Heather Myers is from Altoona, Pennsylvania. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from West Virginia University and is a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of North Texas. Her work has appeared in Puerto Del Sol, Palette Poetry, Reservoir, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a 2018 AWP intros award.

A Rainbow, Just For A Minute


I imagine other worlds,
the one where my brother still breathes.
He runs around the yard, the space he takes
open and endless.

The heart holds
beyond its weight:
my family’s hurt, a lost timeline, anger
curled and sleeping on the porch
at night. The sagging of the trees.
A patched architecture. Holes in the floorboard.

The other children asked why I live
where I live. A woman saw into me.
She said, you have a light about you, a glow.
I believe this, and radiate
rings and rings of light
hot like the coils of a burner.

On a walk, in the woods:
a miniature house.
Eggshell blue. Lots of windows.
​Somewhere I could stay.

​In The Encyclopedia of Human Gestures
 
 
Kneeling again at the altar of my dog’s shit,
a genuflection of civic duty, the park equipped
with plastic bags to ensure my reverence,
I am struck by this position, for what better evidence
of the divine than the workings of the body, all
its wastes and its contortions, the joint’s ball
and socket rolling with the bend, the foot’s tension
arching to balance on the toes, the orchestration
of the hands that comb the grass to scoop the mess,
the same hands that will later survey this aging flesh,
the same hands that will run soft across the lush
landscape of your body, the one I know by touch
and scent, animal in my devotion, as we both
falter toward our demise, into days that host
obstacles our younger selves would dismiss,
lowering instead into a different type of worship,
one that requires no words, and isn’t this also
something holy, both of us bending to curve into
the other’s failings, blending all the broken parts together
in a silhouette that resembles prayer?

Conor Bracken is the author of Henry Kissinger, Mon Amour (Bull City Press, 2017), selected by Diane Seuss as winner of the Frost Place Chapbook Competition, and translator of Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine's Scorpionic Sun (CSU Poetry Center, 2019). His poems and translations appear (or will soon) in places like 32 Poems, BOMB, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Waxwing, and elsewhere. An assistant poetry editor at Four Way Review, he teaches English at the University of Findlay.​

​THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO A MAN


is pity him.
The drowsy daffodil

of his exhausted cock,
the padlocks of his hands

wrung open and equably useless--
how pathetic

is all you have to mutter
to crack him.

How sad
it must have been to have the god of his parents

be a flame
that incinerated each desire it tried to anneal

and how sad
for him his parents never noticed

the ash heap rising in his chest
and how they didn’t care

enough to muzzle
their god long enough

to ask him why he kept
the ash alone inside him and sometimes cleared in it

the vague angelic shape
of the first man

who forced himself on him.
What sorrow

to never have the chance
to say it was to see

if the wind is still
too weak to blow the ash away

which it always is and isn’t
that pitiful? Poor man,

his little boyhood
so much stronger than he is.

Wrestling him into thinking he
is the sole half-troubled maverick

to swagger from the ship
wreck of his past, extracting as he strides

from the ad-hoc leather scabbard
of his body the splinters

he will drive
under the ocean’s rough unvarnished nails.

Ben Purkert is the author of For the Love of Endings, named one of Adroit's best poetry books of 2018. His poems appear or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, The Believer, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at Rutgers and is the editor of Back Draft, a Guernica interview series focused on poetry and revision. He's currently working on a novel because he likes to sufferrrrrrr.

THE ONLY EARTHLING

they picked on me because
I was different the only one with
a blue dot on my forehead they rolled
a boulder over my face they kicked

my shins just to watch me bloom
Tell us about Earth they cried
but I knew not to answer I only
turned a bluer shade the other kids

were like a snake that swallows
a mouse and for a minute the mouse
is neither mouse nor snake simply
the shape of one life passing
​
through another I remember life
back home it wasn’t so terrible
our house had a screen door
to keep the bugs out

THE ONLY FRIEND

a giant mosquito had me over
for dinner it was a nice time I was
a nice dinner he could’ve finished me
then and there but saved some

for later he said he still wanted
to be friends though I found it hard
to believe he could fly with such
difficult wings he tried to prove it

but was too drunk and got only
inches off the ground so I let him
jump on my back and he yelled See
I’m flying then I swore I heard him
​
start to cry but what does crying
sound like before the tears hit
the ground before they fall
suddenly to their knees

Originally appearing in Flypaper Poetry Issue V.

Rachel “Raych” Jackson is a writer, educator and performer. While teaching third and fourth grade in Chicago Public Schools, Jackson competed on numerous national poetry teams and individual competitions. Her poems have gained over 2 million views on YouTube. She is the 2017 NUPIC Champion and a 2017 Pink Door fellow. Jackson recently voiced 'DJ Raych' in the Jackbox game, Mad Verse City. Her latest play, “Emotions & Bots”, premiered at the Woerdz Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland. Jackson wrote a room dedicated to her city for 29Rooms' first installment in Chicago, through Refinery 29. She co-created and co-hosts Big Kid Slam, a monthly poetry show in Chicago. Jackson’s work has been published by many— including Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, The Shallow Ends, and Washington Square Review. Her debut collection EVEN THE SAINTS AUDITION was recently published through Button Poetry. She currently lives in Chicago.

