My mother has a TV
on for noise. So does her mother.

That dark morning feeling
of a substitute, rain at school--

the pull begins here, logged in a cabin,
when she goes out to sweep a grave.

She talks to us as audience,
I muff my ears.

When the power goes out,
our mother screams.

We are slicked back and taste like jam.
We are not given her name.

The absence keeps us quiet, covers us
to our chins like a blanket would.

Her smell, burnt Turkish coffee, face cream,
wrapped in a robe. We’re twirling curl brushes

in our front yard, our side yard, a field.
Our mother of a few ghosts.

Our mother of the garden.
The heavy gardenias for each child

exist beyond the transplanted soil.
Our mother cries at airports

and at the Mediterranean. Barefoot.

We already mourn, hear her footsteps in the grass,
the sound of a steaming iron.
​
Her role. The soft hum of agreement.

You and your beautiful eyes looked back at me.
Good, I like company.
 
Wrapped in a floor length towel, fresh from the clawfoot bathtub,
my hair dripped soap water.
 
Catullus said, “ours is an ignorant and tasteless age!”
We’ve gotten younger.
 
Got you to agree to your first day with me. Saturday.
I removed my hat when I saw you. Placed my head against the wall of yellow roses.
A hug, as if reunited, tight, rectangular, for a minute, or so.
 
Older than Plath
ever was, at a country’s edge and angled heat,
 
we stopped to smell every rose.
You, a gladiator, cheered on by honey fragrance, the garden was an arena.
Pointing to Mt. Tamalpais and dark yellow yolks for breakfast.
 
I gave myself a written agenda on a folded sheet of paper,
tucked deep in my pocket, I didn’t need it.
 
There is a word for this.
 
I’ll find it. The kindness emerging from your chest, against the wooden walls.
Bracketed slats of light over unread pages, the wind-up bird and glass whale.
 
An inch of light over you.
It held me upright. The rich cream and towering fennel.
Do no math just lead us forward.
 
Be a green plant. A palm tree in the square.
A little whoop in the night. It was needed.
 
I once came here in an American Apparel crop top.
 
Topless at the diner, eating a pie, 2013.
I thought I could change everyone around me.
 
Until the wine bottle was emptied, I laughed out loud
to myself in the bathroom. I lied. I continued to do so until the following year.
 
This time, I dip my head underwater, a Marilyn Monroe kiss and romance.
A panel of glass against a tree. I couldn’t see my reflection
on an hour long walk while you slept.
 
Does someone good like a thank you from
me? A bowl of sugar to look into?
 
I asked, will you call me?
I soaked the deck with my excess love, a piece of quartz.
Alone for a moment,
 
in a home,
 
not the shared recycling, the rancid, craven, unclean, invert I know.
There’s the clementine peel you’re carting around.
There are the loud teens,
 
the organic wine you didn’t drink.
The no-nonsense dish soap and wet jars dripping.
 
I want you to be wrapped in a silk scarf. Want a bouquet thrust in your hands,
candle wax dripping on the banquet tables      we could have it all!
The kitchen was meant for dancing.
 
Sped up, you found the one line I liked and kept it going.
 
It’s a bummer, back home, I had to stay. The inert atmosphere I couldn’t leave.
The sea foam like snow. The storm cloud closer to us.
I made you close your eyes and walk down the mountain with me.

LAUREN HILGER is the author of Lady Be Good (CCM, 2016.) Her work has appeared in BOMB, The Threepenny Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. She serves as a poetry editor for No Tokens.

DIONISSIOS KOLLIAS's work has appeared in No, Dear Magazine, Hobart, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Their collaborations have been published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Pouch, The Tiny, and Zone 3.  

My heart drips while I sleep it turns into a gel.
The gel wraps around ants that live under my stove.
I bring them to my hand I put them in a jar.
They turn to red flecks I cry into the jar.
The gel hardens and all of the ants are encased.

Rain comes to my roof and it stays there for days.
I have a red ladder I have empty pots.
Outside the trees burn and birds burn and bees burn.

