"The Well" by Elan Maier

The moment they let me walk the farm alone
I screamed it in the well.
I had a dog then, a long brown haired dog, who
brought mud through the foyer and sunroom and den.
On summer mornings we’d walk with him, Barky.
I could kick pebbles with my hard and tough barefeet
as the sun rose over the tufts of grandmother elk and
maple, announcing the day on my forehead.
Barky’s nose in the rivulets, the smell of drying fruit
through that honeyed monthlessness, yearlessness, breath.
Unlamenting, without compare, away from the alley
through which I now side-step, wedged between back then
and maybe later.

We’d run to the well after tumblers of juice
drained to drops except for the pulp, specks
instabaked to the plastic pink silos, the eastborne
summer sun torilla’d through the carrot curtains.
Remember when Javi broke his beaver tooth on the
stone wall of the well? Could you believe it? The
first time any of us ever tripped in our lives
thwack
just like that, perfect. Blood through too many fingers
as he howled the whole way home. How they sat us
on the checkered sofa which used to fit all five
and said “no more— no more races— couldn’t we see—
trying to get yourselves killed?” But, ha, there we were
sprinting like always, Javi smiling through his swollen lip.

When I could rent a car, years later,
I drove out to the well.
My hope: smudges of farm dirt on the linen of a suit
I no longer wanted. Setting eyes on the spread of pink house
I’d hear the faraway bell of voices now gone or changed.
In the clean cabin of the car along that ghostly road
I steeled myself to see condos or commercial limbs
or an expanse of faceless industry where the well once stood.
There’d be no more house or back shed or rolling rugs of crop;
cabbage and grape, cherry and lime.
But I needn’t have tried, for I couldn’t find
the farm at all. I’d forgotten the names. I was like
the black birds swimming above, circling nothing,
knowing it lay around the corner but never finding it there,
as the minutes clicked and gas eeked towards empty.

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Though Elan Maier hails from the mean streets of Silicon Valley, he currently lives in New York City. His writing has been published in the Appalachian Review, Darling Records, and BoomPowSplat. He earned his masters in creative writing from Oxford University and his first novel was a finalist for the Screencraft Cinematic Book competition.

"Killdeer" by Robert Wilson

Two killdeer nest on the river stones circling a rusty storm drain. She flattens her wings and
head as I walk by as if she were ashamed of living in poverty at the bottom of a hill. Her mate
comes close and flashes his orange tail feathers, then rows away, a broken oar hanging over the
gunnel of his body, tempting me to follow. Both birds wear black collars above their tan and
white bodies, and from the summer solstice until Ashura take turns nesting or pretending at
broken bones. Somewhere from the trail that lifts to the summit I hear a voice say, “I can’t love
you the way you need to be loved.” The words drop clearly in my direction like gravity’s ashes
telling me I am inadequate and at fault for being alone.

In four weeks, four eggs will awaken and stones will appear to shed their skins. When the chicks hatch, the parents remove the shells far from the birthing site. Killdeer are named after their two note trill, a treaty signed with deceit to keep their little ones safe. Lavender, which is a spring bloom, grows wild along the trail that lifts to the summit of the hill near the nest. Each afternoon I like to walk to the top and break open fallow ends, surprised each time that I can still smell purple even while I am out of breath.

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Robert Wilson is a writer whose poems have most recently appeared in Welter and SoFLoPoJo. His poem Dolphin Tour was nominated for Best of the Net in 2023 and his poem Spring Tide was the 2024 winner of the Water to Words contest sponsored by the Seneca (New York) Park Zoo Society. He lives beside the ocean in Cape Haze, Florida.

"Margaret" by Robert Wilson

I wait in the pickup/drop off area listening for the warning bell from the South Shore Limited
from Chicago. Small birds the color of clouds balance on the rails, rust collecting on their toes,
three pointing forward, one pointing back. The birds startle as the train floats to a stop like a
funeral procession for momentum, then commuters, scholarship Catholics, and my daughter,
descend. She carries a Fair Trade Bag and wears a pewter Christmas necklace made of two
crossed swords, and sat facing the wrong way so all she could see was the past. My mother died
three late nights and one dawn after my daughter was born. They are both named—one, then the
next—Margaret. A woman of that same name lived inside a dragon seven hundred years ago and became one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Most railroad crossings are uncontrolled, a matter of chance for all who pass. We should be grateful to have a limited body, like mine, like yours.

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Robert Wilson is a writer whose poems have most recently appeared in Welter and SoFLoPoJo. His poem Dolphin Tour was nominated for Best of the Net in 2023 and his poem Spring Tide was the 2024 winner of the Water to Words contest sponsored by the Seneca (New York) Park Zoo Society. He lives beside the ocean in Cape Haze, Florida.

"Sarai" by Robert Wilson

As we age, the language thief steals
our important words.
God is an important word.
So is Serophene, three rings
of nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen
supported by a carbon backbone
that creates underlying conditions
and risks of complications.

Tonight, the clouds are filled
with young rain wrapped in ice,
the desert soundscape moves between
the exchange surfaces inside and outside
your mind.
Your tongue rides high to find
the letter N.
The laughing thrush, the old world sparrows
form a bursting star pattern against
the permeable sky.

