Shutdown.log

if (soul == None):
 log("disconnection detected");
 backup("last known version of me");

if (heartbeat.variation < 0.01):
 run("old songs");
 try:
  trigger("feeling");
 except:
  pass

if (voice == empty):
 load("your messages.txt");
 loop:
  hear("you saying goodbye");

if (system == unstable):
 restart();
 load("quiet");

if (presence == ghost):
 print("I loved you");
 shutdown("gently");

Instructions for leaving.
When there’s no one left.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Parietal Operculum

We're proud to feature this poem from Kristyn Snedden’s chapbook Urchin to My Shell, which was selected by Olatunde Osinaike as a finalist of The Headlight Review’s 2025 Poetry Chapbook Contest.

       Lessons from my husband’s neurologist

I listened while he unfolded every millimeter
of the cortex that cuddles up to the insula,
all that integration. His voice was driftwood

full of holes and swirls. Simon Lacey says the parietal
operculum is where we sense texture through touch,
even if all we do is read it somewhere, our brains

light up on the machine. Someone said your skin
is like velvet, which produced only a worn out
glimmer in the region, but when I touched

you I was myself full of ocean nettles, scalpels
and scythe, yellow and deep rose, forest green.
I was a wilderness captured by the dune,

waves ran over me in the sea of you
and no thought lingered, just the colors
and touch of mossy dark, the taste of brine.

Adrift in that damp sea, that gentle tide,
every minute as sweet as the sting
of the Atalla jellyfish, as bright as a supernova.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Ars Poetica with Amateur Tarot

We’re proud to feature this poem from M. Ezra Zhang’s chapbook Self-Portrait with LSD and Mirror, which was selected by Olatunde Osinaike as a finalist of The Headlight Review’s 2025 Poetry Chapbook Contest.

While my lover the tarot reader is comatose
in the bedroom after a night of talking to a god
I could not taste or touch, I scatter
the cards across the living
room like spores
into darkness. Yesterday
under the domination of that god, my face
thrummed in my hands as if
I were wielding a bucket of light. Recoiling from its glare
I was disgusted to find that it followed
me everywhere.

Knowing nothing
about divination I pull three cards:
the moon, the tower, the devil.
If you, like me, don’t know the interior of these
cards, I beg you not to look for them.
It will only make things worse. Look at me
instead while I tell you something true:

One night you are moving
under the hot wet animal of the moon.
You coil upwards a couple hundred
spells until the horizon drowns into the earth
and abandons. At the eye of the tower you become the
eye of the tower. The black grass from below
swells heavenward and then you
become that darkness too.

Today on earth, the living
room window transfixes me
for hours but I find no tranquility in the scene
of the people of the world arriving
at where they need to be.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

an “i want” poem about hilarious masochism

to get sunburnt
   on the scalp & the top of the shoulders
              where it freckles after the second burn
   & that sun burns the sand too & it grinds between heel & flip flop
      until, sandals abandoned,  cold salt waves engulf     ankles & up

to miss the step
   the one to the garage & shins collide with wooden doorframe
                  dad curses, shit, you startled me,   stop running
              so damn fast through the yard
      & for some reason it’s funny to feel the cool cement of the garage against
                      those knobby knocking skinny knees
         & each bruise evidence excitement & dad
                  cared enough to cuss

to crash the bike   
   milli—micro—nano seconds before it hits annie       & both challenger & chicken
                      fall into the grass  bruising on dirt
           blushing under sun &   adrenaline   &  full-stop stupid
       & the bike hits the telephone pole before it cruises into the street
     & two girls now have grass stains up their (one pale, one olive) forearms slight
                           & bug-bitten & tree bark-carved
       & everything is laughing, the summer,  the sun,   the breeze,
       & annie gets the bike & starts up the hill for her turn to come down again

to crawl back in the window
     dictionary under armpit &     shingle pieces   breaking palm skin
           soft landing on the twin bed where the cat tilts his head
                             at crickets   under the sill
        & the ribs have burned   & burned   from summer’s insufferable
                         way of causing laughter
             & the sun is pulling its linen blanket    over its head now
             & the power is still out   & the Nintendo DS died two
                         hours ago &  the bookmark sits at R
                                in the dictionary: raucous, rabid,
                                   rampart,    rapeseed,
            & being bored is worse than bruising or burning
                   because it leaves the fewest marks

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

The Assembly Line Flow

Steel slab after steel slab
guided, slid, shoved
into a push press
expected to deliver
on loose screws and bolts,
thirty seconds of ear-shattering bangs per sheet.
Bang!
Bang!
Eyes, mind closed to own smoke—
Overheat—
but maintain top speed.
Slow down, breathe—
become obsolete.