Some nights there is a red light flashing silent on my wall.
Some nights wake from the same dream.
Some nights sexting.
Some nights wrath.
Some nights fuck me.
Some nights ache.
Some nights no one is there.

Once there was a hive of bees that ate too many cherries.
The woman who found them was also named Cherry.
They made a red honey it came from their grief.
When they died little flames tumbled out of their mouths.

I close my eyes and spin I say cherry cherry cherry.
I close my eyes make myself into a bee.
Once I thought pain was necessary.
Once it was part of a plan.
The fingers inside me put lumps in my heart.

There is a little hole inside the hole that leads to pleasure.
You pulled shoes on my feet you tied them to me.
You tied me to a tree you told me to eat.
Pressed your thumb and forefinger into my cheeks.
Pressed the rind of a lemon into my mouth.
​
When I kissed you my body became not my body.
When I kissed you a bug died on the ground four feet away.
The bug was big and getting killed by lots of little bugs.
Or they were making food.
Or they used the red to paint.
Or they thrust their thoraxes into the sun.
Or you told them what to do.
Or a gel became our hearts.
Or carbon dioxide came out of our mouths.

ERIKA WALSH is a poet and co-founding editor of A Velvet Giant, a genreless literary journal. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, Hobart, Visible Poetry Project, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. She was awarded a residency to attend Art Farm Nebraska, works in Manhattan as an editorial assistant, and lives in Brooklyn with her pet cat, Willa.

I thought about you last summer / in the months after my sister died / and my family drove past
canyons / and tiny mansions / without lawns / I wanted to see you / dining on a raspberry slurpee
and being good / or in the hospital / again and again and / a / gain / I have lost a life / I have left
so much in the air / one day it will all fall down / at once / in place / toilet head / green marker /
american hands / austin coffee / comic book glue / myself is on fire / my selves / my cells / I
sleep at the piano like a stray / I play magic / they can’t take my dreams from me / I live in so
many places / and every world hurts / each morning has its weight / sometimes as much as a
plastic bag / sometimes the bag is fat and full / of what I know / you smell the devil / I have been
God / I could have met you / I think I have / yes! / you were the moon last night / a shy
performer behind the curtains / but I heard you / thank you / thank you

When I was eleven my mom said you’re so invisible,
you should be a drug dealer. From then on,
I knew I would be hard to get. I’ve been twenty one for three weeks.
My friend poked the word lucky into my wrist with a
spare needle. I feel like a fever. I’m perched on concrete
that gets warm but does not burn. My psychiatrist says I’m
manic but I’m having fun like a girl does.
You don’t look like me and get away with it.
I have no money left but there are so many cakes in my freezer.
Yesterday, Allie said my writing matters less than hers and thought
I would agree because she’s so nervous all of the time. Shut up.
I’m not anxiety cute, I’m evil. My head is full of what they
called electricity before they could sell it. I’m Kurt, Madonna,
an apocalypse who knows you’ve been waiting. Genesis!
A woman in the hottest pink walks past me like a river. A man
gives me my third cigarette of the half hour and says he loves how
upfront I am. Now, what do I have to be shy about?
My teeth are gross and argumentative. I have never eaten lobster.
Actually, I’m allergic. No I’m not. I was the coolest when I was nine.
In my friend’s abscessed living room singing the new Britney Spears song
to a chorus line of mutilated barbie dolls. She wore big brass hoops
and told me I was a huge loser when her mom left to go buy
seedless grapes. No one likes you. Not at all. I screamed until
she apologized. An hour later, we stood before her greasy
bathroom mirror. And I whispered, will Bloody Mary taste my
feelings when she eats me? And what if she loves it?
What then?

JASMINE LEDESMA can be found twitching in New York. Her work has appeared in places such as The Southampton Review and Crab Fat Magazine among others. She recently won the John Costello Award for creative nonfiction. Her debut chapbook, Racehorse, is being released by Dancing Girl Press this summer.