by Meggie Royer
In a past life my great-aunt believed she was a monk, resplendent in marigold robes, offerings cloaking her doorstep like a shroud. There was a heron against the water in her dreams, so pale it shone like hair. In the life before that she was a boy in a cave, younger than I could ever picture her, hiding coins in the dirt. It was a privilege, to end one life and wake in another, to falter in the way love falters, to see her likeness moving around the corner like a cloud. When I knew her, I knew myself. I saw her; I saw what she buried, I saw that some of us spend our whole lives moving away from what moves toward us. Meggie Royer (she/her) is a Midwestern writer and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Persephone’s Daughters, a journal for abuse survivors. She has won numerous awards and has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize. She thinks there is nothing better in this world than a finished poem. Her work can be found at https://meggieroyer.com.
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by D.W. Baker
pantoum collage after Martha Lundin To be a witch is to love the natural world more than the things human hands have made. We name women who spend too much time with nature Witch, but the line between goddess and witch is thin-- I was always sure of my identity: I was part of her. We name women who spend too much time with nature Witch. (We name things we want to control after women.) I was always sure of my identity: I was part of her-- In this one body, there is no need for names. We name things we want to control after women, but the line between goddess and witch is thin: In this one body, there is no need for names-- To be a witch is to love the natural world more than the things human hands have made. D.W. Baker is a submerging poet from St. Petersburg, Florida, USA, who writes about place, bodies, belonging, and the end of the world. His work appears in Green Ink Poetry, Snowflake Magazine, Feral Poetry, and elsewhere. He is a poetry reader for Hearth & Coffin. See more at linktr.ee/dwbaker by Patrick Wright
you post pictures of funny-walking seagulls and crumb-loving pigeons. from a distance I imagine a mother and child, clambering over rocks, eating crêpes, paddling waist-high. as lifeguards supervise, your message arrives on ‘the uncanniness of arcade machines, a run-down town, a rag-and-bone tumbleweed place, a bustle of back streets, antique shops …’ meanwhile, my device is streaming blue skies, terns perched on promenade lights, a laughing sailor: come laugh with Jolly Jack. I reply: ‘I hope to never meet him under moonlight.’ you heart this line. you’re far, while I’m at a loose end. you text as you trudge up the steps, put the fun in the funicular, sign-off with emojis and gifs, nothing but a screen of hieroglyphics. Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Black Spring), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Southword, Poetry Salzburg, Agenda, Wasafiri, and London Magazine. by Alana Kelsall
we arrived as couples at the rebirthing centre mats lined up like rafts his arm around my shoulder I dropped to a crouch angled my huge belly into line wondered who would succumb first to the tug of sleep draw up the flood of their birth? our best friend trumpeted his snores in no time roped back sheepish into the shadowy room whale music probing the walls feeling like a cabbage adrift in a field I slipped towards a dark watery eye was it a fish? how human is it to breathe? the Denisovans once roamed across vast mountain ranges leaping from crag to outcrop without losing their breath a gene they bequeathed to the Tibetans where did they come from those climbers how did they die out? were they somewhere between a fish and a bird able to lean into storms with breath and bone? how did my body erase my fearful mind during labour with each surge to the end? will our children’s children have to breathe through water learn how to float to higher ground? Alana Kelsall is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose who lives on unceded Wurundjeri land. She recently won second prize in the June Shenfield Award, and was longlisted for the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize. Her poetry is forthcoming in the Australian Poetry Anthology. |
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January 2025
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