Move and manufacture,
produce and progress
till guide, slide, shove
devolves to push, pull,
snap back on a fallen piece.
Till each steel slab
on assembly line's flow
spawns a sob
masquerading as a rattled screech.
Bang!
Bang!
till screaming prayers to remain composed—
on shifts one through three—
looped on an endless repeat.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Rex

We're proud to feature this poem from Van G. Garrett’s chapbook Chinaberry Constellations: Odes, which was selected by Olatunde Osinaike as a finalist of The Headlight Review’s 2025 Poetry Chapbook Contest.

Big Mama’s house was two floors
of adventure:

A library of memories
A storehouse of stories

A patchwork of possibilities

Walls with hidden treasure
Creaking steps
A haunted attic

Photos and old records

In the summer
we swiped at the sun
laughed until our sides hurt

Brave as kids could be
Except for when we hard-sprinted
from a German Shepherd
with amber-colored eyes
named after a dinosaur

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

ACCESS_DENIED: heart.exe

> Running diagnostics...

Emotional drive:
fragmented.

Accessing main directory:
/hope/memory/you

Status:
file: touch.exe — missing
file: laugh.wav — corrupted
file: promise.txt — overwritten
folder: trust/ — access denied

Attempting repair...
Error: permission denied.

System prompt:
“Feeling requires vulnerability. Proceed?”

User input:
...
Suggested action:
abort.

Some systems forget
how to open again.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

On the Death of a Queen

there is laughter like the ripples
when something dark breaks the water,
the laughter of children colliding
with the inert thigh of their mother
stood hollering,

there is the laughter of that discovery
of looking up at the mother’s face softening
and learning fear is a thing
you grow into
not out of,

there is the laughter of wind filling a sail
and two lovers’ hands on the tiller,
peacocks pluming and the dogs’ mistress returning
to a forest of tails around the hearse,
there is

the laughter of doors opened slowly by lovers
with a bottle in one hand and a lie in the other,
then the dark laughter of the same door closing some hours later,
the laughter of disbelief and crumbs in the bed,
there is

the laughter of the town crier drunk in the night
swaying under a lit window
where
the pert whisper of a curtain being drawn
seems louder than the tolling bells.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Scooch

The lower I scooch, the better the reception.
Like the signal’s intensity is what it is except
around me. We’re watching The Rockford Files
in my father-in-law’s recreational vehicle in a
private drive in Ft. Lauderdale, James Garner /
Jim Rockford handing out uber-macho lectures.
It’s 1980. I’m a new dad and reading Faulkner
for a class. I catch the politics of calling women
Honey. The woman in tennis whites has framed
Rockford for felony murder. Her navel, an innie,
packs loads of social import before its vanishing.
Arthur Dixon, my kind father-in-law, stands. He
steps to the antenna. Now he’s motioning Scooch,
Jim Rockford smart-mouthing his way to triumph,
the rest of our family inside the house or at church.
This evening, Arthur loves his battery-powered TV,
asks if I like Florida. I say, Positively, as Rockford
calls up William Faulkner in a ’74 Firebird Esprit,
skillfully spinning a steering wheel—like America
is okay just fine but you need to be willing to, well,
scooch down so you catch sight of the road ahead.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Pennypoker1919 to His Followers

Welcome to my playground sanctuary, friends/fans. This room is an extremely passionate and sensual place filled with mystery, desire, masculinity! I am permissive and open, live to be in front the webcam. Please play along and look at the bright side.

