I walk in the shadows

by Patricia Roe


I walk in the shadows of others.
Perhaps born at the wrong time or in the wrong place.
Second child always following in the footsteps of the first.
Never to take the lead.

Trained well by a mother who was just that.
My worth always judged by my appearance.
Never encouraged to do more, be more.
I became what I was born to be, a shadow.

Married too young to a mistake.
Wrapping my identity into his.
Losing the relationship and my own self.
Only to repeat the mistake again.

Parenthood giving me the excuse to hide behind my children.
Pushing them to excel.
To reach for heights I only dreamed of.
I walk behind them and am proud yet still I am in their shadow.

Finding work always as the assistant.
Only able to manage my own loads yet always tasked with that of others.
Watching them move on.
Finding reward in helping them succeed.

I support, I follow.
I am the reason they shine so bright.
I am the shadow they never see.
I am woman, I walk in the shadows.


* * * * *

Patricia Roe retired a few years back from a career of helping others during which she engendered a collection of tales that she hopes to share with the world. After spending decades honing her writing skills in the business world with company newsletters and project reports, Pat is now excited to have an opportunity to explore her creative side. Currently working on multiple projects from poetry to blogging to her first novel, she feels that her life experiences give her the perfect background to tell many different stories in an assortment of genres. Hopefully, you will agree!

The Once Invisible Garden

by Laura Foley

 
How did I come to be
this particular version of me,
and not some other, this morning
of purple delphiniums
blooming like royalty,
destined to meet these three dogs
asleep at my feet, and not others—
this soft summer morning,
sitting on her screened porch
become ours, our wind chime
singing of wind and time,
yellow-white digitalis
feeding bees and filling me—
and more abundance to come:
basil, tomatoes, zucchini.
What luck or fate, instinct,
or grace brought me here—
in shade, beneath hidden stars,
a soft, summer morning,
seeing with my whole being,
love made visible.


* * * * *

Laura Foley is a bi/queer poet, author of nine poetry collections.  She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, The Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, the Bisexual Book Award, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in numerous anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence.

Not a Metaphor

by Laura Foley

 
Not the phone’s jarring interruption
in this moment of wonder—
 
not Dad’s late night news
of our sudden loss of my teenage sister, Alix,
 
not this huge, black-winged bat circling us
as I clutch our newborn daughter, I birthed alone.
 
Not a simile, this child with traces of blood
on her arms—nor these stained sheets
 
I rose from moments ago in hope
of sharing joy so pure I couldn’t feel my feet.
 
Not this bat flapping so close
to the seat of my rational sense, this shadow
 
of death that makes me duck, as I hold
my baby, still nameless, to my chest.


* * * * *

Laura Foley is a bi/queer poet, author of nine poetry collections.  She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, The Common Good Books Poetry Prize, The Poetry Box Editor's Choice Chapbook Award, the Bisexual Book Award, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and included in numerous anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence.

RETREATING

by Caiti Quatmann


After the storm, the forest exhales;
pine needles glisten like a thousand tiny mirrors,

reflecting fragments of a sky, newly washed.
The creek, swollen with rain, carries leaves

that have seen empires rise and fall,
their veins etched with history.

Moss clings to the rocks,
a velvet embrace charting

a history in shades of green and time,
an archive of silence in the undergrowth.

A heron stands--on the water's surface, its reflection
a ghost, touched by the morning's hesitant light.

Shadows play across the bark of a birch, secrets
scripted in fleeting rays, a dialect of darkness and light.

In the meadow, wildflowers awaken;
their petals—open arms, stretching to

a sun that has watched
civilizations turn to dust.

The air vibrates
with the hum of bees.

The mountain, in its stoic grandeur,
wears scars of time like badges,

traces of earth's deep breaths.
And there, in the heart of the wilderness,

where the horizon kisses the sky,
lies the boundary of our understanding,

A frontier that retreats as we approach.


* * * * *

“Retreating” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

Caiti Quatmann (she/her) is a disabled poet. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her poetry and personal essays have been published by Thread LitMag, The Closed Eye Open, and others. Caiti lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and teaches at a local Microschool. Find her on Instagram and Threads @CaitiTalks.

THE WILD

by Caiti Quatmann


In the quiet after rain, time whispers.
It's in the way the mist clings to the mountains--

a memory too heavy to lift.
The trees, old souls keeping vigil;

stoic witnesses, their roots
tangled in centuries.

