Poetry Winter 2020 fiction all issues
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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
Oak Morse
Hard as Teeth
i’ve come a long way from being a crippled tongue.
i use every vein in my body to speak clearly, but it’s
like trying to snatch a cloud out the sky. but you
choose to act like my words are so distorted. my
darling, my words slid in your ears with ease when
you wanted to get in my pants to make a fountain
out of me. i understand your cravings, we all have
them—mine was finding a companion, a woman
who could make herself at home in my heart. but
now all of a sudden everything sounds like clatter.
you made your favorite word what, ran me over
with it, and made a mockery out of me, even when
the words flowed out like a symphony—played
perfectly in unison. why use me? why use my
speech against me? in this moment, i’m a frozen
volcano and my darling, i own a heart and i would
rather spend my time helping people than
humiliating them when their imperfections shine
bright in my face. i recommend you try going for
kind next time. maybe in this moment, i need to as
well. so i’ll leave you with this: even though my
speech walks on one bad leg, it gets the job done.
Oak Morse
lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches creative writing and performance, and leads a youth poetry troop, the Phoenix Fire-Spitters. He was the winner of the 2017 Magpie Award for Poetry in Pulp Literature, and a semi-finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize. He is a Houston Texans’ Stars in The Classroom recipient and a Pushcart Nominee. Oak’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Pank, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Menacing Hedge, Cosmonaut Avenue, Gone Lawn, among others.