August Helpling __________ Family Name Glinting with sweat and glitter from the club dance floor,a friend sits across from me at the diner and says,I’m nonbinary, but I don’t think I can call myself trans,it feels like I haven’t earned it. How I delightthen to tell the tale of the…
Read MoreDuplex for T-Boy Sex Cory Quinn __________ -after Jericho Brown In bed, I am neither man nor woman; I am bodied, bottom growth in lacegroaning against a bottom, laced-up body and a bed frame, holding you tenderly.Like a bed frame, I hold you tenderly not tentative. You taste sweet like…
Read MoreThe Best Man Lio Kammueller __________ The sky outside the windows is still dark when I stumble into the kitchen, and the air smells like rubbing alcohol and weak coffee. The high-pitched voices of Brady’s calm acoustic folk music play out loud, floating over the table where he’s scattered his…
Read MoreAudacity Shelly Rodrigue __________ I don’t want to talk about the woman in Walmart who asks me to pray with herafter she admits to stalkingmy wife and I through the aislessimply because two women in loveshopping for groceries somehowrequires divine intervention at the behest of a stranger Instead, I want to talk about the…
Read MoreMarianne Alanie Lacy __________ Inspired by the painting “Marianne” by Karl Hubbuch My mornings are often dark when they needn’t be. I’ve never been a morning person. I sleep through alarms and grumble through breakfast. But today, today is different. Today, my morning is golden. A rich, orange-toned golden that…
Read MoreThe Collar Holds Topher Shields __________ In the kitchenabove the K’ Road dairy,I sew the small flagto your denim jacketwith thread I’ve pulledfrom my own cuff,three stitches throughthe frayed collar,the needle flashing onceunder the bulblike a matchstruck in a dark room. Your shoulder carrieslast night’s rainand the cheap pomadewe split…
Read MoreThe Rubik’s Cube Eleanor Levine __________ My sister Adelaide got me a Rubik’s Cube for Hanukkah. Every year she and her wife get me whatever is on sale at Aldi. One year it was three bags of coffee that I threw out, though I could have taken them to my…
Read MoreChicken Fight S.K. Taggart __________ I wrote this with footballon in the other room,a masculinity I have forgottenthe rules to no longer does it serveme to pretend to be that boyin football padson a sepia fall afternoonthrowing my body againstother, more committed boys I think you understand mein this, and…
Read MoreWaving, Not Drowning David Lohrey __________ The very thought of throwing myself overboard made me recoil. There were Conrad and Melville, of course, maybe Golding. No other major writer of fiction who’d spent much time at sea came to mind. The watery writers didn’t much appeal. Eugene O’Neill was the…
Read MoreDallas Raquel Klein __________ Queer Lineage Ashes, Stardust Look at Us Crawling Out the Mud Dust, dust pecked the open Gorge like motherkissing your splintered feet. Like you were playingtoo hard, and the dry grass laughed thistlesinto your soles. You cried out, but she liftedyou into her arms. You were…
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