ISSUE TWELVE
A Flash of Beauty



POETRY

SAMPSON STARKWEATHER
Villainous Song
Why I Am Not a Painter or a Musician or
Employable

MICHAEL KLEIN
Blue St. Bird

CÉSAR DÁVILA ANDRADE
There Will Be
(translated from Spanish by
Jonathan Simkins)
 

RENNIE AMENT
Total Wonder

BERNADETTE GEYER 
Self-Portrait as a Shark
Brief Rhapsody on Leisure

JASMINE KHALIQ 
Approaching November

ANDY SIA                                               Domatophilia

RAJNESH CHAKRAPANI
A Place Is Where You Have the
Wrong Nose

NATHAN SPOON 
The Winner

LISA OLSTEIN
Apparent Winner
Host

KATIE BERTA
[I was bored of the brunch of it]
[Someone told you what you were at
one time]

REBECCA HAZELTON
The Husband Proposes

JACKIE SABBAGH
The Lifeguard I’m Paying

TOMAŽ ŠALAMUN
Dear Metka!
16.III.1979
(translated from Slovenian by
Brian Henry)

LIDIJA DIMKOVSKA
Do You Feel Dizzy? 
Emptiness
(translated from Macedonian by
Ljubica Arsovska
and Patricia Marsh-
Stefanovska)
 

SIWAR MASANNAT 
[it has been said in the thieving]

KAREN ELIZABETH BISHOP
iris

JOHN BLAIR 
Aphorism 32: Pain Is Inevitable but
Suffering Is Optional

FELICIA ZAMORA
Not on Geological Time

ALLISON TITUS 
Summer, Virginia

REBECCA LEHMANN
Train Villanelle
Skeleton Key Villanelle

EUGENIA LEIGH
Off the Medication: New Year’s Eve 2019

STELLA WONG 
Chinese Remainder Theorem 
Scorpion W2
Ars Poetica

LARA EGGER 
Ars Poetica

MARY HELEN CALLIER
Still Life with Flowers
The Insatiable Glory of Renaissance
Dinners

KIM HYESOON
A Shell’s Life
(translated from Korean by
Cindy Juyoung Ok)

ALEXANDRIA HALL 
Oysters
Into a Single Being

SYLEE GORE
We Call It Time in Use

MUYAKA BIN HAJI AL-GHASSANIY
The World Is a Brittle Tree
Everything Would Be Scattered
(translated from the Swahili by
Richard Prins)

MORGAN HAMILL
We found feathers
You; You say something

ADAM GIANNELLI
Um, Uh

DANIEL COUDRIET
The Meteorologist

JESSICA CUELLO 
Beauty
St. Francis, Patron Saint of Animals

MARY G. WILSON 
No Purchase

GILAD JAFFE 
Michelangelo’s Moses

JESSICA JACOBS
And Abraham Came to Eulogize Sarah
and to Weep for Her

KAI IHNS 
I Felt My Form Only When Losing It

EMILY PITTINOS
Orphan, Lissome in the Dust Storm
[Unmoved by morning, she scales
a silo]
[But then— / avoiding speech]

HEO NANSEOLHEON
Verse on Swing Excursion
Eight Lines, Elated
(translated from Chinese by
Suphil Lee Park)