Pantoum for Derrion Albert from the Plank

In September 2009 Derrion Albert’s murder was caught on tape. The video spread through the
world quicker than the Southside of Chicago could be gentrified through the Olympic bid. Killers
are shown kicking Derrion in the face and smashing his head with a wooden plank.


​
His hands were soft on my hips.
We were brown together.
How often does that happen?
Wooden individuals shaped and dyed
to look the same as them. Brown like the next.
We all look the same to them. Brown like the next.
Sturdy.

Wooden individuals shaped and dyed
to look the same as them. Brown like the next.
There are many uses for a snatched tree.
Easy to be broken and passed around.
Each ring tells achievements of sorts.
Sturdy.
He needed a capable dancer.

There are many uses for a snatched tree.
Easy to be broken and passed around.
Each ring tells achievements of sorts.
A partner whose spine can bend
with the grace of politicians tongues
built on corroding law enforcement.
He needed a capable dancer.
I'm someone that will sacrifice my body
spreading through skulls.

A partner whose spine bend
with the grace of politicians tongues
built on corroding law enforcement.
We danced to the music made that day.
A slow melody assembled
from the dull connection with heads and
shrieks carrying his name.
I'm someone that will sacrifice my body
spreading through skulls.
Admire me.
Focus on me.
I beat them all.

We danced to the music made that day.
A slow melody assembled
from the dull connection with heads and
shrieks carrying his name.
We all look the same to them. Brown like the next.
Admire me.
Focus on me.
I beat them all.
His hands were soft on my hips.
We were brown together.
How often does that happen?

Elliot Ping (she/her or they/them) is a writer, neuroscience student, and lifelong Midwesterner currently residing in Columbus, Ohio. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Dovecote Magazine, Cultural Weekly, Kissing Dynamite, and The Knight's Library. You can find her on Twitter @elliotcping.

in the eighth grade
 
i got                                         whiplash, falling
on the                                      asphalt
play-                                        ground
where                                      basket
-ball hoops                             started the year
with nets                                 and ended
                                                  without
 
***
​
we started the year with you. i remember:
 
your brother left class. i stuck gum under my desk when the door clicked, thought back to picture day, thought forward to yearbooks, wondered if they would leave room for you, wondered how quickly we’d forget shared air.
 
***
 
you sit against the wall in P.E., throw the basketball back when it rolls to your feet, roll your eyes when asked to play. i roll memories between my fingers, marbles i shoot to hear them click together, fast blood pumping in the silence after a miss. i roll your name around my mouth, jawbreaker, see if it tastes any different. what they don’t tell you about grief is that it keeps you captive until you roll over for it.
 
***
 
they sent a letter home about grief.
 
your face was orange
            with foundation in
the casket
and we--
                        we were so angry. how
could they?

Originally appearing in Flypaper Poetry Issue VII.​

 Emma Bolden is the author of House Is An Enigma (SEMo Press, 2018), medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press, 2016) and Maleficae (GenPop Books, 2013). The recipient of a 2017 NEA Fellowship, she serves as Associate Editor-in-Chief for Tupelo Quarterly. ​Emma Bolden’s poetry and prose has appeared (or will soon appear) in such journals as the Black Warrior Review, Puerto del Sol, Shenandoah, New Madrid, the Mississippi Review, TriQuarterly, Story Quarterly, The Pinch, Waccamaw, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Conduit, the Indiana Review, the Greensboro Review, Redivider, Verse, Feminist Studies, The Journal, Guernica, and Copper Nickel. Bolden has been featured on Poetry Daily and in Verse Daily’s Web Weekly series, and her work was chosen for inclusion in Best Small Fictions 2015, Best American Poetry 2015, and The Norton Introduction to Literature (13th Edition).

What Women's Work Is


A fist in the blender. A hook of hunger
handing out free dinners to a swarm of fins.
A hunger without a hook, without a fish.

The bones of a fish whose flesh finned off
in the mouth of a black cat. A black cat’s back.
My own back turned or against the wall: no

other options. My eighty cents to his dollar. My human
to his resources. My heart blessed but God knows
why she didn’t know she shouldn’t have spoken out
​
of her place. My first place is his last place, lit yellow as a sign.
Dead end. My yellow belly cowarded, quiet. My good
girl. My silence wild in the mouth I’m paid to keep shut.

