Poetry

Two on Living On

By Ciaran Duff

Spring Cleaning

You found a key under your couch today

It had seven notches,

a five sided end with one big hole

and two small ones

and a dull point at the end,

almost that of a half-heart.

Lock after lock you try

Twisting left, twisting right

Every lock but one

seventy-seven and one half unread voicemails

seven years left of life

I call you one last time

hoping to reach whatever's left

and you pick up

You say you miss me

and I tell you "I love you,

and someone's at the door."

On a front doorstep I use a key of my own.

It had seven notches,

a five sided end with one big hole

and two small ones

and a dull point at the end,

almost that of a whole heart.

how to be wrong

(an addendum for Jeff Rosenstock’s I WANNA BE WRONG)

on the day of the election in november 2024

i waste away at the farmdale station of the expo line

waiting for my connection to expo and crenshaw

heart rate resting at a cool 128 beats per minute (i checked)

knee bobbing up and down faster than the spinning axis

of the wheels on the traincar hurling me forward

the shuffle on my “everything” playlist

picks one song out of (at the time)

three thousand six hundred and twenty-four,

jeff rosenstock’s I WANNA BE WRONG

that catchy tune from that album i didn’t really like

but it was different this time.

the vampiric jaws of fascism sink into the neck of the american

as the pummelling force of rubber bullets sever the heart of the american dream

and the abject disasters or oligarchy line dozens of wallets with blood.

what do i do when i’m starting to give up?

must i rise up in the streets and get shot by the cops?

how am i to wake up when i just don’t wanna?

at the end of my transit excursion

i gather with my peers

and i’m reminded,

even for just a moment,

that there are people to not give up,

people to go out in the streets and get shot by the cops for,

people to wake up for (even when i just don’t wanna).

maybe the instrumentation shifted

or the lyrics were different

or maybe in that moment

that song was truer than any song had ever been to me.

because this time, i woke up being right

awaiting for the next time i could be wrong

because god, do i wanna be.

Yolk

By Carter-Klauschie

There were 12, and they were

Impossibly white

Untouchable in their delicacy

A rare and pure commonness

I had never held the epitome of an oval

Because children are predisposed to crush

We all emerge with balled-up hands

Biologically tense

We are only given malleable things

Which can be dropped without spilling

Sickness and secrets

Sitting on that stool

My fists were tight

We were making chocolate pie

The egg was between my hands

I heard a thin cracking

Thought of the bird’s beak jutting out from its shell

But the bird was liquid

And its shell was the thinnest and sharpest solid

I’d perceived

Mucous dripped across the floor

He carried me to the sink

Yellow swirled across the basin

My hands were rocks with liquid filling their cracks

Broken open to wash

We returned to the counter

And the eleventh oval settled between my fingers

Cracked

I caught only the sun

The rays of his pride

Shifted as I crushed

And my back burned red

I scrubbed

He separated eight yolks from their whites

I watched

Hands pressed flat against the cold

Chest

Split

Dribbling out steadily

My heart’s drool was not red

It was yellow and snotty

Sizzling against the heated surface of my flesh

The shell was

Baked and compressed into bone

By my tight fists

We ate pie that night

It tasted like

My mucous interior,

but whipped

We’d all get sick

ghosts

By Carter-Klauschie

Some days

When no one is

Home

I lie still

On the couch

The way a rug lies on the floor

Today, there is too much light

To feel still

It projects blotches

Across my brittle calm

And never stops its twitching

The image

Flickers forever

Flooding the room

With electrified water

The trembling of an old woman’s hand

A hummingbird flies before the big window

And I can’t help but internalize its anxious motion

I’ve been put through the dryer

Now my skin is staticky

Clinging to the cushion

I tick

A lurching of my neck

It happens rarely

And maybe it’s voluntary

The sun is breathing evenly outside the window

But the shadows that dapple

its bright reflection

are ghostly.

Please come back.

When I’m alone,

I hate to think of ghosts.

TODAY I WOKE UP IN A DREAM

By Mazie Reidy

cool curtain fabric in my hands, I watched the sun rise from my window,

bubbling up

like auburn dough in a slow-cooking oven.

I smiled, asleep with my eyes wide open,

tasting daylight and strawberries:

a sweetness from summer that softened my mouth.

the sky cracked open and spilled out its bluish

water, blinking its eyes in the light.

the clouds swam through the horizon;

wispy hands caressed the sidewalks

with early morning fog.

outside, birds tumbled

and spun in the sky, performing aerial feats

for the insect audience below them.

they hopped onto branches and tilted their heads at passersby,

twirling their tongues

in a fluttering sigh that tinged the air with amber.