VALERIE WOHLFELD
Rushes

ROBERT WOOD LYNN
Riding Over the Brooklyn Bridge 

DENISE DUHAMEL
The West Village

ELTON GLASER
Mortropolis

RODRIGO TOSCANO
Write the City
July 4th, 2021

BRIAN SWANN 
The Snake
The Ocean

SIHLE NTULI
In the Presence of Ocean Water

PETER GRANDBOIS
The Cave

BRUCE BEASLEY 
Climate Assessment

CYNTHIA MARIE HOFFMAN
Quality of Life

JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ
The Anniversary

ELMIRA ELVAZOVA
The Possibility of a Beautiful Death

KAREN RIGBY
Things I Never Told You

DAN O’BRIEN
Motherless 1 & 2

SCOUT KATHERINE TURKEL
Starring

EMILY BARK BROWN 
What I Wanted My Body to Do Was
Be Patient

MICK TOMA 
Diorama

BRITTANY CAVALLARO
Late to the Party

SARAH WOLFSON 
The Pigeon

KIERON WALQUIST 
All Seasons Landscaping
Oh, Iron Giant: Double Portrait

CHRISTOPHER BREAN MURRAY 
The Meadowlark

JEFFREY MORGAN 
Quarantine

SETH GARCÍA
Primer for an Isolation

MYA MATTEO ALEXICE
And Upon His Horns, Ten Crowns
Boyfriend Material

REBECCA BOYLE
Nightchange
The General

RAE GOUIRAND 
Whatever Dimness or Brightness

HIRONDINA JOSHUA
[I don’t write to be seen, I write not
to be seen.]
(translated from Portuguese by
Grant Schutzman)

MATHEW WEITMAN 
Trade Winds
People Also Ask

PETER JAY SHIPPY
The Ravenna Halation

ROALD HOFFMANN 
Soil Science

DANIEL MOYSAENKO
Trompe l’Oeil

PETER STRECKFUS 
My Mother’s Spider
Twenty Minutes

ALLAN PETERSON
They Say Sorry

GENTA NISHKU
Language Politics

CHARLES RAFFERTY
Poetry

H.R. WEBSTER
Poems

WILLIAM REPASS
Guzzlin’

EDITH LIDIA CLARE
Keep Going Keep Going

ELIZABETH SCANLON
State
How We Were Changed

NICK LANTZ
Word of the Day [eating my sandwich
outside I think a bird]

PRAGEETA SHARMA 
Annual

JOANNE DIAZ
Ixion at the Museo del Prado
Thomas Edison with His Phonograph

EDWARD MAYES
The Vanishing Thalassocracy of Venice

PETER LABERGE
Andromeda

DAVID GROFF
Infinitive

ASHLEY KUNSA
Declaration

MYRONN HARDY
Ode to Destruction

KEVIN MCILVOY
Dean Young Anti-Ode

ERIC PANKEY
The Ruin
The Initiate

WESLEY ROTHMAN 
The War

PAGE HILL STARZINGER
My Body Knows Its Limits

SAMUEL AMADON 
Divers [I had a lot of things I had to do.]

KATHARINE WHITCOMB
I keep the calendar alive

VANDANA KHANNA 
Dear O— [Once, we were king-bedded…]

TASIA TREVINO 
Bully Echo

MICHAEL JULIANI
2020

JESSE WALLIS
Cueva de las Manos
On Seeing

XUELA ZHANG 
Land Art

SYDNEY LEA
Maturity

CHRIS FORHAN
Aluminum and Screws

MATTHEW ROTH 
Midsummer the parking lot makes its
own heat
Bigfoot

JACOB GRIFFIN HALL
Here’s Hoping

NICOLE ZDEB
Autobiography of the Moon

CARLIE HOFFMAN
When Will You Learn There Isn’t a Word
for Everything?

AMIE ZIMMERMAN 
False Spring [careful / taking is a matter /
of reckoning] 
False Spring [deconstructing the personal]

PAUL ILECHKO
Nature as Syndrome
Sonnet in Honor of the Postal Service

BENJAMIN VOIGT 
Mirrors and Windows

RICHARD FOERSTER 
Plein-Air Sketch

FICTION

EMILY NEUBERGER
The Unicorn

MARIE-HELENE BERTINO
Viola in Midwinter

ED TAYLOR
Speculative Fiction
Scarecrow

ALLIE ZENWIRTH
Isesu, Nice to Assess You. Ha-Ha!

HILDA JOHNSTON
Gaetano Bresci and the King of Italy

NONFICTION

MONICA MACANSANTOS
5:45 P.M. in Eastbourne, Wellington

J. M. TYREE
Delirious Berlin

VICTORIA BOSCH MURRAY
The Dean’s List

KATE COLBY
Contrast Agent

KRYSTAL LANGUELL 
Nothing a Pair of Scissors Can’t Fix

TESS RAUSCHER 
Denuded

KATHRYN NUERNBERGER
After

JESSICA FISHER and
MARGARET RONDA
Dear Friend

NAHAL SUZANNE JAMIR
Three Women

FILM

ZACK FINCH
After Before Sunrise

INTERVIEW

PRAGEETA SHARMA in conversation with MICHAEL DUMANIS

COVER ART

RICHARD FRIEDBERG