Poetry Summer 2022 fiction all issues
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Joanne Monte
Departure
& other poems
Holly York
Still When I Reach for the Leash
& other poems
Anne Marie Wells
Catholicism Still Lingers in a Concrete Poem
& other poems
D.T. Christensen
Coded Language
& other poems
Laura Faith
Ungodly
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
Winter in Choctaw
& other poems
Natalie LaFrance-Slack
Peace
& other poems
Nicole Sellino
iii. moving, an interruption
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
In Memoriam / Day of the Dead
& other poems
Sheri Flowers Anderson
On Being A Widow
& other poems
RJ Gryder
Felling
& other poems
William S. Barnes
to hatch
& other poems
Suzannah Van Gelder
Idolatry
& other poems
Sam Bible-Sullivan
The Dying Worker’s Soliloquy
& other poems
Hills Snyder
Eclipse (July 4, 2020)
& other poems
Lauren Fulton
Birth Marks
& other poems
David Sloan
Prostrate
& other poems
Nancy Kangas
Dry Dock Cranes of Brooklyn Navy Yard
& other poems
Noreen Graf
In Attendance
& other poems
Jim Bohen
Nothing Tea
& other poems
Thomas Baranski
Let us name him dread and look forward
& other poems
D.T. Christensen
Coded Language
a soft knock on the wall at two a.m. means
the retreat of a bad dream: my daughter’s code
to please come check on me. when I’m there
she’s supine, looking up at neon stars stuck to the
wood slats of the top bunk, her sister inciting
the low grind of teeth above. the stars
unstick over time, we find constellation parts
in bedsheets, on the bottoms of shoes:
carried by the upward drift of
school and dance and a young prying brother.
I had a nightmare, she says. I lay next to her
and draw squares on her back, a thing she learned to
love from her mother, who learned it from her mother.
my wife taught me when I met her and I’ve drawn
squares on backs for 18 years now:
in a dorm room in Flagstaff
in a worn farmhouse outside Madison
in a suburb of the valley where the kids
grow too fast. I know where I’ll draw them
next but it’s hard to say when. we’ve always lived in
code like this: drawing squares, knocking on common
walls at night, three squeezes of a hand when we
can’t speak. if all isn’t code then it’s close,
and as she falls back asleep I whisper
this night’s coda: don’t hesitate to knock.
don’t curse the stars
falling around you.
D.T. Christensen
lives in Massachusetts with his wife and three kids.