Thank you for your patience as we pulled together our second issue. We’d hoped to publish earlier, but a few walls (both metaphorical and all too real) slowed us down. Now, as we all find ourselves up against adversities of growing scope, our first theme issue, Witness, feels more urgent than ever.

We live in a moment when truth is contested, cruelty is rising, and authoritarian shadows stretch long. Poetry cannot dismantle systems on its own, but it can bear witness, keep record, and spark the fire of resistance.

Wherever you are, we send love, solidarity, and determination. Thank you for joining us in the work of witnessing.

Sincerely,

Maudie and Brandon

The Tent

by Rowan Tate

In it, my mother brushes our hair each morning
the way she did when we had a home. Three years ago
when we left Damascus my father told us we would
only be gone for a month.

The sky has turned yellow. There are seven of us
sleeping here. Whatever is left of my country,
I brought it with me in my skin and keep it wrapped
in my abaya. Dear God, my sister is growing up

standing in lines: six times a day we must go for water.
In this life we only make mansaf on Fridays and
sand sticks to everything, gets inside
your fingernails and your ears.

Two hours into the hot rash of waiting
among the cross-stitch of wormwood and saltbush
for beans, rice, ghee, I miss the fruit sellers
who were always up earlier than anybody.

When I ask my father why we stay in Zaatari, he says
it is because he can leave us without being afraid
there will be bombs or having to imagine my mother
with a pistol in her mouth.

Remaking 1

by Denise Bossarte

Homeless Woman

by Esther Fishman

She sits in the neighborhood
laundromat. I see her maybe once a
month. She does not pretend to be
occupied with anything--no bags to
rummage through, no bureaucratic nonsense
to stand in line for. She just sits.

We move
around her. No one can use the machines
she is in front of. I bustle
about, engaged in the ridiculous
task of cleaning what will only get
dirty again.

I try to
imagine the blast that left such a
ruin, or the semblance of life that must
go on day after day, without the
usual distraction of meaningless
decisions. The sight of my matched
socks lined up in their scented drawer; that
woman’s vacant eyes.
Which is worse?

Witness

by Carolyn Schlam

From the line to enter a refugee camp

by Rowan Tate

I don’t remember which flag as much as I remember
the faces sun-browned with visions of walnut shells and
hot water for tea, or even just enough water so that
urinating didn’t hurt. To want a comb or muskmelon
or coffee felt scandalous when it would be enough to be given
a night that stayed still long enough to hear the insects
buzzing in the beeches or the call to prayer, dreams returning
to our boys’ skulls and new mouths that hadn’t felt the curdle
of something dead. We took up space in suspended sensation
of a ground that belonged to those of us who learned to sleep on a tarp
and whose pores were still clogged with soot and sweat
that wasn’t ours, to those of us who walked through war zones for water
past hand grenades that didn’t go off and were still
liable to explode, to those of us who missed the birds
when they left, who remembered where the grass used to
come out in march, whose children played among wreckage
and made toys of debris, to those of us who fasted so our
mothers could eat, who gave our bed to a stranger
with a bullet in their thigh, to those of us who washed our hair
in blue buckets and read surahs in plastic garden chairs,
to those of us who are still caring for someone else’s child
with hope in the lining of our stomachs like a parasite.

Goodbye, Virginia #3

by Esther Fishman

She must have been considering
stones for months, picking up
one, then another, rejecting
any that wouldn’t fit just so in
the cardigan she knew she would be
wearing on her final day. They had to
possess sufficient heft to weigh her down
once she entered the water, but not be so bulky
as to provoke suspicion
should she be observed along the lane. Just Virginia
enjoying the fine weather, taking a
walk in the sun. Look
is that an apple in her pocket?

Unsilenced Ghosts

by Isabelle Ruby

I was born beneath closed eyes,
raised in rooms where silence
screamed louder than fists.
The walls knew,
but the world turned its face
to softer things.

They said, “she makes things up.”
But my bruises were not fiction.

My body a detailed journal,
every scar an unwritten story.
No one read me.
No one asked.

I was a ghost in my own life—
present, unseen.
A girl made of glass,
shattered quietly
in corners no one swept.

They watched.
They all watched.
They acted unseeing.
Called it not knowing.
But I saw their averted eyes
and felt the weight of their blindness
like the weight of the world.

Now—
my daughter sleeps in a light
I never knew.
And I, once voiceless,
am a storm at her cradle,
a sentinel made of fire.
I will not be silent.
I will not be unseen.