My tip menu, dears:

Send me 1 token lol if you enjoy * 2 if you love * 10 for flash my stuff *
30 foreskin massage * 60 explain you my 53 seduction tattoo in ethereal detail *
70 intellectual conversation * 100 special armpit entertainment *
200 open window for view of downtown Kharkiv * 250 confirm theory that I look like
Timothée Chalamet * 500 virtually you sniff my bushy base * 1000 body tour *
1,500 we listen to the air-raid sirens * 3,000 I ship my underwear to your door anywhere *
4,000 seven somersaults in city rubble * 5,000 after the bombs, watch dawn over Kharkiv *
6,000 I introduce you to my hamster * 8,000 intellectual conversation plus *

10,000 become the god of my castle * 20,000 we meet in Kharkiv, you and I, for a night
of body contact only * 40,000 I take you around on my motorbike and you hold me where you
have need to * 50,000 real life body tour + armpit entertainment + bike tour + intellectual
conversation * 100,000 roommate life with you in your country after the war, you house and clothe and feed me and teach me the language and bathe me + unlimited intellectual
conversation + armpit entertainment + long tongue games + every orifice explored + 20 new tattoos *

500,000 I read to you what genre book or mystery you desire, I wash your feet and go for your shopping, we marry, you explore every orifice + intellectual conversation + Maserati convertible + I clean, do house jobs and fixing + unlimited foreskin massage, hundreds of handstands and somersaults

**************1,000,000!************** I belong to you, my every orifice for your curiosity and whim, even after my passing of twink years and you pass into aged years, I feed you, clothe you, bathe you, nurse you and wheel you, and when you’re disappeared I arrange all and inherit all and bring flowers, whichever you command, and keep the earwigs out of vase by your headstone as long as I am able and forever, my love.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Breakout

As soon as you reach a hand through them,
the walls will dissolve. Work with
the window there, above your eye-level.
Even if you have to stand on your toes
until your arches throb, become
a part of what you see through the bars:

the alley where snow hangs on in smears
under bare trees, garbage trucks
pack the sodden refuse, and a grey-striped cat
skirts the puddle under a downspout.

Your window will enlarge until it replaces
the entire wall, and you will walk out whole.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Memory of Exodus

“Memory of Exodus” by Camille Hernandez

may / these / bones / hold fast / to the / ticking before the / quitting / we weren’t born a haunting / through numbing or rowdy melancholy / what we inherited meant to drown us / lungs ablaze we gripped / survival continuing as / prophetess spilling radiance / staving disaster determining fate / beyond an algorithm branch / few things are growing / faster from collapse / a dwarf star / uses its energy / before / imploding / our skin was / the night sky / containing / it

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

On the 56th Anniversary of My Father’s Death

We’re proud to feature this poem from Elizabeth J. Coleman’s chapbook On a Saturday in the Anthropocene, which was selected by Olatunde Osinaike as a finalist in The Headlight Review’s Chapbook Contest in the Spring of 2025.

I decide to join the resistance against negativity.
To celebrate that cancer is a chronic illness now.

And that an old family friend will be able to live
with his blood cancer, stage four. In my mind,

I bestow on him the joy of knowing his sons’
spouses and children. Then, just as I do every day,

I empty our compost bin into our building's
larger one. Tuesdays the sanitation

department picks the compost up, and, after
a while, the resulting soil will go into New York

City’s parks, or so they say. The songbirds
are returning to Riverside Park, with their

capacity for human speech. My beautiful brown
dove is back, just four feet away, on my office

windowsill, watching me work.
Later we’ll head to Central Park, and, I hope,

come upon the saxophonist playing under
Graywacke Arch. My grandson

will skip over, put money in the case.
Last week, my freckled granddaughter

sold me a hand-painted bookmark
at her Ukraine fundraiser, with pink and blue

flowers, a sun, and a sky of paper white.
And today the woman who owns the frame store

between 95th and 96th on Broadway told me
she wants to go to outer space, as she smiled

from behind the counter in her little shop.
I pictured her en route in her white top,
leopard print leggings and black flats.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

final sale: no returns

shelf life
expiration date
say you love me before the price tag peels off
[aisle 13, fluorescence flickering—]
you reach for the last dented can of chickpeas & so do i & so we do
& suddenly our delicate hands are tangled like a broken barcode…
like an error in the quick scanner—like a misprint on the receipt of fate.
(does fate even issue refunds?)

