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Paula Reed Nancarrow
Morning Coffee
& other poems
Jill Burkey
Mala
& other poems
Oak Morse
Boys Born out of Blues
& other poems
Beatrix Bondor
Engine Ode
& other poems
Monique Jonath
a mi sheberach
& other poems
Lisa Rachel Apple
Bounty
& other poems
Gillian Freebody
The Human Condition
& other poems
Kirsten Hippe-Rychlik
and we are echoes
& other poems
Devon Bohm
Forgiveness
& other poems
Jeddie Sophronius
I Rest My Mother Tongue
& other poems
John Delaney
Poem as Map
& other poems
Elizabeth Bayou-Grace
Fire in Paradise
& other poems
Monaye
In Utero
& other poems
Michelle Lerner
Ode to Exhaustion
& other poems
William French
I Have Never Been
& other poems
Josiah Patterson Wheatley
Coeur de Fleurs
& other poems
Karo Ska
womb song
& other poems
Robyn Joy
Sisyphus
& other poems
Han Raschka
Love Language
& other poems
Rebbekah Vega-Romero
The Memory in My Pinky
& other poems
Gilaine Fiezmont
Europe, too, Came from Somewhere Else
& other poems
Scott Ruescher
At the Childhood Home of Ozzy Osbourne
& other poems
Emily R. Daniel
Visitation Dreams
& other poems
Lindsay Gioffre
Toxicodendron Radicans [Sonnet 1]
& other poems
I.
There is a fawn in the woods
unaccompanied by its mother.
It bleats—or is that sheep—
but she utters no response.
There is a wolf: crouched and hungry,
salivating a river that carries away
the ants at his feet.
II.
How tender, how soft. How instinctually urgent. How red his muzzle becomes as the fawn falls silent. Artemis weeps. Hunters curse her father. The virginal moon begins to wane.
toks-ee-ko-DEN-dron RAD-ee-kans
There’s ivy growing in my head, pushing
out against my skull. Cracking it, one leaf
tentatively reaches for the sunlight
before the rest burst through. I have migraines
that not even Eve can alleviate,
no matter how much she wishes to pluck
these leaves. My mother gave up long ago;
the pink blisters swallowing her hands whole.
Ideas turn to soil—words decompose
as the ivy’s poison seeps into grey
matter. Eaten alive. Lobotomize
me with herbicides, becoming Eden:
root my mind in unimaginable
perfection. Cast away all its toxins.
HED-ur-uh HEE-licks
The promises you made me encircled
my heart like ivy, delicate tendrils
tentatively spreading to fill every
empty space between fragile bones. Crawling
from one failing organ to the next: leaves
ushering in revitalization;
sunlight warming the emptiness within
ribs. There are days when I want to cut myself
open—unworthy to be made terra
cotta—and let the vines pour out for you.
Praying to be touched by such a green thumb.
Yet, this is not that kind of love. There’s no
roots feasting off white blood cells. No vines in
tender veins. You’ve chosen to nurture me.
We place them on
the curb, trash bags
full of lawn debris
from when the tress
exhaled. I exhaled.
My mother exhaled
smoke from her
cigarette that refused
to stay lit, forced out
by a breeze shaking
the trees. Until one
comes down through
the center of my chest.
Hearth torn in two.
Home no more a place
for my heart than
cigarette-calloused,
rake-blistered hands.
I have thrown my heart to sea. Thinking it would be safer
there, amongst ravenous sharks, than in the palm of your
hand. Memories of you still haunt, each one tinged red.
Covering me in blood; chumming vicious waters with my
body. (Did you know they can smell blood from a mile away?)
I wonder where the undertow will carry my heart: will it
be speared through the bow of shipwreck, will it wash up on
shore as a prize for a girl building sand castles. The perfect
topper for a queen’s tower. But this thing is no beautiful
product of an “x” on a map. She should set it adrift again,
letting the sharks take hold of the remnants that never made
it through your teeth. Each empty ventricle spreading across
the water’s surface like moonlight. A pitiful piece of meat
sacrificed to Amphitrite. But it is not enough. Not enough to
explain what happens to a man who goes down with his ship
or a person who simply cannot muster the words, I do not
love you anymore.
Lindsay Gioffre is a poet from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They currently reside in Orlando, Florida.