plastic screens.
It’s the staring, the observation.
It’s mostly my hands, my basket or cart, wide
and grasping at colors. It’s seeing my life take form
in solid objects, bleeding meat, warm cans,
PopTarts and beer. It’s seeing what I am
spelled out in a shopping list, it’s the thought of home
and what I bring there, what it lacks and what I choose.
It’s identities laid bare.
On the way home, I speed through every turn.
Séances
My mother was considered wild
(by 1960s small town standards.)
At the age of twelve she caused a scandal
by hosting a séance in the basement
of the Lutheran church. We shared this connection:
a love of ghost stories. I once asked her, “What is
a ghost?” She said, “Someone who can’t move on,
someone with unfinished business.”
For weeks after she died, every time a car
pulled into our driveway, I expected her
to climb out of it. My father said he felt
the same way. No one ever dies
without unfinished business.
The spirits who come back get all the attention,
but someone has to wonder about the ones
who never do, about what they found instead
and where they found it.
Emma Atkinson
lives in Houston, TX. Her hobbies include making chapbooks, reading about demonic possession, and taking too many photos of her cats. Some of her writing can be found on themighty.com and the 2015 Pooled Ink anthology.