Sophia Ivey

Baby Teeth

There is nothing left

to burn so I put my finger tips

in the flame.

Like a fishhook inserting

itself into me I can feel

every tooth I've ever lost – every

receding gum – I am a body born

from memory. I read somewhere

baby teeth do not fall out

until they let go of their roots.

My father once pulled my front

fang out with his fist when he was angry.

He – They – did not give me the luxury

of letting my baby teeth unhand themselves.

Catholic Guilt

My mother used to say the fuzz

on top of my curls shined like

a halo in the Florida light. Though she may protest,

I know I am no saint. She does not know

how many Plan B’s I have struggled

to open with my car keys outside of

our neighborhood CVS. The weeks I starved the

devil that rests an inch above my belly button until

I did not see a glop of chestnut-

colored mucus in my faint-colored rose panties for six

months straight. Now, every month I bleed

the color of Saint Anne’s veil, though I will never be

the Mother of Mary, or a mother to any unlucky

child, not if I keep tearing the flesh between my thighs

like a mother digging up her child’s grave to feel

less lonely in her grief. Years ago, I watched as I bled a milky

pink – I cried into my sheets because I could not bury

blood-clots. Now I pray to Mary and that implant

in my upper left arm because I am not sure if

I can survive anymore pain. Awhile back I got a tattoo

of the Lady of Guadalupe on my thigh. Her hands

in prayer, her head close to my pussy lips

so she can witness every sin I let crawl inside me.

She is positioned right where you touched me after you

ignored my protests. I hoped the ink would erase

your DNA but I read somewhere it takes seven years

for cells to refresh and at this rate I'll be dead

before I'll ever be untouched.

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Sophia Ivey is a current MFA candidate at North Carolina State University for Poetry. They have been published in numerous places, including The Oakland Arts Review, Outrageous Fortune, and Ghost City Press. Her poetry revolves around the environment of Southern America, generational trauma, gender perception, and their queerness and disabilities. Sophia just ended an internship at Blair Publishing and works part-time as a Marketing Coordinator, but in their free time he enjoys researching native plants in the area. They are also a big fan of bugs.

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Lisa Allen

After Terrance Hayes After Terrance Hayes reads sonnet after sonnet about his past and future assassin, I dream of ducks. The glory of them—gemstone heads ramrod proud as they glide. Countless eyes in waves of REM. When I wake I walk laps around a neighborhood lake. I watch sunfire rise, stop to snap pics of a paddling. Listen to them quack. When Terrance Hayes read sonnet after sonnet that icy solstice night, I watched him sway, his body a ceaseless ripple. A wonder, really. And his voice— a knowing. I fell asleep to that voice—on YouTube—and dreamt of beauty. The grace of it. The way morning light shimmers a drake’s neck rainbow bright one moment, inky mad the next. Sublime, the drake— but so many. Too many to be splendid. And yet, they know they own that lake. Know they make the rules, can take whatever they want. Pin her down if they must. Blame nature. Nurture. Either way he likes to fight. Doesn’t give a damn she has her own poems to write.

A. Van Jordan Asks What Made My Mother Sad (after A. Van Jordan) Sad: adj (1) Affected by unhappiness or grief. As in: Mom, I can’t imagine how affected you were as a kid by your alcoholic parents and twice-broken nose. Dad told me that your mother, bourbon-drunk and unhappy to be stuck all day/every day with the four of you, found it fun to goad your father into disciplining his children. His hand, her smack. (I never asked: Did he hit you to shut her up? Or were they a team, playing tag with the bridge of your nose? Did it matter to you, either way?) (2) Sorrowful or mournful/expressive of or characterized by sorrow. As in: Did your mother ever tuck you in at night, read aloud a princess tale? Or were you like me, sung to sleep by angry voices, fists through walls? What did you think about before you drifted off? Did you dream about rhinestone studded boots or fabric swatches & finishing touches? Did you ever imagine your own fairy tale, a happily ever after? Mysteries to me, your motivations. The minutes that ticked your days. (3) Causing sorrow. (Notice the verb here, mother. The agency.) Sorrow: noun (1) Distress caused by loss, affliction, disappointment, etc; grief, sadness, or regret. A mouthful, sorrow. A circle with fangs. (2) A misfortune or trouble. Trouble: noun or verb, I wonder? I can imagine the schoolgirl you, making trouble, sassing back Still, I bet your teachers loved you. Just like the librarians did when you slid your stack of non-fiction on their desk. I hate to trouble you, your smile so sweet while they so openly fawned, said to me, how fortunate you are, to have such a smart mom. Think they’d say the same if they saw the piles of Harlequins on your end table, under the bathroom sinks, next to your bed? (3) The expression of grief, sadness, disappointment, or the like. As in: When I was a new mom I couldn’t hide my disappointment when I’d walk into daycare after work only to be greeted by my screaming child. The director explained: he isn’t sad; he knows he’s safe, because you’re here. This is a good thing, his expression. (I found a Polaroid not long ago. You, me, & Uncle Bobby. Outside, winter. You’re wearing a uniform under your scratchy coat, a red kerchief as a headscarf. Bobby’s holding me but I’m reaching for you. Beaming, each of us, smiles so wide we have no eyes. Was that safety, then? A blind reach, a knowing?) Verb: (1) To feel sorrow, to grieve. Mother, what did you grieve? I didn’t think to ask until now. Hindsight. Regret

