"Americano" by Ryan Walker

5

I am on the floor, somewhere in the Midwest,
repeating numbers to the yellow feathered man
and his friends who live on Sesame Street.
Uno. Dos. Tres. Cuatro. We count. We sing.

I reach for the screen, try and reach through,
“Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”
Cinco. Seis. Siete. Ocho... I am counting. I am singing.
I am alone on the floor, somewhere in the Midwest.

17

I am in Mr. Lamping’s Advanced Placement Spanish,
Repeating phrases and words and dad jokes: “No piscina pool.”
We sing a song about months, and another about fish swimming for God.
I trace his thighs with my eyes.

Mr. Lamping tells me how naturally I roll my r’s.
I imagine him rolling his r’s against my neck, my back;
Pero mira cómo beben los peces en el río.
Pero mira cómo beben por ver al Dios nacido*.

25

I am finally in a land I have so long pursued,
shopping in mercados and asking, ¿Cuánto cuesta?
I walk the gulf sipping at fresh pressed margaritas
before looking for something else to fill me.

My language lessons fail me in dark alleys.
Between bodegas, pesos exchanged for fucking hustlers.
Boca... Cuello... Polla...
He asks, “Does I hurt you?” Solo un poco.

37

I am escaping 45**, chasing Mediterranean dreams,
lost in Barcelona somewhere between Gaudí structures and endless paella.
My eyes on cobblestone passing bathhouses and hustlers, craving pan over polla,
connections that feel like anything but home.

I find a panaderia and fumble for euros. Buenos Dias I say to the cashier.
Bon dia he says to me. I speak Spanglish. He speaks Catalan.
I order pan and cafè americano, setting euros in his palm,
exchanging currency and touch. I sip...

38

I sip…

39

I sip…

---

*From “El Peces En El Rio” by Villancicos

**The 45th President of the United States

---

Ryan (he/him) is a Pushcart nominated, queer writer from Dayton, Ohio, and a member of the Miami Valley Writers Network. Ryan earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University’s Bluegrass Writers Studio. His work has been featured in Flights, Longridge Review, Red Noise Collective, Miracle Monocle, The Uncommon Grackle, No Tokens, and others. Ryan's flash fiction Binge was long listed for Hunger: The Best of Brilliant Flash Fiction 2014-2019, and his hybrid form chapbook Americano was long listed for multiple awards. Ryan’s essay Dress was nominated for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. When he isn’t advocating for the Oxford comma, Ryan is [exploring] a town near you. Follow him on Instagram @ryan.wrote.it or visit ryanwroteit.com.

"Kireji" by Craig Cotter

Too much grey,
walls, floor—
would I be happier
if the room had more colors?
I’d like us all to be content

Black Converse
run through the room and outside
silver eyelets
sparkle—
Mike’s back!

Pine trees out the window
don’t move
yes they do
they grew 60 feet
I waited

---

Craig Cotter was born in 1960 in New York and has lived in California since 1986. His poems have appeared in hundreds of journals in the U.S., France, Italy, the Czech Republic, the U.K., Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, India and Ireland. Books include The Aroma of Toast, Chopstix Numbers, and After Lunch with Frank O’Hara. www.craigcotter.com

"Blazed Poem #4" by Basil Payne

Sometimes I worry that the sun is gone,
whipping my head towards the window

to check for light,

Fear like the smell of chopped garlic
that won’t leave the sliver of moon

underneath my nails.

In about two-billion years, it’ll start to
die, eat itself up from the inside out.

We all know that.

But I’m scared the billions will pass
when my back is turned, a simple fatal

oversight.

So I always have to check. I’m scared of
dying without changing my name to

what it should be

or before I can see an emperor penguin
dance for the first time or last before

their extinction.

At 23, time slips past me and takes
the sun with it. I wish the sun would make

more iron for my blood

Or at the very least take that shit back to
where it came from. My life is a blink but

when I’m high

It’s a millenia. Too many blinks and I’ll
never see the sun again.

---

Basil Payne (they/them) is a queer poet-artist living in Logan, Utah. Their work can be found in Sugar House Review, Sink Hollow, Oyster River Pages, Sheepshead Review, Progenitor, The Southern Quill, and occasionally Utah State University's Projects Gallery.

"Never Nothing" by Basil Payne

Sometimes in my nightmares I’m God,
not the regal haloed man
or an omnipotent beast,
just me in a robe.
Never by choice, I’m exalted
by a passerby angel
or I’ve found that God retired
and I’m the closest option.

