Joseph Dorazio

One needn’t have feathers to fly;
one needn’t be a bird —
squirrels and snakes do glide.
And long before the human herd,
in the shadow of volcanoes,
flapped ample wings of hide.

JOSEPH DORAZIO‘s poems have been published widely. His latest collection, AS IS, won an editor’s choice award and was recognized by Shelf Unbound book review magazine as a notable volume of verse.

Chloe N. Clark

It is always the same stories that we tell
of women with fish tails and hair
caught full of seaweed and we
never remember how the feel
of water constant and pressing
must have been. She saw
villages overtaken by waves,
she imagined constellations of star
fish, and when she wept it tasted
the same as the sea and so she never
knew when she was actually sad.
Her fingers caressed the bones of sailors,
drowned in storm or mutiny, and she
thought that men were only skeletons, and she
wondered how they danced, if they clicked
and clattered as they did. She fell in love
with a shark once, but the shark left her
behind, movement was life, forward was
breath. She spent one morning watching
the sky filter down to her and then she
was given the choice between eternity under
and a moment with the sun. And in the
flash of dissolving, of filled with stars, of glow,
she thought she remembered land, how it
was to feel the earth turning beneath her
feet, like dancing.

CHLOE N. CLARK is a MFA candidate in Creative Writing & Environment. Her work has appeared such places as Rosebud, Abyss & Apex, Menacing Hedge, and more. She loves all chupacabras, bakes cupcakes, and likes learning odd facts about magicians. Follow her @PintsNCupcakes

Janet Barry

Tricks Man comes
with lies on his feet,
he is naming all the babies,
telling all the stories,

word play stories,
word play tricks

in Tricks Man’s mouth —

Mother Coyote, feed your babies
from the rubbish bin —

Father Fox,
lie down hungry —

the chickens all live
in Lie Down House,
Assembly Line House,

the eggs all tumble
to Tricks Man’s mouth,

for he is eating all the babies, swallowing
all the green-grass tell-tale stories,

and Caw, Caw, Caw,

no-one left but Old Man Crow,
Caw, Caw laughing,
          laughing.

JANET BARRY is a musician and poet with works in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently Looseleaf Tea, Two Hawks Quarterly, Edge and The Fourth River. She serves yearly as a judge for Poetry Out Loud, and has received several Pushcart and a Best of the Net nomination. Janet holds degrees in organ performance and poetry. To see more of her work, please visit jbarrypoetry.com