Poetry Summer 2021 fiction all issues
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Cover
Diana Akhmetianova
Monique Jonath
Viscosity
& other poems
Alix Christofides Lowenthal
Before and After
& other poems
Rebbekah Vega-Romero
La Persona Que Quiero Ser
& other poems
Oak Morse
Incandescent Light That Peeks Through Secrets
& other poems
George Kramer
The Last Aspen Stand
& other poems
Elizabeth Sutterlin
Meditations on Mars
& other poems
Holly Marie Roland
Clearfelling
& other poems
Devon Bohm
A Bouquet of Cherry Blossoms
& other poems
Ana Reisens
In praise of an everyday object
& other poems
Maxi Wardcantori
The Understory
& other poems
William A. Greenfield
Sometimes
& other poems
Karen L Kilcup
The Sky Is Just About to Fall
& other poems
Pamela Wax
He dreams of birds
& other poems
Mary Jane Panke
Apophasis
& other poems
a mykl herdklotz
Mouettes et Mastodontes
& other poems
Claudia Maurino
Good Pilgrim
& other poems
Mary Pacifico Curtis
One Mystical Day
& other poems
Tess Cooper
Airport Poem
& other poems
Peter Kent
Congress of Ravens
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
White Women Running
& other poems
Bill Cushing
Creating a Corpse
& other poems
Everett Roberts
Hagar
& other poems
Susan Marie Powers
Canada Geese
& other poems
Oak Morse
Incandescent Light That Peeks Through Secrets
There’s a whore waiting on me, tucked under a duvet.
My headlights pierce a night’s sky, my shadow
bounces around brown leaves when I walk to her doorway.
I become dynasty. My car always honors me—gleaming
in the background, exhausted but nevertheless elated.
The journeys are always far-off from city lights, sometimes through
dirt roads where the woods swallow me whole; I want to thank
my car for its devotion. There’s a whore waiting on me,
a cacophony underneath my rib cage when I weave
around roadkill, wipe the moon’s tears with my windshield,
pray there’re no nails on my path, no police predators pulling me
over out of boredom—questioning until I curl up and become
shame. I’ve been stranded a time or two, but never on the way
to sin. Tire tread reliable as rubbers, oil tank full as an ocean.
Car, do you want a shower, with strawberry soap suds and a wax
that rubs you in all the right places? I give thanks, for the heat
you blow on arctic nights helping my cologne settle in my skin,
as the D.J. rambles, playing his midnight mix and regret tries
to cruise with me. There’s a whore waiting on me, looking out
her window like it’s an aquarium, anticipating my pull-up under
hotel lights, my bounty hunted-bandit walk, Listerine strips
in my pocket, body wipes in the other, soul noise left in the car.
Praising my engine for never coughing up hell no or collapsing
on its bones, leaving me cold on the curb, unhandy, heart
racing like it does when we’re panting, after.
Oak Morse
lives in Houston, Texas, where he teaches creative writing and performance. He was the winner of the 2017 Magpie Award for Poetry in Pulp Literature. Currently a Warren Wilson MFA candidate, Oak has received a Pushcart Prize nomination, fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Twelve Literary Arts as well as a Stars in the Classroom honor from the Houston Texans. Recently a recipient of the 2021 Cave Canem’s Starshine and Clay Fellowship, his work appears in EcoTheo, PANK, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Nimrod, Cosmonaut Avenue, Solstice, among others.