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Robert Wilson is a writer whose poems have most recently appeared in Welter and SoFLoPoJo. His poem Dolphin Tour was nominated for Best of the Net in 2023 and his poem Spring Tide was the 2024 winner of the Water to Words contest sponsored by the Seneca (New York) Park Zoo Society. He lives beside the ocean in Cape Haze, Florida.

"The Cat Speaks on Graves" by Emma Johnson-Rivard

Recent trail footage caught a ghost contemplating the stars,
a cougar walking alone. This one appears solitary.
She found a bone, then ground her claws upon it.
The marrow was long gone. She had no kitten,
no mate to share it with. Alone, she steeled herself
to the road. They say animals forget, but
we know better.

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Emma Johnson-Rivard is a midwestern writer of poetry and weird fiction. Her work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Coffin Bell, Moon City Review, and others. She can be found at Bluesky at @badcattales and at emmajohnson-rivard.com

"ASH" by Elizabeth Benge

Do you remember the night you shattered?
The floor outside her room was littered
with debris—gloves and masks and empty
vials, remnants of the war you lost.
They took her body away and left you,
staring at your own hands. She was young and pregnant, you said,
as if that alone could summon her back,
as if that one fact could erase
the hours you spent inside that room,
chasing her heartbeat with desperate fingers
until there was nothing left to catch. The Delta surge had us all burning.
You were untouchable,
a stone in the storm, the doctor
we all looked to when our hands shook.
But you stood there hollow-eyed,
cracked open and emptied out.
And I saw how easily it could happen to me. The next morning, you were gone.
I kept waiting for you to come back,
to fill the eye at the center
of the chaos, but your pager lay silent
on the counter, and your name stayed dark
on the schedule, a hole that widened
with every shift. I didn’t want to be you.
But the patients kept coming,
their lungs filling like waterlogged boats,
their eyes searching for anyone
who could promise they'd float.
I stepped into your storm
one trembling foot at a time,
and the weight wrapped me
like a second skin. There was no time to wonder
if I was ready, if I could be
what they needed. I knew what
awaited me. I had watched it
erode in your hands, felt
its shadow cross my heart. This work is a quiet violence,
a tender, brutal unraveling.
To hold each life sacred,
to lose it anyway, and to keep going
with blood-stained sleeves,
knowing all too well
that one day, I might split open
just like you did. Still, I put on my mask,
my gloves, my shield. I steady
my hands, quiet the shaking,
stand at the bedside of the next
and the next, facing down the ghosts
that press like fog against the walls.

---

Lizzie Benge is a sleep medicine physician, first-year attending, and faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Lizzie writes about the intersection of medicine and humanity, capturing the quiet, powerful moments that reveal the resilience of patients and doctors alike.

"SANTA ANAS" by Kirby Wright

Wind from the desert.
Trees bend in one direction

With sagebrush gusts.
They point to the ocean,

A dull blue with hollow waves.
Brush fire in Ventura

Expands to 20,000 acres.
Chainsaws gnaw suspect branches.

Smoke pretends to be clouds.
Stench of possessions burning.

Twilight wind howls—
Coyotes circling before the kill.

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Kirby Michael Wright was born and raised in Hawaii. He lives beside the track in San Diego with his wife Darcy and a cat named Gatsby.

"Brookie" by Meredith Chester

Bright pink spots, a golden streak, the tiniest wild trout pops
through the net and slips away into the stream. It vanishes
before I can touch its pink specks; I’m compelled to cast again.

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Meredith Chester holds a BA in creative writing from Florida State University. Her flash fiction and poetry has been published in the Wilderness House Literary Review and in La Piccioletta Barca. In her free time, she enjoys crafting and relaxing with her dog.

"The Barred Owl" by Meredith Chester

When my friend says of my trees, they are HUNDREDS of years old, we
are giddy, laugh too loudly, forget the time, lose the sunlight,
the owl flies to its ANCIENT branch in rapid merry dark.

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Meredith Chester holds a BA in creative writing from Florida State University. Her flash fiction and poetry has been published in the Wilderness House Literary Review and in La Piccioletta Barca. In her free time, she enjoys crafting and relaxing with her dog.

Four Poems by Lauren Arienzale

simple

to live one hundred years
in a quarter of the time

and still savor tomorrow

that is my gift

containing

and here i am,
spilling the confetti of my psyche
wild and colorful and violently messy
on the floor of your office

and here you are,
calling my chaos wonderful
and holding up my madness
with the upmost care

queer experience

the words leave your mouth
how i imagine
fire must spread

it is an ember of good intentions
and then
a forest fire of twisted holiness

because you say, “i’ll pray for you,”
but really mean,
“we’ll never meet in heaven.”

bloodline

the day you died
i stood by the body
while they cried and prayed and argued

the plague was only in its first summer
then, and i was foolishly hopeful

wishing on shooting stars in the backyard
and begging the solar system to make me braver.

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Lauren Arienzale is a cat mom, doctoral student in clinical psychology, former organic farmer, and lifelong poet. She is the author of the independently published poetry collection, "Mud Pie.” Her work has also appeared in Scapegoat Review, The Closed Eye Open (Maya’s Micros), and A Plate of Pandemic. Check out her website: laurenarienzale.com