I name every shadow that passes through me.
I name every silence complicit in my pain.
These are my ghosts—
but they are mine no more.

I am the witness,
the testament,
the mother who rises
and teaches her child:
You are seen.
You are sacred.
And so am I.

Page of Cups

by L.A. Duncan

watching too much news

by Angela Arnold

where there should be strong hinges
closing things firmly
or opening when the time is right
now there is only a seeping
a crawling:
terrors
of world of the madness in us
colliding conspiring commingling co-
authoring all manner of non sense
that deeply deeply
makes sense
on a desperately different level

as if a new era had started
at this moment
when ice shelf cracked
and missile bullseyed

dreamwakes that cry their own tears
eyeopen sleeps that dissolve something
of past of everyday
of lukewarm reality

now what is is both cold
and hothot and every nightmare
a daytime to burn: pyres of current events
ashes of history your past
and mine wrung tightly
into one knot hope loitering as-if

Bullseye

by Barnaby Blue

I become a migrant

by Rowan Tate

and I remember
peppercorn trees, fanned feathery over dogs
asleep in the spicy dust of the road, their berries
dangling overhead like strings of
pink beads. I knew better than to
leave the place that remembered
the wet imprint of my body, how
I came out of earth red and she
held me at her breast, splayed
hot on her belly so our
pulses fused. For all of time
mortals and the divine have traded promises
like foreplay, one of us taking territory
the way ants eat a body, in
soft invasion.

I Hear Laughter in the Rain

by Dr. Ernest Williamson III

now I know what an audience is for

by Angela Arnold

you who've always done
that bit (just a bit)
of holding forth
searching for
& getting that
your face lit up
by our looking
and I thought...

but here it is the situation
me: I'd just crawl under a hedge
will (should it)

not you: all CAPITALS and
!!!s and wrenching observations
the last splinters
of life their beauty beauty
absolutely everywhere
in your emailed gasps

so what DO I say stage 4
no answer to that
no questions I can find
only emailed hand holding
that's loud & clear
enough & frequent enough
to count
as audience: we're still here
believe in us
yes you exist

Your Momma is a Shoelace

by F.T. Rose

The stall door slams behind me.
Jeans scrunched to mid-thigh,
I’m faced with a kaleidoscope of pen ink.
Scriptures and hieroglyphs,
autographs and paragraphs.
A quantity of for a good time call.
Handwriting and
proximity to the hanging bulb in the ceiling
decide legibility.
Witness to a thousand moments scrawled,
notations in the margins of the chapters of the lives
of all who urinated here.
Is latrinalia a variant of the primal instinct to mark?
Had I stronger canine ancestry my piss alone
would have sufficed.
Bare ass to porcelain, I wrest a sharpie from my boot.
I will participate in the ritual.

The marker smells like chemicals.
I hold it poised in the gap between
question everything → why
and
four out of five stars, would pee here again.
I wait for angels.
For an epiphany from God like the Ten Commandments.
For the Beast itself to claw a prophecy into consciousness.
Buddha sat under a Bodhi Tree for forty-nine days and found enlightenment.
We have everything in common.

Three pilgrims gather now, begging entry to the shrine.
The lineup becomes serpentine, ascending the stairs.
Impatient feet shuffle, urgent murmurs become a din.
Pray with me brethren, for divinity has yet to guide my hand,
And I will not settle for
Your momma is a shoelace.

To Be A Creature

by Wallgrin

Feels like we've met before
Don't I know you from the underworld?
Steely eyes straight down the barrel
That's a clarity I've never known
And I, molten underneath an iron grip
When the sunlight through the window hits
It'll crack me open
I'm over the edge
Green turning red now
Gutted and grinning
Scaling the fence, then
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
Clawing at the edge of frame
Crawling up the glass in front of me
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
Clawing at the edge of frame
Crawling up the glass in front of me
Closer than skin and skin
I want skeleton to skeleton
Simple, I thought
But I'm still so far
I'm over the edge
Green turning red now
Gutted and grinning
Scaling the fence, then
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
Clawing at the edge of frame
Crawling up the glass in front of me
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
Clawing at the edge of frame
Crawling up the glass in front of me
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen
I'm just another animal
Just another animal on the screen

Eyes

by Barnaby Blue

the show

by Ian Brownlie

the show is starting soon
ask not what the show is about
but the show is starting soon
there is a seat
for you
somewhere
and the show is starting soon
the lights are off
and all communication will cease
while internal logic is rewritten
because the show is starting soon
has already started
will continue
long
after you are gone
enjoy the show
because the show is starting soon
(content warning: shit)

