Rick Adang taught English as a foreign language for many years and is currently living in Estonia. He has had poems published in many literary magazines, most recently in Hamilton Stone Review, Midwest Quarterly, Cholla Needles, Triggerfish Critical Review (forthcoming) and Book of Matches. Lately he has been particularly enjoying the poetry of Dean Young, Bob Hicok, Philip Levine and Dorianne Laux.

Robert Beveridge

Waiting for a Dead Man's Shoes

The saw does not allow you to dig. This seems

obvious and yet you find you have to be told

like a five year old with a new puppy. I mean,

like, you can buy the carrots pre-shredded but what

does that say about you, as a person, as a chef,

as a prom date in 1989? You can spend your

entire career saying “those chipotles aren’t

going to chop themselves”, but what if you’re

in the field and it’s winter and the cornstalks

are all chopped down to ankle-high and you

have a gun to your head and it turns out

they totally will? Does the bullet

take the place of the chef’s knife, and does

the mixtape you made for the person you swore

you were gonna marry in eighty-six contain

different songs than it did before? Can you

tell us, with your lips stitched shut? Mr.

Mister awaits, breathless, for the verdict.

About the Author

Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). He published his first poem in a non-vanity/non-school publication in November 1988, and it's been all downhill since. Recent/upcoming appearances in Lit Shark, Saragun Springs, and Instant Noodles, among others.

Vclements

Horizontal Close Up of Sparkling Red Slippers

Ace Boggess

Classic

Women destroy themselves for men;

men destroy what they touch.

I learn that watching The Red Shoes.

Classic film invoking fairy tales:

death & tragedy by poetry—

one the art of subtlety, another

of brutal consequence. Whatever

does it mean to achieve greatness, &

who is right, the lover of the arts

or the love? Leaving this nastiness dance,

“Take off the red shoes,” the dying

ballerina says, a task for the man

who lives with what was done.

About the Author

Ace Boggess is author of eight books of poetry, most recently Tell Us How to Live (Fernwood Press, 2025) and My Pandemic / Gratitude List (Mōtus Audāx Press, 2025). His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes, watches Criterion films, and tries to stay out of trouble. His first short-story collection, Always One Mistake, was recently released by Running Wild Press.

Peter Cashorali

Birds of the San Fernando Valley

Crow’s voice is an acid splash.

Everything turns into food.

When he dips beneath your gaze

His black flashes blinding white.

Sparrows in the lemon tree

Gossip as they ply their scissors

And sew everything they’ve heard

Into garments for the light.

Mockingbird calls every name

In the accent of its bearer,

Knows that this will take all spring

And only all of them is right.

Mourning dove breathes out his question,

Opens doorways in the pine.

Who, he asks you, letting heartbreak

Lead you into heart’s delight.

About the Author

Peter Cashorali is a neurodivergent queer psychotherapist, formerly working in HIV/AIDS and community mental health, currently in private practice in Portland and Los Angeles.

S Maolalai

Home

we were drinking homemade martinis.

we were drinking vodka cocktails.

we were drinking a carton of beer.

she said "do you know - I love

what we've made this place

into. did you ever think

you'd do anything like this?"

we were smoking marlboros.

we were drinking red wine.

we were drinking white wine.

About the Author

DS Maolalai has been described by one editor as "a cosmopolitan poet" and another as "prolific, bordering on incontinent". His work has been nominated fourteen times for BOTN, eleven for the Pushcart and once for the Forward Prize, and released in three collections; Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016), Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019) and Noble Rot (Turas Press, 2022).

Tara Menon

Color Competition

Yellow dazzles in my backyard.

Daffodils and forsythia.

Behind them, pink flushes of cherry boughs.

Close to the soil,

popsicles of blue, purple, pink hyacinths

as lacey as my dress,

as fragrant as the perfumed pulses of my wrists.

Green is the lady-in-waiting,

not ready to sparkle,

but content to bud, bud,

shoot blades of grass,

and act as parentheses to flowers

before green emerges as summer’s spectacle.

About the Author

Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is a two-time finalist for the Willow Run Poetry Book Award. Her latest poems are forthcoming or have appeared in AMPLIFY (Sheila-Na-Gig), Chaotic Merge Magazine, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Blue Heron Review, and Grey Sparrow Journal. She is also a fiction writer. Her recent short stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Fairy Tale Review, and Pennsylvania Literary Journal.

Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb

Successful War

Storms swell in the center

of conflicts, of everything,

cells dark and frightening,

hiding lightning

in branches of neurons

no one can see—harbingers,

like that homeless woman,

her unwashed hair frizzed

and electric, chaotic

in the wind, as she claws

with one gloved hand

through a city trash can,

desperate for something

to eat that won’t kill her,

grasps a Styrofoam cup

in the other, rising steam

visible in the heavy air.

Two passing men find her

amusing, ask her what she is

holding, coffee or booze?

She welcomes distraction

but mishears their meanness,

points to her drink. “Neither,”

she says, “It’s Successful War.”

They smirk, shake their heads,

walk away, but I hear thunder,

know she is serious, maybe

a local street schizophrenic,

yet there is an odd sanity

to the nonsense of notions

of “successful war”—a win

leading to raw survival

from the perspective of those

embattled souls who stay alive.

Freebilly

Yes! We Are Twins. Two Hummingbirds Visit Pink Flowers on Rainy Day

We Used to Talk to Hummingbirds

We used to talk to hummingbirds

as we perched in our treehouse,

Cathy and I, our eight-year-old

selves believing they could hear us

as they darted by to feast

on honeysuckle, bee balm,

bleeding heart—she never was,

but the biologist she became

was sympathetic, using science

as a weapon to wield, to shield

shelters of wetlands, woodlands,

islands, forests, prairies, deserts,

and other diminishing places

until she disappeared.

I walk the town square, one of nine

hundred in the Women’s March,

but it’s more than that—it is

an ecology of advocates

for peace, for justice, for all

that defines our place on the Earth,

and I do not take lightly the flight

of a stray Anna’s hummingbird

suddenly hovering out of nowhere,

flying backwards by my face.

It’s Cathy, I’m sure, a sign—

back from my childhood;

I realize that hummingbirds

are not people, but humans

have no wings

making them less

like angels.

About the Author

Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb is the author of Shapes That Stay (Kelsay Books). Her poetry has appeared in Slipstream Magazine, New York Quarterly, Doubleback Review, Camas: The Nature of the West, The Midwest Quarterly, About Place Journal, AJN: The American Journal of Nursing, Medical Literary Messenger, and other publications. She lives in the Central Highlands of Arizona and is co-founder of the late 501(c)(3) natural-history nonprofit Native West Press (2005-2025).

KJ Hannah Greenberg

Listening

About the Author

KJ Hannah Greenberg uses her trusty point-and-shoot camera to capture the order of G-d's universe, and Paint 3D to capture her personal chaos. Sometimes, it’s insufficient for her to sate herself by applying verbal whimsy to pastures where gelatinous wildebeests roam or fey hedgehogs play. Hannah’s self-illustrated poetry collections are: No One Sighs over Wastrels' Graves (Seashell Books, 2026), Miscellaneous Parlor Tricks (Seashell Books, 2024), Word Magpie (Audience Askew, 2024), Subrogation (Seashell Books, 2023), and One-Handed Pianist (Hekate Publishing, 2021). Her coffee table books are: Varying Energies (Seashell Books, 2026), Real and Otherwise (Seashell Books, 2025), Gratitudes: Faith Based Responses to October 7^th (Seashell Books, 2025), and are Life’s Colors (Seashell Books, 2025).

Michael T. Smith

Question / Answer

I had a sketch in a notebook that I thought

answered all the questions of the universe in precis,

But now I can’t read the handwriting, which

ironically, I’m pretty sure is my own.

But had the questions of the universe

been definitively answered -- that I do bemoan.

I bemoan why the stars are all crowded,

at least sixteen to a single constellation:

Look how Taurus tries to run away,

and how others are shackled in belts.

Fleeting, moving, running – so they go

along the liens of this skinny papela.

All while people are so lonely,

led by a question turned soar,

Such that Boötes plants the seeds

Of the stars for nobody at all.

Such that when the spheres turn,

They seem to turn away –

And so my pathetic sketch has turned

away from me, or I from it.

Lost within a primer lesson,

not taken seriously – an espieglerie.

Such is the eternal allure of mystery,

which like a reversed medusa

Can never be seen again

after you look it in the eye.

