SEMANTIC SATIATION
by Mariana Samuda

The love only works in a language at night
Love, the only work, at night, in a language.
Only the love at night works. A language-in.
Works love-in a language only at the night.
In an only language, the nights love at work.
A love, the night language, work-in at-only.
Language only loves a night work in the @.
At night, the language loves only in a work.
Night, love. In a language the-at works only.

 

 

Talisman
by Moira Walsh
photograph, titled Kornfusion, by Markus Lohse

You gave me this / portable treasure
made from rarest / mineral

Its half-life / longer / than my life

When I carry it / which is always
I ray / as it rays

and the ones / who cross us
start to shine / too

 

 

guam poem 5
by Scott Ferry 
art by Leilani, age 11

when i finish my swim in tumon bay this morning and i retrieve my keys from under the wrist of a
palm i notice shadows speaking quiet erasures from above / i look up to see fifty black
butterflies breathless in a windless clutch / they have blossomed exploded in suspended gravity
and i stand there under it wondering why i deserve entrance here and how long will i allow
myself to float painless in this temporal paradise before re-entering the throat of noise and thorn

 

 

–

Mariana Samuda is a Jamaican storyteller based in London. She is the author of the chapbook Five Places You Meet Fifteen-Year-Old You (Conium Press, 2021). You can find her on Twitter: @marianasamuda or at marianasamuda.com.

Moira Walsh, a bilingual writer based in southern Germany, is the author of two poetry chapbooks: EARTHRISE (Penteract Press, June 2023) and, with Wilfried Schubert, DO TRY THIS AT HOME (Femme Salvé Books, April 2024). Read more at linktr.ee/moira_walsh

Scott Ferry helps our Veterans heal as a RN. His most recent book, each imaginary arrow, in now available. Find more @ ferrypoetry.com.