Forgotten Childhood

by Joanne Macias

winds push the lonely swing

The Window

by Carolyn Schlam

we are every age that came before this one

by Juleanna Green

my neighbor hit a baseball into our yard
my dad found it and threw it into the air,
hands outstretched to catch it
he threw it up, and it fell
up, and it fell
up, and it fell
he missed it every time
I was to the side, working with my hands
(like I’m sure his dad had done)
and I caught a glimpse of my dad, age ten

Hierophant

by L.A. Duncan

In Search of Species

by Janet McMillan Rives

There can be value in what is missing
like the leaves on my chaste tree
the last of them blown off in yesterday’s wind.
Skeletons of summer’s purple blossoms
still cling to the tips of barren branches
where two chubby birds rest in plain view
no foliage to hide them from my spying eyes.

Sparrow sized but, no, the beaks belong
to hummingbirds. Not Anna’s—
my visitors are too plump, too calm,
too quiet. Ruby-throated? Not in this season
not in this place. Costa’s? Maybe
but that would be rare.

Rare like the good fortune that brought
this avian gift to my yard, that sent me out
with camera in hand then back inside
to the field guide. This one? No, no, maybe
I speculate, captivated in this moment
of incandescent uncertainty.

Flash of Green

by Kim McNealy Sosin

ΚΡΑΤΑ ΤΟ ΕΣΥ (you hold this)

by Tess Ezzy

search history as confession
how to love a body
that mourns itself nightly
—how to text someone “i miss you”
without causing structural damage
what if you are the haunting
not the house
what is the Greek word
for grief you didn’t earn
what is the Greek word
for keeping someone’s jumper
what is the Greek word
for deleting the message before sending it
(does memory
have an undo button)

BEWARE

by Colette Tennant

Maybe I should put a sign in front of my house—
Beware of Poet,
who hoards words like silver,
who will steal a part of your life
if you walk too close to her door,
who knows the language of cat,
the tongue of blue damsels.
She has seen her dead dog in a patch of new sky,
has run with three angels across hot sand,
has witnessed a troubling of hummingbirds
cover her spruce like quick hearts beating.
She hangs stanzas by the robin’s nest
in the maple branches out back,
and listens to early stars
sing midsummer vespers.

Contributor Biographies

Angela Arnold is a writer, poet, artist, a creative gardener and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have appeared in print magazines (eg Green Ink, Madrigal, Door=Jar, Abridged), anthologies and online (eg The Fig Tree, the engine idling, Leon Lit Review ), both in the UK and elsewhere. Collection In Between (Stairwell Books, 2023). She lives in Wales. Follow her on BlueSky: angelaarnold777.bsky.social.

Barnaby Blue is a multi-talented artist that uses bright colors, surrealist imagery, and cartoony proportions to convey the thoughts and feelings that rattle through their noggin. With the use of digital illustration, animation, design, and sprinkles of physical media, like clay or paintings, they explore a wide array of subject matter - from deep, dark, and steeped in horror to silly and whimsical. They strive to make the world a more fun, loving, and weird place with their work. When not in the studio, they can be found doodling on index cards, rewatching the same cartoons endlessly, and trying to befriend stray cats.

Ian Brownlie is a writer/poet from the UK. He can be found on BlueSky: @ianbrownlie.bsky.social

Denise Bossarte is an award-winning writer, photographer, and artist based in Texas, USA. When she's not immersed in writing, she turns her lens to the world around her, exploring visual spaces with a keen eye for the unexpected. Her photography captures the beauty that emerges through happenstance—where human-made structures meet the natural forces of time and erosion, revealing a quiet, compelling dialogue between form and decay.

L.A. Duncan explores the intersections of art, storytelling, and mysticism. His work includes The Dreaming Eye, a hand-drawn charcoal tarot deck rooted in surreal imagery, and The Procession of Dust, a dark fantasy saga rich with symbolism and cosmic depth. Each project invites the audience into liminal spaces where myth, emotion, and imagination converge. He lives in Utah with his wife and two dogs, drawing inspiration from the landscape, dreams, and quiet moments of reflection.

Tess Ezzy is a multidisciplinary writer and fibre artist based on unceded Gadigal land. Her work explores memory, neurodivergence, domestic mythologies, and the poetics of emotional weathering. She weaves words and thread into layered, often chaotic worlds.