I drank the chilled air and sat down on the concrete,

waiting for someone to tell me to wake.

THIS PANTHER

what is left of

By Chase Fulwilder

No one as vain as this panther.

This is a panther with a lion's mane.

Brightened and gold -but how could this be?

This panther exists only at my root.

This panther never sees the sun.

Once so thick, you'd wear it as a boot.

Black silk, you'd wear as a coat.

Oh, my mane! as dark as the night;

but how this panther loves to adapt.

Winters were spent violet, fall dahlias were jealous.

In autumn, this panther resembled a fox;

A ginger mane, until I got bored.

Boredom is the fire that burns my scalp.

The price this panther is willing to pay.

My mane is thin, my mane is coarse.

They see I'm no lion.

My ends are split with no life to give;

Vanity has taken its toll.

The hefty price this panther is willing to pay.

Who is left for this panther to portray?

If I could be a flamingo;

So vibrant and so pink.

Or to be a gecko and switch at my will,

Then, I would surely adapt

-If only.

Oh My Vanity! You've given me no choice.

I lit the match and watch it burn.

It's only thirty minutes, and the flames aren't that bad,

This panther could handle it.

I rinse out the flames and witness what is left.

I am NOT a flamingo, and I am NOT a lion!

This panther is left bare.

No more glistening in the night;

For it fills my scalp.

I don't like the night, the night is too cold.

Or am I too used to the burning sensations?

The night is now, all that's left of me-

Why, look at what my vanity has done!

If this panther is who they shall see.

Then this panther is who I shall be.

MR. Monday

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

I think the sun’s skin is freckled on

All other mornings

But today, it is new

And the new sun seems to scour my skin

With a piercing ferocity

Its pale light is unshadowed by the freckles

Of any day before

And as I clatter down the path

I am pinker

The film over my face is thinner

And the pure light begins to harass me

It drifts by slowly

Calls out to me

Singes my skin

I am unsure if I have ever been followed,

Truly pursued

But it changes position with every glance

And the man in the driver’s seat is

Mr. Monday

And his face is a prism that

Contains me

And I’ll never tan

I’ll burn and freckle

And by the week’s end I’ll be hardened

And covered by the constellations of

Monday’s stare

In this dark city

The lapses in Night’s navy face are

helicopters

And my freckles are the only stars

The engine is quiet and he is quieter

And I’m still not sure if I’ve ever been followed

But I can feel the pure stare of this

Morning

And the blush it will paint

Across my worrying

It is only this day that would follow me into Night

Past the crosswalk

And it is only I who would wish for dim solitude

I cannot bear to be seen from

The side, front, and back

Please make me the one I am in the morning

And let a blemished Monday glance down

Jealous

Of my purity

ERODE

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

On the table by the bed:

Neat piles of doubtful certainty

You tatter the dark

Fragmented by the hush

Shhhhhhh

Swallow the scraps

Keep picking,

gnawing,

cleansing

Press tongue against shredded insides

Sometimes you like to be upset

Bite away the excess; I’d prefer you stay

Clean

Rip the casing undone until it speaks blood

Yes, you are disgusting

Tearing protection into bloody divots

Every droplet stings the ridges

Filthy hollows

Acid tears

Unnatural

Your mouth contorts, twists

Limbs folded over limbs

Hands bloodied by unrest

I’d prefer it if you sat still

But you are searching

Quickening

Reddening as you weather

A shoreline of rocks

You grate

Skinned

Chewing away sediments; flowing solid

Stinging gums,

Singeing lips

You condense the horizon

Unearth a false sun

Tumbling against flesh

First roughening,

Then rounding

You submit

Now suspended in iron brine

Eternalized

Narrowed by the vast

Yes, you disgust me

I prefer you without breath.

44

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

And it all became mist

So I thought to lie on my jacket

Above the dirt and the flatness of the desk

So it all became static,

as it always does.

Thin indents swirled

Trembled

So it all became inconvenient

My head was pinned

I undid the buns and the braids and ripped the pins from the surface

Disassembly

This time, no post-confinement ache on my scalp to brush away

Insignificant

Lids crinkled over eyes

It braided uneven strands of bone and flesh

A pressurized blur

8 black bobby pins

36 brown bobby pins

That’s 44 pins

4 black rubber bands

10 silver clips that must be flipped the wrong side up

They are sharp

23 people asking how many clips are in my hair

23 times that I’ve responded: “Probably 40-ish”

Now I can say, honestly, 44.