(Did you grieve trading your youth to be free [to have me] — or was your sorrow having never felt young?) How I imagine you, now that I’m grown: feral, unhappy, hungry, distressed, angry Will you tell me, mother to mother: why were you sad? If you were to ask me, I’d tell you what makes me sad is that the word unhappy is defined by what it lacks. An absence. Something missing. Like you. (Like me.)

He Speaks for Himself

—here. Check my phone. See—I’ve never texted her. Not first. You always assume I’m cheating/have cheated/will cheat —and why? Because a different guy/different guy/all the guys have? Trust me—when you saw us at the bar you didn’t see what you saw. You & your sensitive skin. Always convinced I’m on the prowl. That phone call? A misdial. Think about it. Why would I read my work to anyone but you? Tell anyone else the things I’ve told you? You said you understood, didn’t you? I need someone to listen. Is that why you stopped answering when I called to say good morning after the bar closed? You know my mornings are too quiet, the stars fuzzy from my porch, that one voice keeping me from sleep. You promised me you’d answer. Promised. Yeah, I knew you were tired/knew I woke you/but you knew I just needed you/ just needed/ needed. So—now what? Yeah, ok— Keep fishing, babe. Pond’s dry. So what if I did talk to her? Offer to pick her up, take her for a beer? All I’m asking/ all I’m asking/ all I’m asking/ all I want to know is how far I can go.

Self Portrait as Good Girl

In a studio on the shore forty years past memory, I study a photograph

of a man’s hands. Fingers curved around a pocketknife & his palm a pocket for the thing he carves—a nub of wood, say, or a firm glittered fish. My point: there’s no perspective that makes sense. The first man I watched hold a knife taught me new words. Told me what he does to the wood. His point: good girls do what they’re told. Even now, that man discos far corners of my mind—his fingers like calloused sausages, quick & sure & his yellow nails, thick. Zebraed with dirt. & that voice— slow. Gritty as a cat’s

tongue. He meant every word. I want to place that man’s words in the worn pocket of this man behind the glass, the man whose face I cannot see. Can I? Can I stand at the shore & watch those words trickle through his soft, sun-spotted fingers? Can I? Watch me.

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Lisa Allen’s work can be found or is forthcoming in The Bacopa Literary Review, Lily Poetry Review, December Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bear Review, and MER, among others. She has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and her poem, “Prolapse: Etymology”, published by South 85 Journal, was a Best of the Net 2023 finalist. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and an MFA in Poetry, both from the Solstice Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lasell University, where she was a Michael Steinberg fellow in Creative Nonfiction. She is co-founder and co-director, with poet Rebecca Connors, of the online creative space The Notebooks Collective and is a founding editor of the Maximum Tilt anthology series.

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Cora McCann Liderbach

Walt Whitman, Ray Bradbury and Me

After deep brain stimulation surgery for essential tremor

I sing the body electric, for I am the electric grandmother,

my factory in the future.

A battery hums inside me, calms the rebel nerves bedeviling

my adolescence, adulthood—head wobbly, hands unsteady.

Now plastic and metal implants mesh with flesh to let me

lift a latte to my lips without spilling

line my eyelids without smudging

sign my name without trembling.

Today, I watch a gull flotilla bob on the lake—one soars up,

glides down, a paper airplane—my head and hands still

as the cloudless sky.

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Cora McCann Liderbach lives on the shores of Lake Erie in Lakewood, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The RavensPerch, Poem for Cleveland Anthology, Crab Creek Review, Cuyahoga Valley National Park Poetic Inventory, LunaNegra Online, Ariel’s Dream Journal, Imposter Literary Journal and Broadkill Review, among others.

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