ELEGY IN FIVE PARTS
by Alessandra Lynch
SOUVENIRS
HERE IS—THE MESSAGE---TO THE RAIN---NOT A TELEGRAM---"I DON’T WANT TO--- STOP
----TALKING TO YOU”---LIGHT
MORE ORANGE—FRANGIBLE AS—AN INFANT’S SKULL---"THEN---I WON’T”---THE
COUPLE PROMISED EACH OTHER---THE GOLD WASP FLEW DOWN---FROM
THE SHADE—IT’S A MESSAGE---IT SEEMS TO HAVE A BROKEN LEG---IT
SLIPS---DRAGGING ITS STRIPED BODY---THEN
STOPS---TO WASH ITS FACE---OR IT’S ---A SOUVENIR ---FROM THE SKY FROM
WHERE—WE LIVE---ESSENTIAL
PART—STINGING--- GREEN—ON THE SILL---
THE FOOT SINKS INTO THE EARTH
NIGHTS FULL OF FIRE
EROS & VIOLENCE---LEAD-HEAVY FORECAST---RAIN POUNDING INTO---THE
TRUMPET-VINE---ONE FLOWER—SMASHED
IN THE ROAD—ONE DRUNK ITSELF---TO DEATH---HOW VODKA-COLD----HER HANDS
WERE---PALE
AND DRY---AS SCORCHED CEMENT---HE PUTS A WET CLOTH ---TO HER---MOUTH---DID HE
KNOW---SHE DIDN’T
--LOVE HERSELF?----HOW WHO KNOWS WHO OR HOW—WHAT’S IT LOOK LIKE----LOVE
THEMSELVES—HOW DOES
IT SMELL---THE VODKA WAS QUITE---ODORLESS---AND IN THE FREEZER----TO
LAST---FOREVER—
I HADN’T THOUGHT---OF THAT---“I’M NOT IMPORTANT”---SHE SAID---AND WHAT WAS
THAT?—“NOTHING---URGENT—”
NOT URGENT---NO NEED TO----NO NEED TO----CALL ME BACK
LACE PELT
FLIES –ARE PART OF THAT—THEY
SCAT—THEY SCAT DARKLY—
THEY SCAT
AT WALLS—SCAT THE
LAMP---TYPEWRITER---THEY SCAT---THE
BOOK---OF ART---DISHEVELED
WAS—THE FOG---AROUND THE SILENT
MOON—THEN IT SCAT TOO---WHITE
SCAT—BLUE
—AND GREEN—WERE ITS
WOUNDS---WERE
MULTIPLE---EYE-SOCKETS---SCAT-ATTACK SKIN---SOCKETS
IN SKIN---I NEVER WANT---SCAT
SCAT---TO TOUCH THE MOON---SCATTERY
SCAT---WITH ANYTHING—
SAY THE FIVE EYES OF THE
FLY----SCATTING ON EVERYTHING---
CERAMIC MUG—
OIL PAINT ---AND WHERE ARE
YOU—AND WHEN MIGHT I
SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN---AND WHERE
DID YOU GO…. ASH IS
INCONCLUSIVE….ALL ALL’S
INVOLUNTARY….ALL ALL’S POURING PURE
AND LUCID AND TRIBUTARY—A FLY
COULD LIVE HERE FOR 31 DAYS
AFTER FELIX THIOLLER
…YOUR DAUGHTER…IS PAINTING… OR DRAWING….OR POSING BETWEEN LIMESTONE “HUMANBODIES”…
AND THEIR BOVINE EARS…AND CARDINAL-BEAKS…THEIR SCOWLING
BIRD-FACES….SHE’S IN DARK DRESS…
DURESS…SHE’S IN…OBLIVIOUS DURESS…PAINTING…A BIRD-GARGOYLE…LOOKING
DOWN…HEAD
AS THOUGH….SMASHED IN…..TALONS ON THE EDGE….OF THE NOTRE DAME….SHE IS
PAINTING…IN A LIGHT RAIN…
HER BACK TO THE CITY…A FLIMSY TOWER….IN THE DELICATE
CORRUGATED….MIST….YOU SHOT THIS
PHOTO….ON THE PERFORATED PART OF….
A MOMENT….
MULBERRY BEETLE …AND HER CHERRY-PIT CRY…….
AUTHENTICITY
I TUCKED THE FEATHER BETWEEN….IVY…AND THE STONE EAR…OF EROS…THE
KUDZU…
ONE EXAMPLE…OF WHAT….WE’VE DONE….ARE DOING….TOWER TOWER TOWER….YOU
FOUND YOUR
CAMOUFLAGE IN WORDS. AND HID BEHIND A CONSONANT. AND DROPPED A VERB. THE
RABBITS
CAME OUT WHEN THE AIR WAS COOL. THE ARROWS FLED DESPITE THE AIR. YOU HID
BEHIND
ARROW, A BULLET FOR A BRAIN. YOU HID BEHIND PATTERN. YOU DROPPED YOUR
VOICE
AGAIN. THE FIELD NEVER HID ITSELF, THAT WAS ITS CAMOUFLAGE. ITS SKIN. STRIP
THAT AWAY
AND NOTHING, NO ONE, NO RABBIT WILL LIVE.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Alessandra Lynch’s 5th book of poetry, Wish Ave, was published in 2024. Chosen as a NY Times’ Best Book (2017), her 3rd collection, Daylily Called It a Dangerous Moment, won the Balcones Prize. Her poems appear in The American Poetry Review, the Kenyon Review, The New England Quarterly, and other journals. She has had residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and the VCCA. Currently, Alessandra teaches poetry in the undergraduate and MFA programs at Butler University.
