All True Heavens by Tim Moder

Your house has hidden doors, as do all true heavens.
Through them we follow silver smoke in footprints
from incense, in secret, alone, to yesterday’s yesterdays,
 
where girls in candy dresses, walk among the living and
the dead, speaking haiku. They ask, is this an agate?
Is this is an agate, or a door? Or possibly a key?
 
The morning brings a green that reflects the infield.
There are angels on top of Pattison school. See the ghosts
of first kisses, painted in block letters on taconite trestles.
 
We said. We swore an oath. We said, more to ourselves
than each other. We swore. But nothing grows when planted
in memory. Not People. Not Trees. Not promises. Not Keys.
 
Here, the land is not sick. Cars don’t chase us. Nobody
watches the news. They teach us to tie tire swings to
the ugliest tree by the slow river, and to jump without regret.
 
We lay in raspberry fields behind the university, where
and when we stare up at opening clouds. We wish them into
recognizable futures. A day moon suspends over the Ferris wheel.

Tim Moder is an Indigenous poet living in northern Wisconsin. He is a member of Lake Superior Writers. He manages a small team at a medical records company. His poems have appeared in South Florida Poetry Journal, Door Is Ajar Magazine, Paddler Press, Penumbra, and others.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

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City of Hope by Nicole Tallman

This city seeps hope—
a stitched wound that heals after each rainy season.
In the neon pink sky and the electric blue of the ocean,
each day gives rise, ebb and flow
to the hustle for more and more.
But what is more?

If it’s traffic, noise, pollution
it’s less.
We want less.
And in the moments we grow tired of chasing excess
we summon the mourning doves that call
at night, in the starry heat, beckoning the slowdown.

In these moments, we too take our time,
tend to those who struggle,
those with lives grown too heavy.
We carry someone else’s bag of groceries.
We hold the door open.
We gift fruit from our backyards.

Nicole Tallman is the Poetry Ambassador for Miami-Dade County, an Associate Editor for South Florida Poetry Journal, and Interviews Editor for The Blue Mountain Review. She is the author of Something Kindred (The Southern Collective Experience Press), co-editor with Maureen Seaton of We Who Rise from Saltwater, Let’s Sing!, and her debut full-length collection is forthcoming in the summer. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @natallman and at nicoletallman.com.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin washed out to sea by Jared Beloff

into undercurrent,
a mirror dulled
to white caps. The gourd
fills, empties the spray
it has been given—
an underside, squat and hollow,
cracks like a dropped shell
upon the ochre coast,
dotted sides winking
with each gust as if to say,
this is alright: we must touch
our suffering to find the depths
of our joy.

Jared Beloff is a teacher and poet who lives in Queens, NY with his wife and two daughters. You can find his work in Contrary Magazine, Rise Up Review, Barren Magazine, Bending Genres, The Shore and elsewhere. He is the editor of the Marvel inspired poetry anthology, Marvelous Verses. His work was nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize for 2021.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

Armistice by Arden Levine

As they sleep, so sleeps the conflict.
Their wounds drink healing breaths
under the blankets, their undulation

of terror and grief becomes
the rise and fall of their chests.
In the morning, his closed eyes

deliver a desire for treaty
to replace cease-fire. She will
lay down her arms around him.

Arden Levine is the author of Ladies’ Abecedary (Harbor Editions, 2021). Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Harvard Review, RHINO, River Styx, Spillway, and other journals. Arden lives in New York City, where her daily work focuses on housing affordability, homelessness prevention, and equitable community development. More at http://www.ardenlevine.com.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

A Parliament of Owls in the Jefferson Memorial by Deborah Bacharach

The owls have launched a gospel choir in
Jefferson’s arms. No doubt, the sound a dream.
Marble takes the low notes, unspools delicate
ribbons around the imperious, sends moon beams
through the mud, the battered fences
of America. The owls are not supposed
to be here perched on the president’s head
but who can shoo away Zowie composed
as a lighthouse over this tangled world. And grand
Kazowie and Sizzles, their wings lifted on the wind
of His justice cannot sleep forever? Who won’t stand
back for Snow and Lore, fierce talons dug in
to all men shall be free? Who doesn’t want more
Oh Freedom in the dome that has no door?

