“In the Event That You Find This” by Catherine Abbey Hodges
“Try to remember the actual
moon is never less than full.
The evening cashier has a secret
sorrow and plans for the weekend.”
“In Which We’re the Mycelium” by Adrie Rose
“In these years of unrelenting
loss, I have practiced restoration
with you.”
“Letter to a Cousin” by Eileen Pettycrew
“Dear eyes
like breaking stars,
some days I hear your voice
in the trees, some nights
I send you half my dreams.”
“Peccadilloes” and “Missing Sleep” by Jane Ann Fuller
“Sometimes death
takes you by the throat, like burning leaves choke
and ochre light hangs thick as draperies across your living
room window where a slice of sky slips through
to remind you get outside, take a walk, breathe.”
“He Thought” by B. Fulton Jennes
“I thought it was just opening, he says. I thought
the petals were just unfurling.”
“My Sweetheart Hates to Shop, But This Is My Fantasy” by Janlori Goldman
“Dress you
as you prefer, in men’s clothes—no rush
or pressure, pleasure in the long look,
the urge for color, then touch—”
“Night Swimming” by Doris Lynch
“Tonight, I am going to push
the Susquehanna away with my body,
ignore the waning moon’s fractioning
of light.”
“Autumn Again” by Catherine Abbey Hodges
“That afternoon, I pretended
to be a cat—tabby, kinked tail.
And the finches behaved
accordingly.”
“Slumber Party” by Sara Burge
“Still awake believing our silence might leave us,
desperately needing to make ourselves heard,
every girl told a story before parents came for us.”
“Call Me” by Eileen Pettycrew
“I imagined us drinking tea
sugared with honesty,
laughing till we turned soft
as fallen apples.”
“Why I Still Haven’t Written About the Rape” by Adrie Rose
“Always, I begin
with nothing and too much
to say.”
“Story Ending in a Heap of Boards” by Catherine Abbey Hodges
“Some days
almost everything’s about sex, and maybe
this as well: groan of old boards, joists
and beams remembering, music
of breaking glass.”
White Moths Everywhere by Cortney Davis
“a white moth arrives rising and falling
on the warm breeze, lingers on the headstone
then on my bare arm, clinging as if
searching for moist skin or the scent of me.”
Hope is the vixen fox by Jenna Rindo
“I stare out the window
over the sink, the citrus soap promising
something pure as we shelter in place.
A rolling fog smokes the green
grass. The vixen glides her grizzled gray
between orchard and rock wall border.”
Aubade with Nipple Shield & Liquid Moon by Geula Geurts
“Milk passes through me like liquid moons,
wet stars on her tongue. She sucks
till I’m emptied of all the white
cells in my celestial body.”
Your Lips by Micki Blenkush
“Because this is endearment not indictment
I’ll say that I admire the commitment you’ve recently made
to eating your berries with the knife used to clean them
rather than using a spoon.”
Kitchen Idyll by Robyn Groth
“Bored, my children open me up, like a fridge,
to find out what’s inside. I glow and show them
leftovers, mostly, some of them over a week old.”
Soapstone by Courtney Huse-Wika
“We didn’t hear what she couldn’t say because the prairie stitches women’s mouths shut.” Enjoy this audio recording of “Soapstone” by Courtney Huse-Wika from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Courtney Huse-Wika teaches writing in the Black Hills of South Dakota. She believes in the art of collection: overheard quotes, bird facts, forgotten stories,
Facedown by Sherri Levine
Enjoy this audio recording of “Facedown” by Sherri Levine from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! “Facedown” was the winner of the 2019 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. Read the full poem here and buy the issue here. Sherri Levine is a poet and teacher. She lives in Portland, OR, where she teaches English to immigrants
Sausage by Ilene Rudman
Enjoy this audio recording of “Sausage” by Ilene Rudman from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Ilene Rudman is a psychotherapist and career counselor living in Maynard, MA. Her work and poems focus on remembering, nourishing silence, and naming the unnamable. For fifteen years she has been in a weekly poetry master class
The Rape of the Sabine Women by Judith Sanders
Enjoy this audio recording of “The Rape of the Sabine Women” by Judith Sanders from Vol. 31:3 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Judith Sanders’ work has been published in journals such as The American Scholar and on the website Full Grown People. She won the Hart Crane Poetry Prize and Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Prize. Her manuscript, The Universe
The Multiverse by Emma Bolden
Enjoy this audio recording of “The Multiverse” by Emma Bolden from Vol. 31:2 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Emma Bolden is the author of House Is an Enigma (Southeast Missouri State UP), medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press), and Maleficae (GenPop Books). The recipient of a 2017 NEA Fellowship in Poetry, her work has been published in
Reasons For & Against Dating Tyrannosaurus Rex by Emari DiGiorgio
Enjoy this audio recording of “Reasons for & Against Dating Tyrannosaurus Rex” by Emari DiGiorgio from issue 27:2 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. Emari DiGiorgio is the author of Girl Torpedo (Agape, 2018), the winner of the 2017 Numinous Orison, Luminous Origin Literary Award, and The Things a Body Might Become (Five Oaks Press, 2017). She’s
Aubade for Dreamland by July Westhale
Enjoy this audio recording of “Aubade for Dreamland” by July Westhale from Vol. 31:1 of CALYX Journal! Buy the full issue here. July Westhale is the award-winning author of Via Negativa, Trailer Trash, The Cavalcade, and Occasionally Accurate Science. Her most recent poetry can be found in The National Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, and Quarterly West. Her essays have been nominated for Best American Essays.