Greetings, friends! We’re thrilled to bring you issue 51—an open-themed collection of thirty exceptional works spanning fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, photography, translation, and comics.
Creative non-fiction by Elisa Carlsen
Righty, from Surf Pines, was one of six free chickens my neighbor Rudi called to tell me about. He knew a guy who knew a guy and offered to give my partner and me a ride to get them.
Creative non-fiction by Marion Cline
The purpose of the complete breath is to acknowledge mortality. Just as it easily enters, it easily dissipates. The purpose is to hold the breath, let it swim for a little while in the lower pit, and to let it go.
Creative non-fiction by Alana Friend Lettner
I was eighteen and living in a small flat in Argenteuil, a forlorn-looking suburb of Paris that had, in a past life, been a favourite place of Monet and Renoir.
Creative non-fiction by Eve Krakow
Before leaving the house, she double-checks her bag: music binder, pencil, glasses, water bottle. There’s something comforting about the ritual of going to choir rehearsal, the same day and same time each week, year in and year out.
Comic by Kaya Davies
Kaya Davies (b. 2002) is an artist who seeks to understand what she does not through the process of creation.
Comic by Elias Doering
Elias Doering is a pen and ink artist from the East Coast of the United States. They primarily work in black and white to make comics about the sea.
Comic by Josie Levin
Josie Levin (she/him) is a visual artist and writer whose visual work has appeared in a variety publications
Comic by Jem Woolidge
Jem Woolidge is an emerging artist based in Tiohtià:ke (so-called Montreal).
Fiction by Rachel Mattingly
Misty is undoubtedly splattered somewhere outside the IHOP a few blocks down. Gives a whole new meaning to the house of pancakes.
Fiction by Erik Moyer
Jackie Flapjacks stacks eight plates on each side of the barbell and drizzles them with custom syrup-colored spring collars. Some new gym-goers peek out of the corners of their eyeballs.
Fiction by Amber Nuyens
The first time Jamie goes to a gay bar, she thinks of those viral videos of cows being released into fields for the first time in their lives.
Fiction by Jordan Thibault
The yo-yo they used was blue. It was not their favorite color—red like their frumpy hair—but of the remaining primary colors, blue would do.
Fiction by J.M. Young
I’m not supposed to be in the line of deep lifeguards. I’m a registered shallow guard who has miserably failed the deep guard test, not once but twice.
Photography by Phi Phi AN
These photos are part of a long-running visual archive series named “As far as half the way to the Gateway,” a flow created based on traditional analog photography techniques.
Photography by Austin Cullen
Our relationship to the natural world is inextricably tied to technology; and as technology changes, so does the way we represent the world around us.
Photography by Judy Thorn
This series was shot during an exquisite period before the pandemic. It came together only in retrospect. Each photo tells of a stalwart friend, lover, seer.
Poetry by D.M. Bradford
Slow and funny in the gut, our year of home ownership. Would love to tell itself it's going to be spent being written. Would love to tell itself its lack of poetry is already sidelined and collected.
Poetry by Katherine Chiemi
I like the fragile eggs, just the size to crack between molars.
I like the Rube Goldberg of it all, the little egg engines and the rattle of the dice tray: watch me
Poetry by Judith Lapadat
Its hulked form nosing into steel grey bay
the chop, its incessant slap, the cold salt
Poetry by Madi Haab
there: in the hollow
concrete medulla
of the city skeleton
Poetry by Alessandra Lynch
HERE IS—THE MESSAGE---TO THE RAIN---NOT A TELEGRAM---"I DON’T WANT TO--- STOP----TALKING TO YOU”---LIGHT
Poetry by Dawn Macdonald
without stiffening. a bump,
a rebound. a dampening
Poetry by Aaron Rabinowitz
She separates from the distance from the other moving forms across the canvas—you mean campus—like a sticker unpeeled from its backing
Poetry by Dominique Russell
Peut-être pas maintenant, mais bientôt et pour toujours
à tout jamais, éternellement
Poetry by Mazzy Sleep
The sun in the morning.
It was snowing so hard it seemed like
it had always been snowing, since Eden,
Poetry by Lily Thomson
After hearing about it for so long
I finally ate an orange
In the shower
Translated by Neil Smith from Jean-Christophe Réhel
i am
less and less
i say goodnight chair good night ventilator
Translated by Willow Loveday Little from Jean-Guy Forget
my girlfriend and our friends
blossom into a choir of laughter
Photography by Angeline Teoh Simon
My collage work is an examination into personal ancestry and immigrant history. As a second-generation Canadian, I have felt disconnected from my German and Malaysian-Chinese heritage, motivating me to focus on a collection of family photographs that were passed down to me.