Author: Heavy Feather

Five Social Media Poems by Jasmine Dreame Wagner

Love Poem (15 Tweets) I would love to love the small apology in you, the tiny coffin for laws that no longer suit your stillness; I would love to love the depreciated value of your sources as you loop forth complete as marriage/mirage; I would love to love you, imaged in stone on the harmless…
Conjoining, a poetry collection by Heidi Czerwiec, reviewed by Matt Mauch

As with me seeing the coffiin-esque iron lung in the basement museum of the Nobles County Library, surrounded by photos of smiling polio victims inside various other iron lungs, and making sure I never went to the basement museum alone ever again, any gaggle of able-bodied and world-curious five-year-olds would no doubt concur, upon first…
“When Angela Asks Me a Question,” a poem by Antonio Lopez

—for my hermanita when she loses hope in school You’re armed with a non-toxic shadethat bleeds through Xeroxed sheets—the wicked clonesof an English textbook. Office Depot-issued holsterof highlight markers take aimat the 12 PT tremor. “Hey Tony, sorry to bother you.But what is this asking?” Thirty dollar uñas gloss over the district’s wear-and-tear,…
“AR-15,” a poem by Gabriel Welsch

A reason to burn the newspapers.Arrive to work in tears from hearing the Ardent words of parents on the radio immolating anyArguments about the right time, the right Areas to debate. Yearn for when the world ignitesArdor. Every few minutes Arch your back, deny the screen, roll yourArms to get the blood flowing properly. Watching…
Walking Backwards, a poetry collection by Lee Sharkey, reviewed by Toti O’Brien

On the cover of Lee Sharkey’s Walking Backwards, an anonymous oil painting—“Pogroms”, circa 1915. A long line of people crosses from left to right—their clothes the same color of the background, as if the landscape had already started absorbing them, soon to entirely obliterate them. Two of the men look vacuously forward—not far, as their…
Three Poems by Jill M. Talbot

Retrial: If We Just Lay Here If I just lay hereLet’s just lay hereIf we just lay hereIf you are the heroI will be the bad guyIf I am the bad guyYou can be the heroIf we just lay hereIn our superhero costumesIf we wear our costumesTo bedWe’re something else entirelyIf we’re something else entirelyWe’re…
Fiction: “Routine Cleaning” by Cate McGowan

Streetlights still gleam—their night-timers tick toward daybreak. You drive dawn’s early light, the rush-hour race. You park in a pot-holed lot, sit for a minute, delay entrance to your periodontist’s building, sigh at the drizzle, murky sky, construction cranes. Across the street, ambulances blurt horns as they enter a hospital breezeway. An empty freight train…
Seven Political Animals by Jessy Randall et al.

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Jessy Randall’s visual poems have appeared in Poetry, Rattle, and The Best American Experimental Writing. A collection of her diagram poems, How to Tell If You Are Human, is forthcoming from Pleiades Press in 2018. She is a librarian at Colorado College and her website is bit.ly/JessyRandall. …
Two Collages by Erin Case

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes Agoraphobia Traveling Light Erin Case is an award-winning visual artist based in Midland, Michigan, with a focus in collage. Working in both analog and digital methods, she is regarded for the marriage of surrealism, sincerity, and evocativeness that is present throughout her body of work. While still an…