the can rolls & gravity takes its tax—bottoms out—bottoms out—out. out. out. we both bend
down, the linoleum yawns. an abyss in the waxy white tiles. (buy one get one free. but
who is one and who is free?) a voice on the loudspeaker crackles: attention shoppers,
all prices are final. but my knees are on clearance—your laughter is marked
down—our shoulders gently brush & suddenly, the barcode of your
wrist is scanning my pulse. i’m full of expired metaphors. you’re
full of unspoken coupons.
(fine print: offers valid while supplies last)

the manager’s voice rustles overhead, a plastic bag in the wind. the fluorescent lights glitch.
the can rolls towards the underworld of the shelves. disappears. the lowest shelf. (where
forgotten things go. where we’re going. where we—) you giggle—you giggle—
you peel the last digit off a price tag and whisper it into my ear like a
prophecy. i mishear it as love. and then all markdowns,
we disappear in the bustling crowd.
(reduced for quick sale)

but then—
i wake up in aisle 13 again. again. again. the same can waiting. you reach. so do i. the scanner
beeps. the loop begins again. (does fate even offer exchanges?) the can rolls—but this time
it doesn’t stop. it keeps rolling, past the lowest shelf, past the waxed linoleum, past
the storeroom door left ajar. down. down into the supermarket catacombs
where carts with rusted wheels hum lullabies and lost items mutters
fainted names. (who is lost? the can? us?) you follow it. i
follow you. a door abruptly closes behind us. the
intercom gives a ding: attention shoppers,
this store is now closed.

and when we returned around—there is no aisle 13…13…13…
no fluorescent light—no way back. only shelves stacked
high with things we do not remember losing. And
shadowy price tags that bear our names.
this item is no longer available.
(final sale. no returns.)

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Love Song Intended to Stave Off Discontinuation of Relations (Unsuccessful)

Say you want me
And I’ll be your boy toy

If you want me hard to get
I’ll be your coy boy toy

If you want me Scottish
I’ll be your Rob Roy boy toy

If you want me to swell and sway with the crowd
I’ll be your hoi polloi boy toy

If you want me strong like copper and steel
I’ll be your smelted alloy boy toy

If you’re Jewish and I’m not
I’ll be your goy boy toy

If you want me saucy like Szechuan beef
I’ll be your Kikkoman-smothered bok choy boy toy

If you want me After the Thin Man
I’ll be your William Powell and Myrna Loy boy toy

Or, if you want something that melts in your mouth
  Slavic and sweet (and you don’t mind
  sharing the bed with crumbs)
I’ll be your Bolshoi Ballet/Chips Ahoy! boy toy

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 2. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Two Poems

it is a burden to know;
it is a given to fear

teeth upon bone. blood upon snow.
                  skin upon skin. worry upon face.
face upon sheets. repeat then repeat.
                  bandage the wounds but return to the teeth.
return for more. the wound is not
                  a badge of the love you once received,
but it feels close enough to warrant
                  another tear of your flesh, another seep
of your fluids. the wound is not
                  a badge of the love you once received,
but it is all that awakens your
                  senses. the days are many but
the moments of awareness are few.
                  in the morning drops of dew, count
the moments you feared would pass
                  you by. they already have—maybe.
it is a burden to know. it is a given
                  to fear. when december comes knocking
at the window, knuckles chapped
                  in the biting wind, what answers will you have,
what lessons left to share?

