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
RJ Gryder
The Quarry
glassy vision
of puff clouds and sky
the reddish brown
of copper rust clay
streaked through the taupe
walls accordion of mud
to be grabbed the handles
of mirrored lake and pine
tree toppers the way
dynamite and industry
carve out their space,
the way earth reclaimed
herself.
Already
after Marge Piercy
Don’t look at me like that.
You make me lonely with love, blink
and I might miss me; I’ve already
grieved for when you leave.
I’ve already tasted the reflux
of missing you ten years
from now. A mistake of trying to swallow
you whole. You’re just too
big for the tip of my tongue, to
be poised under top teeth
with mouth in perfect O
ready to spit you out where
you’re fated to land, where
you already live when I don’t
bite down hard enough.
Already the corner of the pillowcase gets in the way
of looking at you. I’m jealous of the way
she holds your rest.
Try as I might to thwart the reflex, of grab clutch hold
I end up dragging my nails down your spine,
blood already welling as I gather you in my fingertips.
Coping
Hateful chicken for breakfast. Forgot lunch.
Dinner is a veggie dog and three margs
with three straws. I forgot to bring my tooth
brush and brain pills but I remembered the
cuffs. The moon falls asleep first. I clock in
before the sun, unless breakfast fills my
bathroom. Bile hits tiles, stays there. Back to bed.
I haven’t cleaned my ears in ages. I
can’t hear anything you’re saying. Lunch is
chocolate milk. Dinner is nailbeds. On days
I sleep I make no money. If you sleep
naked you don’t have to wash pajama
pants. Breakfast doesn’t matter, I can’t hear
anything you’re saying. Slouching over
someone else’s grocery cart filled with
only Organic, please. Lunch is Dr.
Pepper, large, one-o-seven. I forget
not to lean on everything. I straighten
and my back is microwave popcorn. Well,
so’s dinner. Breakfast doesn’t matter. Lunch
doesn’t matter. Lunch is an entire
rotisserie bird. Lunch is preceded
by the miracle plant that roots in my
alveoli. My mom always said if
I stood like that I’d grow up to be a
question mark. The way I’m bent, you’d think I’d
have more answers. But I don’t remember
lunch. And I still couldn’t finish dinner.
Felling
She’s been vomiting
up sawdust every morning
and I have been taking
an ax to the telephone
pole. It’s better than
trying to drown the TV,
but not by that much. Rubber
black snakes spray their venom sparks. She manages a
glare over the toilet bowl,
and I don’t care. I
reject her light pollution.
I’m going top down.
Hacking my way to the
ground.
She will leave when
I’m done. But I’m not sure
that she will. My fingers
are dark crispy I confused
them for the reptiles
a while back. But don’t leave
quite yet, I don’t think she should. It’s hard to whittle
down with just my palms
left a wanted poster
for a blind cat. on the run,
answers to Leopold, I’m
almost grounded. There are
splinters in my tongue the wires hiss, lick.
She spits, flushes,
stands don’t leave yet.
Cold comfort
When the wind bares its knife
sharpened on carmine corners
and five hundred plastic coats
the slip on the sidewalk
is as numb to me as your pinky
in the glove with the hole—
as the thick corners
of a love you’ve already
folded up and tossed.
Wet breath catches
before it can cloud milky
& strange, shaping unspoken words
that gather in my gut.
Acid to cut through
frosted eyelashes and icing tongues.
How it turns the warmth
into everything. An exhale
into the pith of your neck,
your arms around my shoulders
smaller than the cold,
hot enough to thaw.
RJ Gryder
is a multidisciplinary writer who works in a school library in Orlando, FL. They are a graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill where they wrote their Creative Writing undergraduate thesis in poetry. RJ has been previously published in 30 North Literary Review and The Charles Carter anthology.