Onset Gender Dysphoria Meets Quarter Life Crisis Talon Drake __________                                 I am twenty-six / and sometimes forget / I no longer have to fear the girls on thebasketball team / who hurled out slurs from their seats / in fact they would fear me / my burlyphysique / but there’s…

We Gathered Them by Hand Awen Fenwick __________ We came up from the subway.Color hit the eyes. The Mall disappeared under thousands of panels.Names snapped in the wind. Some held photographs.Some were weighted downwith stuffed animals. Some werea name,two dates. I was nineteen,my first flagstill pinnedto my backpack.Those I had…

At the District Hotel Jay Paine __________                                    We upgraded to the theme,                                    the expectation: superheroes, sex swings, so when the door swung open we were less than thrilled, our room a less-than-private                                     locker room fantasy. Nine helmets lined the bench.                                    It’s dangerous to smash past all four bases  all at once but we…

Duplex 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…

Audacity 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…

The 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…

Chicken 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…

Dallas 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…

Asphodels, How I’d Like To Be Buried With Them Corinne Klosinski __________ Within the wan and weeping vale        Where twilight tarnishes the day,There trembles one tenebrous bloom:        The asphodel of unanswered ache. Pale as a patient phantom’s palm,        It lifts its languid, lilting throat,Drinking the dim and distant dew        Of mercies never meant for…

Pornographic Poetry Template Daniel Edward Moore __________ My professor said I might be the first to be consumed by delicious verbs layered between leather syntax and inches of cream before it melts down tall hard peaks beneath a dark hairy sky.  But what if I’m just a studly nerd asking a pronoun…