Joe is Making Good Money at the Brokerage

October 2022 | poetry

He wants a boy & will reward me for my trouble.

Back then, the passing down of lines – like God’s word invoking Eve’s loyalty. Grandpa’s on the beach drowning the horizon. The only sounds moths flying at the sun before bursting. I can feel the pink-whiskered zygote circling the womb searching for a shore to latch on to. Who am I but a siren song passed down from mother? I will never be a safe harbor. Why do we celebrate in pinks and blues before identity has time to steep? Spring is late. The lemons in the yard are green, still hard. Joe waits, palms cinched tight like a tarp over a bonfire. I press lies into ash as I birth her, a face I loved before it was fully formed. Joe is red as a thousand little papercuts. I turn away, embracing hope, the promise in this new skin.

Sheree La Puma

Sheree La Puma is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in The Penn Review, Redivider, Stand Magazine, The Maine Review, Rust + Moth, The Rumpus, Burningword, and Catamaran Literary Reader, among others. She earned her MFA in writing from CalArts. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of The Net and three Pushcarts. She has a new chapbook, ‘Broken: Do Not Use.’ (Main Street Rag Publishing) www.shereelapuma.com

Connor Doyle

October 2022 | visual art

Hole

 

Connor Doyle

Connor Doyle is a photographer and filmmaker based in the Chicagoland area. Using a number of analog film formats, Doyle’s work focuses on the idiosyncratic details of daily life in Northern Illinois, specifically his native Wheaton, IL. Though often trivial, his subjects capture the formal beauty and potency of these everyday sites, urging his viewers to reflect on the significance of their lived experiences. Connor’s work has been published in the Hole In The Head Review, Humana Obscura, the Parliament Literary Journal, and Burningword Literary Journal. You can visit his website at https://connordoylephotographyfilmmaker.cargo.site/

See

October 2022 | poetry

“The raft is not the shore” — Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace.

Sinless dung,

oak tree preach,

buffalo boy’s grass, bowl of milk.

Let understanding grow.

Rock, gas, mineral,

water wash feet —

cosmos meditates on cosmos.

Escape is no escape.

See suffering.

Avoid stacked coins.

Ocean salt, ashes in a velvet bag —

truth knock.

Straw on mud,

blanket on concrete,

hydrant draped in silk.

Work no harm.

Gaze, even on vomit.

Vent noxious.

Bike monk,

breakfast with tree,

84,000 doors,

a raft, a finger pointing.

No browbeating.

No gossiping.

No lying.

Cloud in paper,

waiting for hawk flight.

Footprint of a prophet,

ripped veil.

Let live.

Answer door.

See.

Afraid of height, terrored of road,

insect-burdened, undesiring,

plant blank paper.

Every manner of thing will be well.

Book not yet performed.

Translate a single bird song.

Patrick T. Reardon

Patrick T. Reardon, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, has authored eleven books, including the poetry collections Requiem for David (Silver Birch), Darkness on the Face of the Deep (Kelsay) and The Lost Tribes (Grey Book). Forthcoming is his memoir in prose poems Puddin’: The Autobiography of a Baby (Third World). His website is patricktreardon.com. His poetry has appeared in Rhino, Main Street Rag, America, Autumn Sky, Burningword Literary Journal and many others. His poem “The archangel Michael” was a finalist for the 2022 Mary Blinn Poetry Prize.

Cathy Hollister

October 2022 | Best of Net nominee, poetry

The Local

 

oak and leather corner pub

warm glow of Guinness

tensions softly fold to sighs

beyond these walls

irrelevance

 

Speakers

Eyes

That widen in surprise

Tear in sympathy

Smile

Pen

That writes of playful things

Whose ink spills out in flourishes

Drawing pictures in words

Laptop

That clicks with musical beat

Whose letters speak to screen

In engineered friendship

Screen

That explodes, whispers, cries

a tale I don’t want to hear

but I can’t turn off

Hands

That speak of love

With the softest caress

on the cheek

Voice

Muffled by mask

That can’t hide the smile

In the eyes

Ode to Candle Stub

Wax almost spent, wick bent and blackened

dripping life blood of self in service

sleeping old soldier

bivouacked in the back of the drawer

Ignored

found when pawing for pen or twist tie

always ready, willing to accept

the sweet kiss of fire, illumine

the great pool of dark as strong as

younger, taller, more fortified

tapering heights

Service to the end of life

Service to the depths of self

Service highly valued

to the stubby end

Cathy Hollister

Cathy Hollister is an older writer whose poetry often explores the treasures embedded in age, isolation, and continual readjustments. When not writing you might find her on the dance floor enjoying the company of friends or deep in the woods basking in the peace of solitude. Her work has been in Silent Spark Press, Humans of the World Blog, Open Door Magazine, Beyond Words Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Poet’s Choiceanthologies, and others. She lives in middle Tennessee.

Baby Love

October 2022 | nonfiction

The inside of the ice-cream truck is a hot dark closet with syrup air that gags. We are rumbling around a New Jersey cul-de-sac and no one can catch us. My six-year-old fingers are soft worms straining to hold onto the slippery silver rod above. The floor shakes, but my bare legs do a clumsy dance to stay standing. The man in the white uniform driving looks back at me and smiles. I wonder if my big sisters can see me. The ledge of the slide-open window is too high to peek over. The tinkling bells and cries of the neighborhood children outside, the radio voices of Diana Ross and The Supremes inside cannot drown out the sound of my blood pounding: This is the bravest thing I have ever done. …baby love, my baby love / Been missing ya, miss kissing ya.

We stop so hard I must grab the bar with both hands. I bump up against the freezer with sticky red popsicles, ice-cream sandwiches, and fudge bars. I cannot wait to see the faces of the others clutching quarters in their hands, when I pop out of this ice-cream limousine. They have never been inside, like me. I will spring out in surprise.

But the only face I see is my father’s.

What is he doing here? He is never here when we buy ice-cream. He is away “on business” when we buy ice-cream, when we ride bikes, when we go to Brownies, when we have back-to-school nights. When we wake up because our mother is crying, smoking and drinking from the jug of red wine on the kitchen table. My father’s eyes scare me; he looks like a killer. I am afraid he is going to hit me. But he lunges past, at something white behind me.

 

A. Cabrera

A. Cabrera’s poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction essays have appeared in The New Guard, Brain Child Magazine, Colere, Acentos Review, Ravensperch, Best Travelers’ Tales 2021 Anthology, Deronda, and other journals. Their work has also been nominated for a Pushcart Award and adapted for stage by the Bay Area Word for Word Theater Company.