About the Author

Michael T. Smith is an associate professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published roughly 300 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 100 different journals.

Carolyn Steinhoff

A Life of Peace

In the body of air and water she’s been assigned

she wanders the city clothed in nothing

but the lies her mother told her about herself,

the lies the bosses tell about the poor.

They are fitted over her bones

like a skin suit.

The devil has her by its sleeve.

He makes her walk with him

over the sidewalks:

“Smile to my admirers,” he hisses.

“Tell them I am your friend.”

Her life is a ladder

leaning on mist.

There is no shortcut

to the place called stillness.

There is no long way round.

Her eye is on that beach up there

where the reading of poems

is all that shatters the day.

She carries that future in her skull

since no words invented can talk her into

a life of peace. No one’s invited her

to be alive in the body she’s given.

So she’s the devil’s plus one

at the world’s costume party.

She goes as King of the Invisibles.

All the guests there feel her emotions

about the end of truth

stinging them.

About the Author

Carolyn Steinhoff’s books include Under the World (2016, Nauset Press) and History of the Future (2023). In his blurb for Under the World, the late John Ashbery said, “These are haunting, plangent poems that reverberate in one’s consciousness long after reading.” Her poems have appeared in Book of Matches, Global Poemic, The Indypendent, Cape Rock, And Then, House Organ, Emerge Literary Journal, The Hat, Conjunctions and more. Texture Press published her chapbook, Plain English, and her play The Setting Face to Face with the Clear Light. Her articles have been in Multicultural Review, A&U: America’s AIDS Magazine, and Today’s Latino Magazine.

Alakpla Noah Adomina

A Bridge Over River Tano in the Western Region of Ghana

Osei Tutu Brempong

Ntentan Street: Everybody Is a Fool

The sun left skid marks across the sky as it fled to the west.

She stood at a trotro stop of the most popular street in Anansekrom—Ntentan Street—a place believed to have bred many marvelous and sometimes mysterious incidents in the town.

Behind her stretched a long mural wall, painted with fading colours. Two lamps were pinned onto it, about twelve feet apart. She stood beneath the one on the right. Its light blinked rapidly—click… clerk… click.

She lifted her eyes to it.

From the far end of the road, a red trotro appeared, speeding toward her. It looked tired, its body crooked—rear leaning one way, front the other.

Unimpressed, she returned to her phone.

The driver’s mate banged hard on the roof.

The bus slowed… stopped right in front of her.

She didn’t move.

Her face twisted slightly as she chewed her gum.

Bang! Bang!

The bus pulled away.

“Stop the bus!”

A young man came running—fast, desperate. He stopped at the left lamp, bent over, hands on his knees, struggling to breathe.

“Why…?” he managed between breaths. “Why didn’t you stop the bus for me?”

“Ei, am I here to be stopping trotro for people?” she said.

“Are you serious?” He straightened up, frustrated. “Do you know how hard it is to get one at this time?”

He paced, hands on his head, then went beneath the lamp.

Between them sat a small lovers’ bench, pressed against the wall. Above it, a painting of two figures holding hands. Captioned Made for each other.

He stared at it… then spat onto the road.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye—disgust clear on her face.

“How long have you been standing here?” he asked.

She hesitated.

Click… clerk.

The lamp flickered again.

“About thirty minutes,” she said in a low voice.

“Thirty minutes and you’re being picky with buses?”

“Ahh, na you why? Did I tell you I’m being picky?”

“Of course you are. It stopped right in front of you—nobody got down—and you didn’t enter.”

He cleared his throat, scanning the empty road. A few private cars sped past.

Then he looked at her.

A yellow tie-and-dye crop top with white patterns of cowries and adinkra symbols. A long black skirt.

She caught him staring.

He looked away quickly.

She rolled her eyes.

He glanced again.

Her hair—dark, curly, wrapped at the base with a kente scarf.

“Where are you heading?” he asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

She dragged her luggage toward the bench.

He moved toward it too.

She stopped.

“Never mind. Go ahead,” he said.

“Thank you.”

She sat at the edge.

He tried the other end.

She shifted to the middle.

He paused… then turned away.

The sky had darkened. The street felt unusually quiet.

“When really am I going to get trotro at this time, ehh? Ahh…” he kept murmuring.

