Sophia Heymans, Malory Dinaro, Bart Edelman, Christian Ward

WHITE MOUNTAINS
Mallory Dinaro
This is my home, the woods,
where branches blot out the distance,
insulating thought behind layers of granite,
maple, and creature sound. We moved here
from yours, the desert, where thought
paints the rocks gigantic and nothing
holds back the sun. Time has run out there,
or is just beginning; time, in the woods,
is a gyroscope, spinning itself stable.
Saplings flank the rotting log.
Canopy splits and fades the light.
Of course the summit
is gorgeous. Soft copper sprawls
across hills. Over the ridges
of the globe I stand like the king
on the Two of Wands and shiver,
fingers numbing, wind lashing my face.
You tug at my jacket sleeve,
asking to go back down. I know,
I know, I just want to be bigger
a bit longer.
On the way down, we get in a fight—
or, I don’t know, drama happens.
In the desert I rushed to your rescue,
grandiose, determined. But here,
under pine cover, I pick at your tiny,
beatified flaws as if lichen could ruin a tree;
you vacuum the husks of my emotion
as if old leaves could dirty the forest floor.
While I stew over my imperfection
wondering how we’ll survive, we find
children. No, we haven’t seen
their parents. They pretend to be brave
as the brook bubbles behind them,
their eyes like new moons, saying,
“Can you fix this?” and I realize we
are the only grown-ups, at the moment,
in this cold and shadowed room.
INCURABLE
Bart Edelman
No hint of romance
In the remote vicinity,
Just my spiteful spate,
Nights without stars—
This dim retreat, at best,
Final destination unknown.
Slowly I begin to settle—
Pregnant void so vast,
It swallows past and present,
Hoodwinking the future.
Galaxy adrift beyond,
I confuse notoriety and silence—
Sorrow’s witness run amuck.
But it’s where I must be,
Almost here, somewhat there,
Two halves of a whole,
Not licensed to travel—
One zone through another.
Previously published in Datura Literary Journal
THE BITTERNS
Christian Ward
The bitterns are stubborn
as a rubber stamp
refusing to lift,
stuck in a pause of flight
neither here nor there.
The sky could taxidermise
them immediately,
plugging their bodies
with a wadding of cloud.
A tincture of rain
to cover the silence
stuck in an autumnal
hinterland.
Whatever machinery
is needed to resolve the issue
might have been lost
to the theatre of the reeds,
how we saw three.
Each posed like a gesture
I wanted for a lifetime.
And now they're articulated
for peace in a space
I can't even comprehend.
Look, when I said I love you
forever, this is what I meant.
Sophia Heymans was born in Minneapolis on the last day of the ’80s. She grew up on a family farm in Central Minnesota with her parents, sister, uncles, aunts and cousins. She was homeschooled throughout childhood, and became devoted to art-making from an early age. She attempts to paint landscapes from a non-dominant perspective and confront the weighted history of American Landscape painting. Sophia graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2012, and currently lives and works in Queens.
Mallory Dinaro is a writer and musician from Massachusetts, currently living in Davis, California. Her poetry has appeared in JAKE and, under former names, in Voicemail Poems, Electric Cereal, Potluck, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere.
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack, Under Damaris’ Dress, The Alphabet of Love, The Gentle Man, The Last Mojito, The Geographer’s Wife, Whistling to Trick the Wind, and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 - 2023. He’s taught in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Harcourt Brace, Longman, and Prentice Hall. He lives in Pasadena, California.
Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with two collections, Intermission and Zoo, available on Amazon and elsewhere. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and was longlisted for the 2023 National Poetry Competition and recognised this year in the Ware, Bridport, Maria Edgeworth, Pen to Print, London Independent Story and Shahidah Janjua poetry competitions.