As god, my first action is to cry.
My hands, still small, shake
but carry the weight of life.
I can never find my siblings,
who the angels say
God never created.

My second action as god is run
through the blue storm I brewed
and search, tear up
the building blocks of a world I created
Prayers pile up in my holy email inbox
but I can’t get back to my computer.
The terror of responding wrong.

My third action as god is curl
in on myself and become smaller.
My siblings never existed
nor anyone else I loved.
Bit-by-bit, pieces of life fade away,
opaque then transparent then translucent then gone.
Nobody screams when they fade,
I’m the last speck of color they see.

And I’m left all alone again
when I wake crying.

---

Basil Payne (they/them) is a queer poet-artist living in Logan, Utah. Their work can be found in Sugar House Review, Sink Hollow, Oyster River Pages, Sheepshead Review, Progenitor, The Southern Quill, and occasionally Utah State University's Projects Gallery.

"The Plan" by Roger D'Agostin

I saw it when I was seven, when Joe Mitchell pushed me in the pool and laughed and
slapped his wet swim trunks until his hands turned red.
Not at first. After I sank, after Joe poked me with the skimming net.
There’s no light. People say that happens. It's not true. I did leave my body, though. I
watched Mrs. Mitchell turn me on my stomach and smack my back while my head hung over the pool filter and stared into the tangle of hair and bugs and leaves.
I saw everything.

***

At the trial, the lawyer told my mom if I crap not to change my diaper. But I didn’t go.
Even when Mrs. Mitchell said she hadn’t been drinking, and she checked for a pulse and
performed CPR.
It doesn’t matter. I’m never going to be me again. The only body part I can really
control is my right hand. But not my arm so I can’t scratch my nose. Or lift a spoon to eat
cereal.

***

Dad used to tell Mom the Lord works in mysterious ways. Mom would shake her head.
But it's true. When Mrs. Mitchell pounded my back I felt like I could walk right into that
tangled mess and begin to make sense of it all. But I didn’t have time. I rejoined my body. It's
like going down a water slide except there's no water which I now think is so ironic.

***

Mondays are bath days at the care center. Lately I’ve been the last one. That's good,
because the nurse isn't careful and I fall and see all this hair in the drain.

When it happened again and my hand landed over the drain I grabbed it. I held it the whole week until Saturday morning when Mom visited. She uncrinkled my fist and tiny white puffs of mold had blossomed like clouds. She screamed when she saw that paradise. Then she ran into the hallway to find Dad, so he could see too.

---

Roger D'Agostin is a writer living in Connecticut.

"Body Pool" by Sam Spring

She was a drunk
As was I — what a life.
I would recommend the high road
If I could ever have found it.
Instead, my parents found us,
Drunk and dazed in a pool
Of our own bodies on their porch,
The morning light just
Coming on in the East.
They were mortified.
We were silly.
And we never spoke about it
Directly.
The memory blurring like
Landscapes on a train —
The shame, the guilt, that sinking feeling
And the whole world spun on.

---

Sam Spring is a 28-year-old nomadic writer working to save up for a van. He dropped out of SMC to sell bongs online and is the lead singer of the band ‘Tennis Club’ with their music being streamed over 7,000,000 times. Sam bounces around the West, staying with lovers and friends. He has work appearing in Passengers Journal, The Wisconsin Review, and Denver Quarterly, among others. Find his writing, music, and art here —> www.samspring.me

"When You Are Cold, Take a Bath" by Gabriela Záborszky

When you're cold, 

take a bath.

Let the white foam cover the dirt 

left behind your fingernails from yesterday.

The bare truth is always harder, 

but hot water can fool the pain.

Pour yourself some wine, 

the cheap stuff that tastes like ashes.

Leave the empty bottle by the door, 

where it will mix with the ash from your cigarettes.

Turn on the radio. 

Something between jazz and crying. 

Pleasantly shitty, like the memory of someone.., 

who broke your ribs laughing

and then disappeared. 

You sit in the water, 

that's cooling down so fast

that your body can't even warm it up. 

You close your eyes, 

wondering if someone is going to stroke you,

or at least rinse you off, 

as the whole tub turns into a river of time.

---

Gabriela Záborszky, born in Košice on September 9, 1984, is a writer and poet. She is the author of poems that focus on the unique perspective of a woman and a mother. Her work comes from a deep understanding and empathy for the life experiences of women and mothers. Through her poems she is able to express the joy, love, fears and challenges associated with motherhood and women's lives. Gabriela Záborszky is the voice of the female experience, shedding light on various aspects of motherhood and female identity through the beauty of poetry.