Amanda Chiado

It was a super bloom spring & the yellow butterflies
were flying into speeding traffic. Charlie was
looking at his phone, a text from his boy Troy,
who always knows where the party’s at, “Downtown
at Clifton Park,” Charlie woofed out. “Oh, yeah!”
I was trying to Snapchat the mustard flowers, wild poppies—
Yet, the world smashed dark & echoes of metal
Folded into swans, flew through my head. I was
wearing new lipstick, a rusty red. I’d just shaved my legs.
It was a Saturday, the second week in May. The river
was throwing itself across the earth, trying to baptize
the Trump Era. Even the fish were getting shoved
tail-first down and over the rocky pathway to nowhere.
I tasted blood, drank the river in big gulps. I shook Charlie,
but his face had no face and he hung like a meat-pile
from the seatbelt. Water rushed into the windows, happy
to fill space. I didn’t die. That is the hard part. I stare at Charlie
in a tuxedo casket, wearing his prom clothes that still smell
like cigarettes. I hold my breath behind my patchwork face.

JDP’s own AMANDA CHIADO is a writer, teacher and arts advocate. She is the Director of Arts Education for the San Benito County Arts Council and is an active California Poet in the Schools. Her chapbook Vitiligod: The Ascension of Michael Jackson was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2016. She won the Molotov Cocktail Shadow Poetry Award in 2016 and again in 2019.

J. D. Dixon

i.

In the pale sun
of a small life’s troubles,
in a quiet place,
I sit calmly in my chair,
playing chicken with my words.

ii.

Tragic mountains rise
sharp against the horizon.
A chorus sweetly
sings. Friends: speak of the devil
and nothing much will happen.

iii.

The sad, lonely truth:
nothing much of anything
happens in this town.
They call it the centre of
all, but that’s a fairy-tale.

iv.

The world sits apart.
Men don’t face it when they pray;
they face forwards and
nowhere else. There are no clouds
in the goddam sky today.

v.

The sun’s radiance
burns bright in my quiet eyes,
and it’s gone too soon.

vi.

Stark beauty mirrors
an undesired romance
for this dying world.

vii.

Beautiful foothills
distort the world; I tell them
my heart is bigger,
it is all that I can see.
But they say the world’s so wide.

viii.

A small child speaks:
I’m afraid of the darkness.
There’s no light today.

J. D. DIXON is a novelist, playwright and poet based in Glasgow, UK. His first novel, The unrivalled transcendence of Willem J. Gyle (Thistle Publishing, 2017) was shortlisted for the 2018 Somerset Maugham Award, among other accolades. His first play, It’s My Turn, debuted at the Edinburgh International Science Festival (2019) and has subsequently gone on tour around Scotland. He is currently working on his second novel and a collection of poetry.

Charlotte Peale

there were triple moons last night and I thought of you
shit-faced by the river we exploded flaming moons
I saw your face in the river, and it tripled in the night
face the way those flames licked at the night, watch me watch you
three times I faced away from fire as you exploded into me
last night you thought of river moons and triples of me
flame-faced by the river we shat triple moons
there were triple you’s last night and I thought of moons

CHARLOTTE PEALE is a student at Stanford University studying math and computer science, and considering a minor in creative writing.