Seems absurd to me

More absurd than 40-ish.

But I like the absurdity of specificity.

17 people asking: “So how long does it take you?”

17 times that I’ve responded: “10 minutes,” though I’ve never timed it.

Maybe I should.

I know

It would be so delightfully odd to possess this insignificant exactness

So attainable, too.

An unmoving answer

I like it

Because I despise it.

The inability to see or to walk in a straight line.

I cry out all the exactness

Stand on the chair when I should not

Cover the windows with sheets

Sleep until the knots are undone

Hide from the brightness

Wake up in the light

Pin my hair back again

44 pins

Parking lot

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

You asked if I knew how to get there

I said yes

You looked at me
Ok, let’s go

Your bike was too small and mint green

With yellow wheels that used to be white

Mine was slate blue with thick wheels

And the tips of my shoes just

Barely touched the ground

When you live somewhere, for a while,

You don’t look at street names

You look at the street

So I led you up the hill and past

The triangle and

We were on our way

But I must have mistaken one street

For another

You asked if I knew how to get there

I said: I’m not sure

You looked at me

Ok, let’s go

I started to wonder if

Pretending would starch my ego

Make it powder

You asked: where are we going?

I said: you’ll see when we get there

Ok, let’s go

But I did not know any one grain from the others

And I was only tall enough to see the 4th aisle

To look at the flour and wonder

How it would feel underneath my nails

To turn around and see no street of my own on which to adhere

Somehow that flour-white house

Told me we might be arriving soon

And that woman in skinny jeans

Seemed like a street I knew

And I tapped her elbow

Her eyes weren’t green

I knew I was wrong to think

That she was my origin

I’m sorry, I said to you

And you laughed

Said: well, where were we going?

I laughed and said,

A parking lot

And you turned your bike around

and led us home

ch A se

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

Animals

That is what we are

Ants on the anteater’s tongue

Man

Animal

Man

Animal

Gritty saliva

Concrete underfoot

We consume ourselves because

We are animals

Run from the footsteps

ch A se the trail

Unearth it from the grass of our psyche

Prey on the predator that crouches in wait

Prey upon ourselves

Eat ants off the blades because

We are young

Because we have not unearthed the blade that severs action and instinct

And we are busy digesting all the A’s

We end every start

Graze on alphabet cereal

They chastise

They say we are too impatient to make soup

But cereal and soup are the same on our tongues

Because hot and cold are subjective descriptors

And both dishes contain ants

Man

Animal

Boy

Anteater

Bitter between teeth

[Abdomens and limbs caught in brackets]

Because we are young and our teeth are the dullest they will ever be

“ch A se me”

Please do

We both must run

Chasing is an agreement

Prey must claim their title

For predator needs to eat

Ants.

Chase me through the sidewalk grooves

Carry me above your head

I will fixate on the A in your name

Because we are young and some vowels are bitter.

Patter.

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

Patter. Patter. Your fullness suffocates silence.

What is this encroaching echo?

That rises from puddles: patter, pitter.

Paranoia permeates pensive pools.

Against hardwood, carpet, Creature!

Reveal yourself to me!

There is no exit when there is nothing to exit.

There is nothing when there is nothing to escape.

Your existence eludes all onlookers.

I remain,

Reveling in this ritual, this room

Between a rabid life and a raucous death

Come find me; show me your marred existence:

memories

I cannot, will not, should never hide.

So take, tether, try me.

I have no hesitation.

It is you who should feel harrowed,

harassed.

Hallway, Heinous, Henry

Gather me up so I can never be

separate again

Henry.

Hollow.

I’ll heckle you.

You’ll come to me, a formidable intruder.

I will not hide.

Because a roach is more frightening than a man.

And I know you are a man.

Pitter, patter.

