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Sophia Heymans, Malory Dinaro, Bart Edelman, Christian Ward

LONELY LANDSCAPE, SOPHIE HEYMANS
LONELY LANDSCAPE, SOPHIE HEYMANS

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.

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