Esther Fishman is a San Francisco poet and memorialist. Her poetry has appeared in Deep Overstock, a journal for booksellers and Nude Bruce Review. Her book reviews have appeared in The Review Review. She is currently at work on her multi-volume life story.

Juleanna Green (she/her) is a poet, playwright, and prose writer who hails from New Jersey. Her work can be found on Instagram, @the.wordsmith.tavern, and in several literary magazines (most recently, A Song, Emerging: Poems About our Earth and HNDL Magazine). When she is not writing, she is reading or knitting (and trying to keep her cat, Taz, away from her yarn).

Joanne Macias is a multi-disciplinary creative, with both her photography and writing featured in Eloquentia, Mania Magazine, Roi Fainéant plus many more. She loves finding interesting ways to challenge reader perception through unique everyday scenarios. She will embark on her first residency in Ireland in 2025 to complete her first poetry collection on body confidence. If not distracted by the neighbourhood cats, her adventures can be found at @joanne_macias_writer

Janet McMillan Rives was born and raised in Connecticut and moved to Tucson, Arizona as a teenager. She returned to Arizona after retiring as Professor Emerita of Economics from the University of Northern Iowa where she taught hundreds of students how tariffs work. She enjoys reading, writing, gardening, and escaping the desert in summer. Rives is the author of Into This Sea of Green: Poems from the Prairie (2020), Washed by a Summer Rain: Poems from the Desert (2023), and Thread: A Memoir in Woven Poems (2024).

F.T. Rose (they/them) is a neurodivergent, mixed-race queer with a big drooly dog and a forever love of adjectives. A psychotherapist, writer, and retired professional dominatrix, they live for the psyche’s dark dusty corners and opportunities to transmute figurative base metals to gold.

Isabelle Ruby is a poet, survivor, and social worker with a deep devotion to the written word. She learned early in life the power of writing and has since dedicated herself to transforming pain into beauty, drawing from her personal journey as a survivor of domestic violence to illuminate healing and hope. For her, writing is a sanctuary, reflecting a belief in the transformative magic of language and the importance of being seen and heard.

Carolyn Schlam is an award winning figurative artist and author of four published books on art. Her work has been featured in many museums, galleries and magazines, both covers and interiors and is in the collection of several public collections including The Smithsonian Museum. She lives and works in the Hudson Valley of New York. Find her at http://www.carolynschlam.com

Kim McNealy Sosin rediscovered her love of photography and poetry after retirement from teaching university economics. She also loves travel, which she does as much as time and income allow. Her combinations of photography and poetry often become an ekphrastic piece. Sosin has published photographs in numerous journals including Landscape Photography Magazine, Raw Art Review, Beyond Words, Fine Lines, Failed Haiku, and Good Life Review. Her photographs have been selected as the cover for several of these journal issues and books. She has two chapbooks forthcoming: Reflections of France (with Janet M. Rives), a book of photographs and poems, and Not Quite on Grand Avenue, a book of poems.

Rowan Tate is a Romanian creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.

Colette Tennant has three books of poetry: Commotion of Wings, Eden and After, and Sweet Gothic. Her book, Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide, was published in 2019 to coincide with Atwood’s publication of The Testaments. Her poems have won various awards and have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes along with being published in various journals, including Prairie Schooner, Rattle, and Poetry Ireland Review. Colette is an English and Humanities Professor who has also taught art in Great Britain, Germany, and Italy.

Wallgrin is the experimental art-pop project of Vancouver-based composer, vocalist and violinist Tegan Wahlgren. Drawing from a background in Celtic fiddle and choral singing, Wallgrin’s sound moves between lush string-based orchestration, beat-driven pop and ornate vocal arrangements After completing a degree in electroacoustic music composition, Wallgrin’s songwriting defined itself: pop-adjacent but deviant, never afraid to experiment.

Dr. Ernest Williamson III has published creative work in over 630 journals. Williamson has published poetry in over 200 journals, including The Oklahoma Review, Poetry Life and Times, The Roanoke Review, Pamplemousse, formerly known as The Gihon River Review, The Copperfield Review, Pinyon Review, I-70 Review, and Wilderness House Literary Review. His artwork has appeared in hundreds of journals including New England Review, Kestrel, and Columbia Review. Ernest has an M.A. from the University of Memphis and a Ph.D. from Seton Hall University. Williamson has taught composition and literature courses at numerous institutions including: Fairleigh Dickinson University, Nyack College, Essex County College, and Allen University. He lives in Tennessee.