Son's Soil

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

Resting upon quilted sunshine, I felt the roots embed

Once infinite in vulnerability, the Callum tree now protects

Branches shadow broken sidewalk and accompany struggling grass

A widened web stretches and sways with the wind

The orange house is frightful without this fortified guard

The green family within is empty without this storied guide

Past the wooden sill, he sits in quiet strength

Commanding greenery to widen thin gaps and enter

This third child was born by the window to be planted in the yard

First steps under the eyes of the archway

Clumsiness comforted by a blue foam puzzle

Feet hanging off of the green high chair

Discarded food eaten by a gentle wolf

He toddled in the play kitchen and ate in the breakfast nook

Momentarily hung on the third chair, his hopes rest on a cluttered banquette

Still growing down through scratched flooring

Still reaching up for turquoise ceiling

He hides beneath battered baseboards

He emerges atop a grey trundle bed

Leaves shielded by green hands, his home lies within

Beside four hearts blooming in handmade pots

With one soul resting on the tired mantle

Another child held inside ink blotch sheets

Standing near the doorframe, losing leaves to grow anew

Tentative path written by light from a weathered lamp

Past protective fabrics and beyond unbefitting collections

A shelf of peeling boots waiting patiently to be worn

A bowl of odd buttons biding quietly to be sewn

Material persisting easily without sustenance and lingering in periphery

Broken goods cast off to drawers, in wait for a purpose

The new burning fiercely, but preparing to descend

To find shameful shelter in soil

To make room for the next

Seen only by a circle moon, shining in through the square

Needing not to fill sharp edges, nor light a linear trail

Remaining fragile in form and secure in mentorship

Looking on softly, our moon will cede to the sun

Renewed brightness now reflected in twelve neat squares

Dust particles dancing in fleeting warmth

Seeds of understanding coaxed from perimeters

Curtains cleared and doors ajar as invitations

A succulent symphony singing with green joy

The corner fig leaf listening, leaves lifted in approval

Tendrils of hope harbored by humble gardeners

Gently snipped and propagated on the wall

Comforted by orphan sprouts and knowing sprigs

Roots quenched and expanding with zeal

Soon under the cover of morning shade

Behind the veil of afternoon sun

Nestled neatly between dust-full cushions

Stretched sensitively across cooled square tiles

Detaching from warmed Earth to become one among many

Fearfully alone and freely unbound

Mind tethered to rich clay, body wilted in longing

Set free to wander, they may one day return

To marvel at low skies and embrace abundance

To find love simply lain in pictures along the halls

Written across the faces of three feeble sprouts

Etched in the petals of time-worn blossoms

Branches will outstretch toward the mirror of youth

Growing boldly as ivy along winding margins

To recall birth and life, to claim resilient truth

Without soil’s home and sun’s nurture, they would wither for good

LAUNDRY

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

On the last Sunday of each month, I do my laundry. Throughout the month, I collect pieces of myself that need cleaning. Sever strings of sinew. Segment fingers at their joints. Pick away fibers. Compile rotten thoughts. Then place them in a plastic hamper, open air. In time, the carnal sludge condenses into a thick tangle. It emits a familiar, foul scent.

It must be done.

The cycle has begun.

Bleach begins to ooze through the pores in my metal enclosure, singing skin with its chemical touch. Expunging filth with its fiery breath. Bones whitened, then dissolved. Knotted clumps of tissues and tendons become one with the boiling stew. Bleach is indiscriminate. It destroys all with equal vigor. Purifies. Disinfects. No longer rotting mush, I am sterile liquid.

My fluid body is now ladled into the dryer. But spoonfuls of self remain in the depths and the crevices of the cylinder—ounces sacrificed, forgotten. The next spin begins. It is hot and endless. Evaporation. Pureed pieces reintegrate. Heat fuses a new form. The spinning slows to a stop.

I am devoid. Blank, bleached. A strange composite of chemical and creature. Knees tucked into my chest. Flesh staticky and humming.

Begin my month: clean

clean

Dismember.

Wash.

Dry.

Dismember.

Wash.

Dry.

Dismember.

Wash.

Dry.

Sunday: I am a liver on a platter. A fleshy, gelatinous sponge, a fraction of what once was. A person incapable of cleansing peacefully. A person who routinely rips themself to shreds. One who cannot confront the assembly of their parts. One who is too dirty and too dense to be scrubbed.

Before the maggots and mites reach my innards, claim their feast, I am crammed into the washer and spun. The dial turns to “heavy,” the temperature to “hot.” The door slams shut. Reverberations travel through the mess of flesh as the cylinder begins to turn.

Stomach acid froths and foments, souring muscle and marrow, coating my loose tongue with taste. My fragments are battered and bashed. Torn into bits as they flail and they thrash.

I slosh.

I crawl out of the machine and stand on the soles of my crisp, starched feet. I pluck my liver from its platter. Slice away skin. Pry open my rib cage. Place the liver in.

Once more, I must strip away pieces of grime. Reduce myself to pulp in a basket.

Soon, I will have no body left to

clean.