Deborah Bacharach is the author of Shake and Tremor (Grayson Books, 2021) and After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). She has been published in Vallum, Poet Lore, and The Southampton Review among many other journals. She is an editor and tutor in Seattle.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

In and Out of Recovery by James Diaz

It all just hurts too damn much
he says
the man I carry
up the street
to a meeting
and we are two things
joined at the hip
in our dimly lit desire not to use death
as an excuse for more death

everything I know about addiction I learned in the cradle
heard the absence of my father like mice in the walls
it was dark laid upon dark
I saw
I knew
what was
and wasn’t
possible for us

but that kind of knowing is a lie
because just when we think we can’t
we do

there is a sound our pain makes in the dark
it’s a mother’s madness, it’s death and dank
it’s a family malady, this craving for the cold spot of the room

rise up in it now
this place you’re trying too hard to make a home out of

say the words, the stupid prayers,
say it with me (I hate it too) you know
but you gotta say it through the hating: I’m so goddamn powerless
and grateful to be here
thanks for letting me share this pain with you

it will never not hurt, brother
you will never not want to burn yourself right down to the bone

but you’re not alone
there’s that
let it be something

let it carry you.

James Diaz (They/Them) is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger, (Indolent Books, 2018) and All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry Journal, Corporeal, The Madrigal, Wrongdoing Magazine, The Lumiere Review, and Resurrection Mag. They live in upstate New York.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

Drafts of Every Obituary for a Death by Suicide by Maya Williams after Olivia Gatwood

Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who is currently the seventh poet laureate of Portland, Maine. Ey has work published in venues such as Indianapolis Review, FreezeRay, The Portland Press Herald, Homology Lit, glitterMOB, and more. You can find more of their work at mayawilliamspoet.com

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.

What I Think of During the Pandemic by Tyler Robert Sheldon

What exhausts me most is trying to figure out which
of my students is speaking when their mouths are covered
by masks. This is irritating surely too for those same students
who wait and wait for a reply during which I’m looking
the right way. I’m working on it, I really am.
 
The ice caps are a joke, and few degrees’ difference seems
so small, but all of us will be fighting each other in under
a hundred years for what you can grab at the dollar store
in an afternoon on the way home from work. We have
no one to blame for this one but corporations who aren’t
listening, and don’t even get me started on those.
 
Didn’t you have to submit proof of vaccination for M and M
and R, and Tetanus, and other wacked-out ills, to go to school?
Does “immunization” sound so different from “vaccine”?
Please explain why in an MLA-formatted essay. Wikipedia
doesn’t count as a source, but you can follow their citations.

What I’ve missed could now surely fill a book. How many
people reading this poem have lost a piece of time that can never
be retrieved, stretched down through the quicksand of absence
or distance into the lonely silt below? What can we do
to fix this? How many phone calls does it take
to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, which is in this case

nothing but a metaphor for life before so much separateness?
Isn’t that the punchline? Are we there yet, will we get there soon?
Yes, go ahead, do you have an answer? What do mean
you weren’t speaking? I’m so sorry, it must be the masks.
Please put yours back on. Try your best to raise your hands.

Tyler Robert Sheldon is the Editor-in-Chief of MockingHeart Review and the author of six poetry collections including When to Ask for Rain (Spartan, 2021), a Birdy Poetry Prize Finalist. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Pop Culture and Pedagogy, and other places. He earned his MFA at McNeese State University and is a PhD student at LSU.

Guest Editor, Joan Kwon Glass (she/her) is the biracial, Korean American author of NIGHT SWIM, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Book Contest, & is author of three chapbooks. Joan is the Editor in Chief of Harbor Review, a Brooklyn Poets mentor, poet laureate of Milford, CT, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Artists Respond grantee & poetry co-editor of West Trestle Review. A proud Smith College graduate, she has been a public school educator for 20 years. Her poems have appeared in Diode, Rattle, South Florida Poetry Journal, & many others. She grew up in Michigan & South Korea & lives in Connecticut with her family.