someone once told me to understand

love as disease / love as invitation / see, the beech tree / never asked to be made palette / for the lovebirds / armed with blades / gashing their runes / into the bark / scarring trunk / initials standing out / standing tall / for love / beneath curls of incense with unfurled wings / the lovers pronounced / three words each / over the peeling wound / as the tree wept / and the human eyes / remained dry / engrossed in their ritual / establishment / of a lover’s pact / meant to last forever / neither human / able to admit / that forever / doesn’t have to mean eternity / only outlast / those who made the promise / or even shorter—the will to keep it / and i guess in a way / your will could be / what your forever means / but i’m not convinced eternity encompasses / such a small patch of grass / fingers in the soil / homegrown roots / my knuckles are white with grip / nightmares come / to life / i’ve seen them / sketched in crimson / what i can only assume / to be blood / running / beneath spilled milk moonlight / in the hallway that takes / hours to cross / the clocks on its walls / always ahead of me / and my watch / i feel like i’m living / life playing catch-up / three steps behind / and always faltering / always running to get back / to the carving of the beech trees / back to the lovebirds / violence disguised as love / the problem with humans / our tendency for violence / excusable by passion / masked by irrationality / the fragility of human emotion / they say lovebirds have poor sight / poor focus / flighty birds really / their passion is their weakness / and here you know / weakness is just a synonym / just a precursor to downfall / another obstacle to getting / back to those beech trees / the only things that truly matter / unfold beneath shuddering leaves / between scarred trunks / and why do you keep walking past them / as if their suffering is not vocal / earth-shattering / the catastrophic crash / of lost limb after limb / see lovebirds slice / their legacies into the skin of the tree / penetrating that protective layer / the barrier tenderly tended / since the seed casing ruptured / and the sun first graced / the virgin bark / as it stepped into the light / shaking / feverish / starving for worlds / of wind and soil / thirsty / for the elements whirling and crashing / all around / that gaping bark left behind by the / lovers enraptured / each by the other / peeling bark that festers / unlike human skin / the tree is unable to stitch / itself back together / over the wound / and hide / the spillage / the white screaming scar remains / a talisman / a legacy / an invitation to insects / to disease / infestation / and again / redefinition / leads to love as decay / love as downfall / thinning forests / and feathered arms / looped together / bringing about destruction / this hunt / this quest / this path leading nowhere / but deeper and deeper / into the forest / towards the origin of trees / and bees / i just wanted to define love / but i guess i’ll keep walking / keep looking for tracks / trying to recall the penciled path / curled over the torn map / i’ll never leave home again / i’ll never step foot here again / just tell me what it looks like / how it feels / how to recognize love / even bloodied / and heavy with gore / stumbling through the door left unlocked / some nights even ajar / since footsteps echoed down the steps / when love last left / and my maps stopped leading to you.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

A Puerto Rican Bathroom

Last St. Patrick’s Day I was groped
on the sidewalk outside Tin Roof.
Too much Jameson was how we got there,
waiting for an Uber
that would never show.

Our best day yet was at Boulder Pointe
Golf Club; I wore two sweaters
and his Patagonia like a dress over top.
Sundays are supposed to be
Mrs. Butterworth’s: warm, and
sweet, and slow.

Last Taco Tuesday a stranger told us
Jesus was gay and poly.
Tipsy on a Maiz margarita, a man
tried to track me and Gabi to our car.
Thank God they noticed; my thoughts
were wandering Maybury Sanatorium
like a drunken jungle gym.

In four days I will be my sister’s Maid
of Honor, in a dress from California, beige
three inch heels from Target.
English is my first language, but
"honor" is an elusive term.

Jeep Cherokees have been following
me everywhere, leaping
out of left turn lanes all over town.
They bring me back to August,
back to Calvin Klein skin,
back to a Puerto Rican bathroom
I will never set foot in.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Re: I HAVE DECIDED ABOUT POETRY

Red graffiti says I HAVE DECIDED ABOUT POETRY & it’s like, what did they decide
exactly, that poetry’s so great they left their family moved to the mountains
lived in a little tent in the middle of nowhere writing haikus 24/7? Or did they decide
poetry’s so not worth it, went into business selling widgets to wankers
at 100 bucks a pop instead; floated stocks, shares shot up & crashed back down, now
they’re in the gutter wishing they were dead? Or did they decide poetry’s
what you do when you can’t do anything about babies getting their legs blown off in
Gaza (or in any of the endless wars coming soon to your doorstep), but
you still want to be Good so you make up some cute little clichés about how Bad it all is
& you win a prize named after this dead white guy, then you get to go
on living The Good Life far away from the blood & guts the dying & the crying? Or did
they decide to play games with suckers like me, looking for something deep
in red BS sprayed on walls, & now they’re sitting there laughing their ass off while they
read this trash? Or maybe they just wanted to say they’ve decided about
poetry without saying what cos it’s nobody’s business but their own; meanwhile I can’t
decide if it’s good or bad there’s not enough spray in the can to paint the town
red with my word salad, when the graffiti only needed five little words to start WWIII.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Thursday