She sucked her teeth as she plucked in her earbuds. She cranked the volume.

The left lamp swayed slightly.

She looked up.

Then—

She screamed, jumping off the bench.

“What is it?!” he rushed toward her.

“Something jumped on me!”

She brushed frantically at her clothes.

He leaned closer, inspecting.

“It’s a gecko.”

He flicked it away.

Then moved off, leaning against the wall beneath the left lamp, arms folded.

She returned to the bench.

“Thank you,” she muttered.

He didn’t respond.

“I’ll alight at Daloka Restaurant,” she added.

Silence.

“What about you?” she asked, turning.

He yawned, stretching his mouth wide.

He glanced at her… then away.

A deep sigh.

“I’ll drop at Tano Junction.”

“Do you live close by?” she asked.

“Lived there once.”

He stepped toward the edge of the road, glancing.

She plugged back her earphones.

He said something—she saw his lips move.

She removed one earbud.

“I asked if you stay near Daloka.”

“No. I’m spending the night at a friend’s. You’ve settled nearby?”

“Yes. You used to live here?” he asked still, looking around.

She hesitated.

“Yes… I did.”

He crossed the road, coughed, spat into the gutter, then returned.

A moth fluttered wildly against the bulb of the left lamp.

Click.

The right lamp went off.

“Ei… see how dark it’s gotten,” she murmured.

A private car pulled up.

The driver rolled down his window slowly, smiling.

“Maame, where can I drop you?”

“Tano Junction,” she said quickly. “That’s where my brother and I are heading.”

The driver took a glance at him, tapping on his steering wheel.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll get there. Safe journey.”

He drove off.

They both laughed.

“He wanted you alone,” he said.

“Obviously. Like I’m crazy—enter a car, alone, with a stranger?”

He scoffed.

“What did he call you?”

“Maame.”

“Oh. I thought he mentioned your name.”

“No. My name is Delali. And you?”

“Oduro.”

“Ei, Oduro. I knew one back in school.”

“I bet he was handsome.”

She burst out laughing.

“I won’t say anything for you to say this girl is picky.”

He laughed.

“I get it. You’re trying to say he’s not as fine as me.”

“Aah, I beg oo. Don’t put words in my mouth. But maybe… just maybe.”

He broke into a small celebratory dance.

She laughed harder.“What’s the time?” he asked, reaching into his pocket for his phone.

“It is 8:37 p.m.,” she said.

He grunted and walked to the edge of the road, eyes sweeping.

“You must be in a hurry to leave.”

“Yes, I am. I have to get there before my fiancé does.”

He paced for a moment.

“My ex-fiancé.”

“And if you don’t?”

“If I don’t, she might take the rest of my stuff—and probably destroy what she can’t carry.”

“Oh. That is bad. You must have really hurt her.”

“Somehow. For not being the fool she wanted me to be.”

She adjusted herself, listening more closely.

“I should’ve known from the start. Those little complaints—how I chewed, how I laughed…”

“How you laughed? Did she say how it affected her?”

“She said it was annoying. Not gentle.”

“If anything, I think it is funny. Very infectious.”

“That’s what everyone says. Those petty complaints should’ve warned me.”

“Warned you about what?”

A bus sped toward them. He signaled. It passed.

“Warned you about what?” she repeated.

He exhaled.

“Oh, a lot. What about you? What is your story?”

“Well… if you must know, I caught him cheating on me again today.”

“Again? What did you do the first time?”

“What do you think? I forgave him… up until the fifth time.”

He mouthed the words silently. Fifth time?

“Everybody is a fool,” he said.

“She thought I was going to marry her,” he scoffed. “I saved up and relocated. I just hope

she would never find me.”

Click.

The right lamp came on.

They both turned.

“What is the time now?”

“9:12.”

He stretched. She shifted to the far end of the bench.

“Come and sit.”

“Take your bench. You didn’t want me on it.”

She laughed.

“I never said that.”

“I remember when we had just started dating. I put my arm around her. We were walking in the dark… but as we approached a streetlight, she quickly removed it.”

She gasped.

“What?”

“Yes… and I still didn’t leave.”

He shook his head.

“Everybody is a fool.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I once used my own money to shop for him—just because he asked. Not knowing he gave everything to another girl.”

“What? How did you find out?”

