Poetry Winter 2018 fiction all issues
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Cover Elena Koycheva
Bryce Emley
Asking Father What’s at the End
& other poems
AJ Powell
Butterfly-minded
& other poems
Faith Shearin
Biology
& other poems
Claire Van Winkle
Admitting
& other poems
Sarah W. Bartlett
Summer Cycles
& other poems
Nooshin Ghanbari
Vincent
& other poems
Meli Broderick Eaton
The Afterlives of Leaves
& other poems
Jeddie Sophronius
Refugees
& other poems
Paula Bonnell
In Winter, By Rail
& other poems
Addison Van Auken Waters
Girls
& other poems
Daniel Sinderson
Hallelujah
& other poems
Andrew Allport
All Nature Will Fable
& other poems
Marte Stuart
What an Insult Time Is
& other poems
Matthew Parsons
My Father as an Inuit Hunter
& other poems
Emily Bauer
Gently, Gently
& other poems
Bruce Marsland
A once lovelorn bard’s final journey
& other poems
Beatrix Bondor
Night Makers
& other poems
Isabella Skovira
Lawless Conservation
& other poems
Juan Pablo González
Colombia, 1928
& other poems
Molly Pines
The Pillbug
& other poems
Jamie Marie
On the Lake
& other poems
William A. Greenfield
If You Show Me Yours
& other poems
Bill Newby
Tuesdays at The Seagate's Atlantic Grille
& other poems
Elder Gideon
Male Initiation Rites
& other poems
Joel Holland
Dear Gi-Gi
& other poems
Martha R. Jones
How Lewis Carroll Met Edgar Allan Poe
& other poems
Addison Van Auken Waters
I Already Gotta Husband
I done dance marimba
uke-le-le.
Sweet boy lover boy
hundred sing say.
Sugar cake butter cake
Sycamore sway,
Pretty rain ova valley
Like-a-duvet.
Milk moon
Queen tune
Star-seat sky.
Big wing
black wing
Inda cloud fly.
Shush.
Malove sound like:
Alabama Muddy River
Zula TipToe
Amen
Amen
I’ma say it again
Alabama Muddy River
Zula TipToe
Stay forever sugalover
Boy don’t go.
Zesty lemon chilepepper
Spicy rice tree
Wheat grass Virginia grass
Tiger grass Free
Left foot Right foot
Da ting ting Be
We got nuttin’
‘less We got We.
Parasite
I have weaseled my way into
the guts of a peach,
a fig,
a fruit or
red red meat,
and bumped my head on the stone—
I was blind, too.
The worm wriggles
a hole in the sky—
or dirt.
Girls.
GENESIS
He wanted to become a Priest,
but he took all them girls instead.
All them girls
and the maid,
kissed them,
gave them beds of gold,
taught them
the rudiments of touch.
Him: CHIEF. Keeper of the Women.
(The girls some fair young virgins).
EXODUS
Them girls
in royal apparel,
he stripped bare of leopard bodysuits or
spandex purple pants,
and with penetrating steam,
red-faced
opens his mouth (as if wishing to eat)
breathing up or down,
the body and the organs rubbing,
The Bull drives.
He pours the Juice.
NUMBERS
Seven them girls
1 the one selling her virginity for $300,000
2 Naomi (from Harlem)
3 the leggy queen (too old)
4-6 the maid, your sister, Mother Earth
7 the mermaid (he loved her more than all the others)
7 received his gift:
The Venomous Worm
stinging againandagain
JUDGES
Them girls
the Womb red with flame,
Ripe
fair fruits of earth.
Their vast egg
ripped from the follicle.
Them woman once strong by birth,
Lifted up their Voice and wept again:
Let no man hurt our bodies.
Poison infected me.
Bruises.
Beast of prey.
Hang him from a tree.
REVELATION
He returns to the mother’s house
like a playful boy
to yield the milk.
Evidence destroyed.
Meanwhile:
the clouds wept ninety rivers
the poison hung in the sun
the breath lingered in the mouth, foul
Extinguished were the lights of men.
Extinguished were the lights of girls.
Addison Van Auken Waters
grew up in Massachusetts and currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina. She received her master’s in creative writing from Durham University in 2017. Together, Addison and her husband have lived in England, Australia, and three out of the 50 United States. She is an emerging writer dreaming up her first novel.