What Orpheus Did Not Know by Sanda Moore Coleman

What Orpheus did not know, of course,
was that she had flirted with death,
that the love-bite of the needle had already
pierced her skin

The Owls Gather to Watch by Rachel Burns

Pegged sheets flap
under a yellow moon

Tall Grass by Amanda Crum

As the town bakes we
take turns riding on the handlebars, weak breeze
ruffling hair like a fatherly hand.

Cold Case by Betsy Housten

for S. (1952-1977)

“And I… will write my story for my better self.”
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My girl – my better self – I’m so sorry. You deserved
a different ending, one befitting the performer we were,
smitten with allegro and adagio and each speed in between.

The Vision of Albaric by Jude Cowan Montague

I saw the e-waste, the e-waste stream,
bubbling scraps of a ghost-glass dream.

Hired Help by Elizabeth York Dickinson

Spilling over like remnants
ready for the dump, the car
piled pieces of a life.

Peanut Love by Chad Musick

Though she’s allergic to my peanut love,
mom makes the lunchtime sandwich each morning,
says a prayer, takes a breath, rewraps the loaf,
tempers my warm smile with her chill warning.

Letters to the Body I Lived In by Danie Shokoohi

1.

Later, you’ll say it was like rosemary.
Like clean. Like lavender

in the bathtub.

Confessions of a Slender Man Groupie by Justin Karcher

Many people do not believe
Slender Man is real and we wanted
to prove the skeptics wrong.

Mother by Amanda Crum

It can’t have been easy, growing up in that house on the hill.

A Nightmare by M.D. Wheatley

my head hits the common room desk and
are you okay some people preach
they strike me as
some friends
and i

Slenderella by Kristin Garth

Surveillance, stoic, single pane, sisters
shadowed, glass, wool drenched rain — sharp, shrill, too svelte,
the two he spies. Drips raindrop tears, monster’s
eyeless alibis — sympathy unfelt.