She smiled faintly.

“I saw a message on his phone: ‘I asked for chocolate, not vanilla.’ I didn’t understand. Later,

he complained that I had bought the wrong thing.”

He frowned.

“So I offered to go return it. But nothing was in the house. He couldn’t explain.”

“That was how you knew.”

She nodded.

“And you still stayed?”

“I stayed… and got cheated on twice more.”

They both laughed.

“I tell you,” he said slowly,“every…body… is… a… fool.”

She took out a bottle of water. He glanced at her leather bag.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I teach.”

“Which level?”

“Primary. You?”

“I’m a carpenter.”

“Nice. What do you build?”

“Everything. I started with roofing. Learned the rest along the way.”

“Any pictures of your work you don’t mind showing me?”

“Of course.”

He moved closer, showing her his phone.

“Sit,” she said.

“I told you I’m not sitting.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him down.

They burst into laughter.

“Now I can see.”

A yellow trotro pulled up.

“Could it take both of us?” Oduro asked.

“One seat,” the mate replied.

They looked at each other.

“You should go,” he said. “It is getting late.”

“But your things—”

“Forget them.”

“Okay… thank you.”

He helped with the luggage.

“Where are you taking this?” the mate asked.

“It is mine.”

“The bus is full. It can contain only you.”

“You get in,” she told Oduro.

“I can’t leave you here alone.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“What if the next one only accommodates her?” the mate pressed.

“Exactly,” Delali seconded.

Passengers began to complain.

“You people are wasting time!”

Oduro hesitated—then got in.

Their eyes locked.

The door slammed.

The bus pulled away.

Silence.

The night grew colder. Crickets swelled in the dark.

She sat stiffly.

The moth returned, beating itself against the left lamp.

Click … clerk … The right lamp flickered.

She turned.

Please… no.

Click. Off.

“Oh Lord,” she whispered.

A figure approached her, reaching for something.

She stiffened. A weapon?

She covered her face with her handkerchief.

He stepped into the light.

She flinched.

“It’s me,” Oduro said.

She exhaled sharply.

She threw the handkerchief at him.

“You left me!”

He picked it up, dusting it.

“You said I could. And you were very convincing.”

“And you listened? I can’t believe you!”

She paced, then sat, wiping her eyes with her hand.

He gently handed it back.

“Thank you.”

She tapped the side of the bench, and he sat down.

“You forgot to take my number,” she said, slipping an earbud into her ear.

He clicked his tongue. “Yep. I did.”

“Is that why you came back?”

“I came back because I’m not the kind of fool who leaves a girl alone to save things worth thousands. I’m the kind who risks losing things worth thousands just to be alone with a girl.”

A smile broke through her tears. “Everybody is a fool,” she said softly.

“I keep telling you.”

Silence.

She stared into space; he watched her.

She turned to look at him, his eyes dropped.

Her eyes lingered.

He met her gaze. She broke a smile then looked away.

She placed the other earbud in his ear.

“I think I know this song… oh yes, that’s it,” he said, snapping his fingers.

She sang along.

“You sound like a ginger, if it could sing.”

She burst out laughing. “No way you just said that to me. I sing at church, you know?”

He started humming.

“Has there ever been a miracle at your church?”

“No. None that I’m aware of. Why?”

“It’s because you sing there.”

She gasped, her mouth dropping open.

“Anytime you pick up the mic, the Holy Spirit goes, ‘Not again—I’m out of here.’”

She laughed harder. “I still believe I sing better than you.”

“No way.”

He cleared his throat and began to sing.

She nodded slowly. “Huh.”

“Maybe… just maybe. We’ll have to battle some other time.”

He did a small celebratory dance, and they both guffawed.

The night was cold. They sat close talking, laughing and enjoying highlife music. Behind them a mural of two figures holding hands, captioned: Made for each other.

A green trotro bus pulled up. They did not rush to get up.

“Will it accommodate both of us, plus the luggage?” Oduro asked.

“Simple koraa,” the mate answered, helping carry the luggage to the boot.

He banged on the roof. “Let’s move!”

About the Author

Osei Tutu Brempong is a Ghanaian writer and emerging filmmaker whose work explores human connections and emotions, particularly the unspoken. He strives to make his writing as lyrical, poetic, and visceral as possible. This is his first publication.