Issue Three Contents

Everywhere
by Perpetual Murray
Boiled Drinking Water
by Krishna Ramanujan
Poems for Tonight
by Yusef El Qedra
Free World
by Suzanne Dottino
The woman and the young man
by Chahla Chafiq
2 poems
by Ruth Madievsky
The Mysterious Queen
by Nory Steiger
3 poems
by Gabriele Frasca
2 poems
by Valentino Zeichen
Frogpondia
Poetry
by Ruth Madievsky
Ruth Madievsky's first poetry collection, "Emergency Brake," was named Tavern Books' 2015-2016 Wrolstad Contemporary Poetry Series selection and is forthcoming in January 2016. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. She was a 2015 Tin House Scholar in Poetry. She is originally from Moldova and lives in Los Angeles, where she is a doctoral student at USC's School of Pharmacy. You can find her at ruthmadievsky.com.

One Spring

Everyone I Love is Drafting Their Own Eulogies

One Spring

I kept breastfeeding my existential anxiety One spring I had an empty stomach for a face I had a boyfriend One spring I kept telling the same story I kept telling the same story so I wouldn't have to tell the same story again One spring I was the smoky remnants of a campfire One spring I watched a dragonfly circle my pool for two hours and felt happy I felt happy and like a blueberry in the mouth of someone who loved me I felt like the squeak a stair makes under a bare foot One spring I heard the pills inside me go quiet I heard the washing machine trying to beat the blood out of my dress One spring I thought a lot about photosynthesis I thought a lot about stem cells and whether they were conspiring against me I thought about war and how armor outlives the people it's there to protect One spring I wondered if anything is really here to do anything One spring I felt one with the doorstops at Home Depot I found myself inside a salt shaker, inside the smell of super glue I found a photo of the girl I never was and always will be I pulled the apple from her mouth

Everyone I Love is Drafting Their Own Eulogies

in parking lots, in bedrooms, in supermarkets between the ground beef and the egg noodles. Let's try that again: so much comes down to a body handcuffing itself to its ghost. I want to tell you about the time the past was an earring under the bed. How I lived in the space between touching and not touching, how I wanted everyone I love to wear me like a hat. Now I'm the darkness a city bus moves through, but not always, not when I pass someone walking more than three dogs, not when everyone I love is working full-time as my lungs. In Los Angeles, someone's replaced all the oxygen with surgical grade stainless steel, someone's tagged all the freeway overpasses and I can't tell if they wrote HELEN or HELP. Everyone I love is trying to shine me like a flashlight, everyone I love is telling me to say ahh. In my backyard, forty ants are sharing a slice of watermelon, and I don't know why that makes me feel lonely, why I wish I was their size and with them, fighting for the juiciest piece with everyone I love or just letting them have it.
Ruth Madievsky's first poetry collection, "Emergency Brake," was named Tavern Books' 2015-2016 Wrolstad Contemporary Poetry Series selection and is forthcoming in January 2016. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. She was a 2015 Tin House Scholar in Poetry. She is originally from Moldova and lives in Los Angeles, where she is a doctoral student at USC's School of Pharmacy. You can find her at ruthmadievsky.com.