DESERTED

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

It was hot

So I held my face to the fan

Winds poured horizontal

Lips chapped

Nose dried to a bleed

I became a cold desert

Acne – the rocks

Pores – the sand

My eyes, once oases, now drained

Loud

Beige,

Waters gone

Cracks widened

My body began it’s descent

Ankles submerged in the dune

Then calves

Knees

Waist

Chest

Grains of sand pressed to my lips

I opened wide, “welcome in”

They roughened the soft of my cheeks with their grit

Down the throat

Into lungs,

Into stomach

And I stood there and I sank,

Silt churning underfoot

I drank in the desert.

They say you sink faster when you thrash and you struggle

That drowning cuts deeper when lungs are grated raw,

When the body strains, stretched hollow and frantic

They say it hurts more

To suffocate as you claw

To end life in desperation

To die in the sand

So I waited, idle

Flesh grinding to tatters

Nose dripping with blood

Ruby littering the sand

A current of red seeped down and deeper

On my tongue, iron among glass

Dryness clung to my being

Anatomy and soul stripped,

I began to choke

Coughing and grasping

Sputtering and gasping

I caught the horizon of an arid death

Below it: a dense resignation

Above it: a vision alight

I turned my head to the vibrance

Heaved up the mess

Closed lips as it fell

Sheltered eyes with their lids

Just beneath the surface

Limbs startled from their stillness

Needles pricking out and in

I moved slowly, then quicker, then with aggressive vitality

Harnessing whirlwinds

Displacing flurries of grain

I wrestled the density, the pressure, the pain

With every piercing ache, tissue built into muscle

Breath coursing through calloused throat and lungs

There was no rest, no easy departure

Only movement, sky, and sand

Seconds sifted in thin streams through the hourglass

Then minutes,

Hours,

Days

Crisps winds, vivid hues, sharp dust

A will whispered, then shone, then billowed within

Eyes entranced in flux,

Body churning beneath

I remained

DESERTER

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

Tunneling through tightened chest

Upward toward wavering light

Vines of conviction, now damaged tendrils

Spirit as sustenance, now the soul is a burden

Obligation, expectation, and pressure

Aimless, uncertain, but determined

All left at this moment will harshly escape

In their wake, a prison freshly vacated

To contain meager creatures of thought

To guide the unwounded hands of a child

Remnants, oddities, and treasures

Invisible, intangible, but palpable

Lost value ever living on in periphery

Stewing in the heat of abandonment

Watching the departed toil in regret

Time never bends to the deserter’s will

Aura

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

A patchwork sun protrudes

All devolves to crisped edges and blurred corners

The quiet, darkened peace of shaded vision

Now tattered in the wake of burning brightness

Slipping beyond the bounds once drawn

Every inch of nothingness is eerily accessible

Never meet this eye that watches over

Seek to absorb the weak sentience of sky

Brandish a bleeding and burning power

Shelter fragility beneath the only remaining shadow

Rising above with an emotion-curdling pulse

Widen the thin cracks with eyes tightly shut

Striped in glory

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

Swaying under burden

Steps synced in hollow rhythm

Right hand crossed and tightly pinned to the chest

Suffering besets loose cloth and tight fingers

Crimson red, the color of blood

Ocean blue, the shade of pain

Bleak white, the hue of empty eyes

Fabric draped heavily

Souls cloaked in struggle

A bleeding handprint

Blends with red

Corrupts white

Taints blue

Seeping through skin and bones

Once dyed by hatred, now soaked in dread

Dying futilely, they are nameless but known

Head down, eyes up

Hearts bleeding, feet dragging

World gone, time’s up

Tears welling, faith crumbling

Blotches buried by the day

They drift below ground

TIME

By Clara Carter-Klauschie

Beginning to fracture

It used to bend

Impermeable

yet

Vulnerable

Living in silence

Once it spoke

Dispossessed

and

Chaotic

Multiplying in darkness

Now to consume

Retched

But

Inescapable

Bowing in submission

Today will equalize

Formidable

No

More

Feral Cat: I’m Sorry Tuna (The Last Thought of a Dying Kitty)

By P.E.H.

I was born this way,

Swept out like dirt,

Will you tread on me?

I kept my secrets,

Behind claw and tooth,

My only lock and key.

I can’t handle your love,

I will run until you stop chasing.

I don’t need to be told how you feel.

I already know.

Watching the light.

A ghost of what you want me to become,

Do I disappoint?

My doe eyes only remind you of my sharp canines.

The wolf eats the deer.

I eat the hands that feed me.

I’m just so hungry.

Let me decay here.

I’ll watch you from afar.

Further

Further away

Only a memory now.

Just a thought,

Drifting silently to sleep.

On the other side,

Forever on the other side,

My glass soul which keeps me still.

When did I become feral?

When you saw me?