Originally appearing in Flypaper Poetry Issue V.​

Kwame Opoku-Duku is a Ghanaian-American poet and fiction writer. He is the author of The Unbnd Verses (Glass Poetry Press, 2018), and his work is featured in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, BOMB, The Shallow Ends, The Literary Review, Bettering American Poetry, and other publications. Kwame lives in New York City, where he is a teaching artist, and along with Karisma Price, a founding member of the Unbnd Collective. Kwame is an associate poetry editor for BOAAT Journal, and supported by his residency with the Human Impacts Institute, he curates the reading series Dear Ocean.​

​ii. dance moves


the old heads say
the world is burning,
watching youngins

milly rock in
the streets, bodies engulfed
by the glow of their

blackness, no fucks
given, ain’t got time
in these streets.

and it’s true, really.
the world is burning.
at its core we’d evaporate

like an orgasm in
the night sky,
have our souls flown

to heaven by
God’s benevolent birds.
i used to be a youngin.

i used to wild
wilder than the wildest.
i’ve watched young

men of color
spontaneously combust.
these days,

i evangelize
like a dime store preacher,
scrutinize the suits

of other preachers,
envy the humility of
those more favored.

i am so scared i want
to die with my eyes open.
i never turn my back

on anybody, never
trust without power.
the devil preys

in liminal spaces,
uses pebbles instead
of boulders,

talking plenty
slick, like he’s the only
one who could

really know God,
who could really
love Him.

and you’ll say it’s
more complicated.
it’s always

more complicated.
i say, lord, take everything
but my dance moves.

i submit myself
to your will.
your grace

a pashmina in
the crisp new york
air. i’ll lay myself

​prostrate
and pray for
more heat.

Originally appearing in Flypaper Poetry Issue V.

Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, was chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Her second poetry collection, Through a Small Ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press (February 2020). She is also the author of the chapbook What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). Her work is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, and Triquarterly, among others. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com​

Lockdown Drill


Keep thinking of the dead babies the dead
babies the dead so like the babies at the ends
of our fingers the babies that will grow
to leave too fast if they live long
enough the babies that mothers once held inside
like secrets they promised to keep
safe—keep thinking that no one is safe
if not the babies if not the near-visible
bones we grow to outlast us keep thinking
nothing lasts while the sun sinks below
the late winter horizon the hours of daylight
getting longer but only by seconds
the bones grown away from us like the babies
so close to being the only evidence of angels
the babies that moved through the world
just yesterday & now move in the dark
beyond the windows beyond the glass
lake of memory                           keep thinking
there are reasons for everything
but do not find a single reason for a bullet
to enter a baby like a wind that opens
a door it can’t close keep thinking
we’d do anything to deadbolt the doors
to shut out the wind to put breaths back
in their bodies to give them a new history
a new exit strategy a world where hate is not
a bullet where dead babies aren’t snowflakes
fallen to rest under our feet where the babies that live
at our fingertips are what we hold instead
of what we could be holding
when to hold them is never enough is never
enough is never enough

Originally appearing in Flypaper Poetry Issue I

​​Devin Kelly earned his MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is the author of two collaborative chapbooks as well as two collections of poetry, Blood on Blood (Unknown Press), and In This Quiet Church of Night, I Say Amen (Civil Coping Mechanisms). His work has been published or is forthcoming in The Guardian, LitHub, Catapult, and more. He is a founding English teacher at Comp Sci High School in the Bronx, and has previously taught at Bronx Community College and The City College of New York. He is the founder and co-host of the Dead Rabbits Reading Series and currently lives in Harlem. He also enjoys extremely sharp cheddar cheese melted atop a medium rare burger.

POEM FOR MY FRIEND MATT WHO AT THIS MOMENT 
IS RUNNING 300 MILES ACROSS TENNESSEE

The names of towns sound kind enough:
Sugar Tree, Pleasantville, Pine View. 

Once, while running, you turned to me 
& said don’t worry so much about dying –

your brother had been diagnosed
with cancer & I didn’t know. You said

let’s roll & the road became frictionless,
the air beneath a wing, a pillow firmed

before dreaming. What is running
good for? All our lives, old fathers

say stay, work, don’t budge, bear
your own burden. But you know

two people can carry one another
into infinity. How I hope this is 

what infinity is: the carrying multiplied
until it has no number or time, only

a motion so constant it is imperceptible.
That day, the miles were a blur

of miles. You broke away & I chased you
with a grin, the rain caught in my beard,

what was once a marathon no longer,
only the unfound word for both love & rain.

How I felt like a bear. How I want to say 
there is a cure for everything, but how 

I can’t. People tire & people die. Tonight,
while I sleep, you will be shuffling

slowly along Highway Sixty-Four
in the dark, carrying what small load
​
you have left upon your back. For all my life
I have yet to understand what to make

of all my life. I grow scared & anxious with
what I stand to lose & haven’t yet held

in my arms. My first reaction to pain
is instinctive. I crawl within myself,

make of my body a den. I stop, all
shiver & hide, forgetting that there is

nothing to lose after that last, ultimate
loss. I dream my own brother’s death

& wake two inches above the bed
in that last moment of falling. So

we rise. So we go on. So each stride
of yours is twice as long as mine but how

we have learned to cover this distance
at the same time. I’ll stay up late tonight,

track your progress as I would a plane 
arcing over the pollution above Manhattan.

Wasn’t that fun, you said. We had just finished,
the salt of our bodies a desert of white sand

upon our skin. I have run far enough that I can 
say anything. It was, I said. It was, it was, it was.