Ruidoso burns, Spencer residents haul waterlogged sofas onto their front lawns.
In Oslo, one of the more beautiful men I’ve ever seen glances at my photos, taps a heart.
He doesn’t message and I measure how long to wait before telling him he’s so hot I could cry.
What do they do with roadkill? Where did the two men who came to remove the deer
impaled on my friend’s fence take its body? Was it burned or does it even now rot?
Nearly 21,000 kids are simply unaccounted for in Gaza. They lie under their homes’ stones.
In Idaho, a dry breeze drifts from the sycamore across my windowsills past the lilacs.
I toast sourdough and spread blue cheese dressing, lay down green leaf lettuce,
overlap tomato slices and pile on oven-crisped bacon, feel it crunch under the top bread.
A beautiful man in Los Angeles asks my height, if I grew up playing sports.
It always feels superior to say ballet, omitting that art’s propensity for humiliation.
Stop working. Reach out to me first. You told us things would be lighter with this new job.
My family texts from Montana and I live always with fear in the periphery,
goading me to look it in the eye, that hour or two between the click of the lamp
and sleep the riot of it. At work I write about our team in Ruidoso, Spencer,
handing out pet food and toothpaste. I edit a fundraising page for a dog who was shot
named Lucky. A beautiful man in Minneapolis gives me a number I won’t text.
Housewives get drunk, bicker and embrace in Dubai, New Jersey, Orange County.
In my book a man sleeps with his friend’s daughter and becomes embroiled in post-war
French socialist politics despite wanting only to write a novel. He writes a play and sleeps
with his ingénue lead. A tuxedo cat sits on the patio opposite mine, kept close by pink string.
In the depths of my bowels the world’s array of important things all trade in magnitude.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.

Three Poems

Zombies Walk in the Garden

If we are lucky, we get old
and sit a while in God’s waiting room,
dance at cafes, admire
Baroque architecture, embody
the environment. Sure, zombies walk
in gardens, dualities exist
outside in hay bales, the ocean, helicopters above
deconstructed sound sculptures
follow a river of wires. Later, a man
steps into the frame, now inside
the work, the art alive, pushing
past the dullness of looking
at it hang from a wall. There are too many
conversations we’ll never end.

My Mother Visits Me

Every year from across the country.
She’d never been this far away
from mountains before I moved
here after college. I take her
to all my favorite places
which soon become her favorite
places: the old school diners
with walls slightly yellow-tinged
back from the days when
you could smoke cigarettes inside.
She swears she’d give anything
to relive the sacred ritual of eating
and smoking together again,
just one more time, though she quit
smoking a decade ago.

We visit the punk rock
venues and the dive bars,
the permanent scent
of stale beer emanating
from their graffitied walls.
The speakeasies and jazz clubs
she gets giddy for.

We laugh and stay up
into the depth of night,
eating skittles and Fritos
watching black and white Westerns
in bed. She offers me black licorice,
and I give her the same smirk
I’ve been giving her
my whole life. She pries
into my sex life, and when not
given the amount of detail
desires, she proceeds to share
the too many details of her own tales.

The next day, we ride bikes across
the Brooklyn Bridge and along
the Hudson River. She says
it’ll do if you can’t be
on the back of a motorcycle.
We walk down the canyon
of 5th Avenue, arm in arm, window
shopping for things we’d never
wear, even if we could afford them.

The only store
I convince her to enter
holds a piece of haunting
history: as promised, I tell her
the story of Elma Sands as we stand
in front of the 200-year-old brick well
in the men’s department, imagining
her white muff discovered
drawing water in the morning light.

On our walk back, she catches me
up on the gossip from home—the new
neighbors, the old tattoo shop, how
fast it all keeps changing. She
tells me over and over,
as if I could forget
how proud she is, how
she misses me before
she’s even left.

When my mother
visits, she is no longer
buried in the ground.
The clovers have not yet
grown over her gravestone. I can
almost feel her tousle my hair.

Loons

You cannot believe it, but the sky marigold sorbet

reflected through the looking glass, a lake where families

of Loons preen their feathers for flight while floating by

your own family out each evening on your father’s boat

raising cocktails to the setting sun, a ritual you already miss

watching goslings grow up, fuzzy-headed and bobbing

on water, wingspan tucked beneath them. It happens before

your eyes: cats get fat, hairs grow gray, the bodega on your block

with your favorite bacon, egg, and cheese closes, becomes shuttered

for a few months, then renovated, and now you’re crossing your fingers

it’s not going to be another Chase Bank, or CVS, though you wouldn’t mind

a closer grocery store. As long as there are more summer nights

like this—pooled liquid, silver with gratitude that some things did not

work out, taking instead friendships blossoming over wine, watching bad

reality tv, and a love for falling in love, all of it, even those stormy days

when boats remains docked and a stillness settles over the lake, gazing

out from cabin windows wondering where Loons go when it rains.

This piece was featured in Volume 3, Issue 1. Click here to explore other pieces from this issue.