it was a child's war--
Our annual finale, released at midnight on New Year's Eve, contains poems and prose in response to a selected photo.
Consecration
Awards 45Fall/Winter 2023Vol 67, No. 1
Editor’s Note: Eilis O’Neal
Carol Dines: “On Ice”
Dashka Slater: “The Ruddy Fruits That Still Remain”
Kyoko Uchida: “Skin”
Nahal Suzanne Jamir: “There Is No Act Five Monologue”
Alex McWalters: “Jimmy-Jim-James”
Miriam Ho Nga Wai: “Miss Ng Misadventures”
Benjamin Van Voorhis: “Chernobyl Dogs”
Jeevan Anthony Narney: “An Adoptee Abecedarian,” “I Could Have Been a Teaboy in Bangalore,” “Family Studies,” “Family Reunion,” “Taking a Bre...
Editor’s Note: Eilis O’Neal
Carol Dines: “On Ice”
Dashka Slater: “The Ruddy Fruits That Still Remain”
Kyoko Uchida: “Skin”
Nahal Suzanne Jamir: “There Is No Act Five Monologue”
Alex McWalters: “Jimmy-Jim-James”
Miriam Ho Nga Wai: “Miss Ng Misadventures”
Benjamin Van Voorhis: “Chernobyl Dogs”
Jeevan Anthony Narney: “An Adoptee Abecedarian,” “I Could Have Been a Teaboy in Bangalore,” “Family Studies,” “Family Reunion,” “Taking a Bre...
In the Multiverse We Have Sex on a Sunday
Featuring art and writing by ADAM BERLIN, TOMMY WYATT BLAKE, DALE BOOTON, HALEY BOSSE, CHEL CAMPBELL, DIVISHA CHAUDHRY, CIPORA COHON, L.M. COLE, MATTHEW DEGROAT, MIKAYLA ELIAS, BECCA FANG, MELISSA FLORES ANDERSON, RACHEL A.G. GILMAN, TIMOTHY C. GOODWIN, PAUL GOUDARZI-FRY, THOMAS HOBOHM, FRANCESCA LEADER, MICHAELA MAYER, V.L. PARZ, KEITH J. POWELL, VALE PROSPER, HAZELLE RACHELLE, MARC RUVOLO, KJ SHEPHERD, ATLAS ST. CLOUD, ARDEN STOCKDELL-GIESLER, ERIC TURNER, LAUREN WHIPPLE, and CLEO LUX ZAKHAR....
Fatigue With No Rain
Haley Bossé (they/them) is a queer, non-binary writer/forest creature. They are a reader for Kitchen Table Quarterly and an editor of the Trans Issues zine (@Trans_Issues on twitter). Some of Haley's poems are forthcoming in the Nimrod International Journal, the voidspace_ zine, and Vocivia's Heart of Thine Cards, while others continue to haunt the countryside. Find Haley on twitter @talkinghyphae.
Haley Bossé (they/them) is a queer, non-binary writer/forest creature. They are a reader for Kitc...
Haley Bossé (they/them) is a queer, non-binary writer/forest creature. They are a reader for Kitc...
A Study of (Trans) Crypsis and other poems
1. CamouflageIn the era of rain, our only color was graphitewith pebble, fossil, lead present in the fabric.When I woke, I searched the pilesfor the closest feel to dry and plastered itstill heaving, to my body. In the rainwe learned a new degree of separationmeaning there was none, just our skinjust the rivers of icy water moving downthrough sticky strands of hair and overthe chilled and porous landscapeof our organs, only breathing in the waterand out, a gill-less form of respiration.2. Noctur...
Transplanetary Dust and other poems
at any given moment/ there are untold numbers/ of micro-meteorites/buzzing forth/ from radiation/ and entering/ the planet’s atmosphereand still we move/ through cells/ that would consumeus/ our ability to break/ down and deliquesce/ todissolve ourselves/ be small/ and small ourselves/ intoa spray of us/ that penetrates/ even the most/concentrated resistance/ is how we form anew/ just asqueer/ and glorious/ as we were/ just as us/ though welook/ and even feel/ different to the touch
at any give...
at any give...
What we do after Nex
Go to work. Try not to cry in front of try not to cry until a blood vessel bursts in my eye at work. Try not to scream in a on “this stuff” at work. Lock my keys in the car and shriek at the sky until I have to go back in to work. Trip on a root and stab my fingers over and over into this cold earth, this breathless sky, all of this too small to hold you and not enough breath not enough earth not enough sky. Not enough you, Nex. Haley Bossé (they/them) calls for an immediate end to Israel’s geno...
The Computer Imagines Me a Boy
Broad-chested, flat
And just out of reach
Perched as he is
A clenching boy
On his digital horse
Crooked incisors flashing
In the white of his sun.
The coded boy reaches
Through swells of matter
And computes the distance between us
As easy as saying
My own name backward in a mirror
As easy as believing
If we doughed our skin a little thinner
He’d un-chrysalis his body
From the fading blues and greens and bubble up
Like so much boiling plastic
Flooding the closest star.
Broad-chested, flat
And ju...
And just out of reach
Perched as he is
A clenching boy
On his digital horse
Crooked incisors flashing
In the white of his sun.
The coded boy reaches
Through swells of matter
And computes the distance between us
As easy as saying
My own name backward in a mirror
As easy as believing
If we doughed our skin a little thinner
He’d un-chrysalis his body
From the fading blues and greens and bubble up
Like so much boiling plastic
Flooding the closest star.
Broad-chested, flat
And ju...
I confess, I only wanted to be a girl
Content Warning: Suicidal Ideation
Haley Bossé is a queer, non-binary educator who emerged from the dripping lichen of the PNW. Some of their poems have found homes in Delicate Friend, Bullshit Lit’s Horns Imprint, and Blue Daisies Journal, while others continue to haunt the countryside. Haley is a reader for Kitchen Table Quarterly and an editor of the new Trans Issues Zine (@trans_issues on twitter). Find Haley on twitter @TalkingHyphae.
Content Warning: Suicidal Ideation
Haley Bossé is a...
Haley Bossé is a queer, non-binary educator who emerged from the dripping lichen of the PNW. Some of their poems have found homes in Delicate Friend, Bullshit Lit’s Horns Imprint, and Blue Daisies Journal, while others continue to haunt the countryside. Haley is a reader for Kitchen Table Quarterly and an editor of the new Trans Issues Zine (@trans_issues on twitter). Find Haley on twitter @TalkingHyphae.
Content Warning: Suicidal Ideation
Haley Bossé is a...
When the Time Comes to Split the Gym
When the time comes to split the gym,
brachiosauruses by the bleachers and gymnosperms
by the punch bowl, I creep to claim the broom closet,
bring just a flashlight and an alibi,
break past particle board protective backing
and enter the lungs of the school.
Here, I’m not the only insect breathing in bacteria
and breathing out whole communities.
I’ve seen kingdoms froth forth and fall in the space
between the spaces between the locker rooms;
I’ve watched the tired clock’s tick urgent
between the...
brachiosauruses by the bleachers and gymnosperms
by the punch bowl, I creep to claim the broom closet,
bring just a flashlight and an alibi,
break past particle board protective backing
and enter the lungs of the school.
Here, I’m not the only insect breathing in bacteria
and breathing out whole communities.
I’ve seen kingdoms froth forth and fall in the space
between the spaces between the locker rooms;
I’ve watched the tired clock’s tick urgent
between the...