There is a stillness here,
a pause between one breath

and the next--where even the river seems
to hold its tongue, bearing witness

to the slow dance of the stars.
Beneath the surface, under layers

of earth and history, secrets sleep
in their own rhythm, unhurried

by the tick of human clocks. They speak
in the language of leaves unfurling,

of silent seeds bursting into stubborn life.
Sometimes, in the half-light of dawn,

the world feels like a question left
unanswered. The vastness of the sky,

a blank page, where clouds drift, unscripted,
and the horizon blurs the line between knowing

and wondering. Here, in the endless cycle
of bloom and wither, time doesn't march;

it breathes. It's in the hawk's circling shadow,
the rustle of grass as unseen creatures pass,

and the steady gaze of the mountain,
witnessing years as moments.

And in this expanse, I am a wanderer,
footsteps echoing in the vast cathedral

of the wild, each step overshadowed
by the mysteries that outlast us;

the ones we carry
in our bones,

but never quite grasp.


* * * * *

“The Wild” was previously published in Quatmann’s debut chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024)

Caiti Quatmann (she/her) is a disabled poet. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Yoke (MyrtleHaus 2024) and Editor-in-Chief for HNDL Mag. Her poetry and personal essays have been published by Thread LitMag, The Closed Eye Open, and others. Caiti lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and teaches at a local Microschool. Find her on Instagram and Threads @CaitiTalks.

A Night in September

by Alexandria Wyckoff


Two sturdy twins toppled by planes hell-bent on destruction. Broadcasted into school rooms and power plants, the moment of silence stretched across the world like the first rumbles of an earthquake. Young lovers returned home to grasp for something – someone. Two weeks earlier their first try at a family was plucked away like the tomatoes in the garden, where frost marched across supple scarlet flesh and claimed its victim. My mother became an empty earth that prepared for a new transplant. Two days after the fall, heartburn swarmed into my mother’s chest and she knew.


* * * * *

Alexandria Wyckoff has a BA in Creative Writing from SUNY Oswego. She has been previously published in Gandy Dancer, Planisphere Q, The Ana, The Pensieve, and Quillkeepers Press. Find more of her work at: https://lwyckoff2002.wixsite.com/alexandria-wyckoff

 

Let’s Dance

by Josephine Schelling


            I learned all the moves. I practiced them in the mirror. Sympathy: hugging eyebrows + little nod, Happiness is all in the eyes, I kept wearing masks long after everyone stopped. How much of the routine have I forgotten? It’ll come back quick, muscle memory, you have to practice everywhere, all the time. At a funeral I learned Grief: eyelids half-down, horizon-mouth, I Know, I Know. I can dance. Are we dancing or fighting? I’m never quite sure. In fifth grade I got in trouble for pushing a classmate, I thought we were playing a game, I thought we were just playing! My mom taught me Sorry. I tried to just say it but that wasn’t good enough. I didn’t know we were dancing. It was a heroic effort to force myself to move. Do you think Superman knows how to dance? In the movie his classroom is too loud and he hides in a closet. I know what that’s like! I Know! Am I an alien too? How long did it take him to learn? Who held a knife to his invulnerable throat and forced him? I am 22. My missteps are no longer so egregious, but my execution is, execution is to perform and to die at the same time. Having lived on the edge of incomprehensibility for so long, why haven’t I found my footing yet? I used to wonder if I might be a psychopath. I used to dance on my own. Someday I’ll write a horror movie where your skin melts off if it’s too hot out, and if you look someone in the eyes their face twists fully upside down. I know what that’s like! Have you ever wanted to take out all your bones? You wouldn’t be able to dance, like that. I don’t know how to scream, I just inhale really fast when I’m scared. I’m scared. I haven’t learned Fear yet, so no one knows. I’ve seen other people do Fear but it looks so silly, bug-eyes and flying eyebrows. I’ll just look stupid. People talk as well as dance but I’ve learned it doesn’t matter as much. Some peoples have lots of words for snow because it’s important to be able to identify it. How many words do you have for stupid? For different, for weird, for unintelligible? For people who don’t know how to dance? Oh, am I being too honest? Unloveability is a slip-spill, twisted ankle, a watching from the darkness, the spotlight is both communion and objectification, does that make sense? Tell me, do you understand metaphor or just interpret it? Under the lights, I’m so fucking sexy. Hundreds of people think I’m dancing for them alone. I’m not talking to you! I’m not talking to you! Did you know words mean nothing actually? I learned Friendly (eyes shake hands, listen when no one else does) but everyone thought it was Invitation. Eye contact feels like kissing so it wasn’t that different when I was kissed. I haven’t learned how to dance No, and it doesn’t matter if I say it. Did you know words mean nothing actually? I Know. It’s ok, we can just dance. Are we dancing or making love? I’m tired, can I take a break? I’m tired, can you put the knife down?


* * * * *

Josephine Schelling is a soon-to-be medical student from upstate New York. She completed her undergraduate degree at Case Western Reserve University, where she won the Edith Garber Krotinger Prize for Creative Writing in 2021.