THE SCRUBLAND

by Sezin Devi Koehler

for Rob Reiner

the humid air streams off the slash pine barks

     the breath of a ghost lover against my neck

the tinnitus buzzing of insects, some vampires some not

     the goth butterfly that lands on my sweaty shoulder

     for a drink—I become nectar

gopher turtles scurry into their burrows at my footsteps

     grumpy Harry before Sally

sugar sand yields under my pink sandals

     when it rains, hungry quicksand 

     isn’t just a threat to Westley and Princess Buttercup

this oak tree is 265 years old, the banyan dripping limbs at least 300

these willows extend a fairy circle in the air

rodents of usual size rut below sawgrass thrones

the path into the forest has been worn by hundreds of feet

the train runs parallel, its mournsome whalesong

     I’m the fifth friend in Stand By Me

     looking for my own dead body in the moist brush

     a phoenix in progress

I didn’t forget my comb here by the tracks

     but I did forget myself in the junkyard of a marriage

     that did not bring us together today

I walk through the woods of your memory

as I wish

     come back to us soon

     come back soon

     come back

Sezin Devi Koehler is a multiracial Sri Lankan/Lithuanian American and author of Much Ado About Keanu: A Critical Reeves Theory (April 2025, Chicago Review Press), a sociocultural deep dive into what makes Keanu Reeves so extraordinary as a performer and artist. Pop-culture writer, entertainment journalist, and Rotten Tomatoes-certified film and TV critic for Black Girl Nerds, Sezin's bylines also include Entertainment Weekly, The Daily Beast, Scalawag Magazine, Tasteful Rude, Teen Vogue, and many more. Her poetry has appeared in Tension Literary. Sezin is a board member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto and wordsmiths from an East Oakland historic landmark that looks uncannily like the house from Practical Magic, where she can see the San Francisco Bay from her own window.  

TRAIN A-COMING

by Christopher Woods

Trains move toxic chemicals through small towns daily. Most aren't prepared for disaster. In the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio, disaster, other train towns wonder: Are we next? —Grist, July 12, 2023

Christopher Woods is a writer and photographer who lives in Chappell Hill, Texas. His photographs can be seen in his gallery. His most recent work is poetry chapbook WHAT COMES, WHAT GOES. 

NEW FOSSILS

by Dustin Michael

It's not often you find a bright side to drought, but in Texas, the heat and lack of rain have uncovered dinosaur tracks from 113 million years. The tracks were unveiled at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas — about an hour's drive from Fort Worth. The park is known for its dinosaur tracks, but these newer ones are usually covered with water from the Paluxy River and aren't visible. NPR, August 25, 2022

In the photograph you perch atop your tall chair,
a Mesozoic predator with a smaller dinosaur–in this case
a plastic stegosaurus mailed to you by your Uncle Richie.
Your skin pallid, papery like a new fossil exposed to air,
your lifeless smile a museum skeleton, you were four years old, 
my son, and it was just spring, and no one knew you
had leukemia or how close to death you were. 

The floods arrived, tests and tears, swift currents 
sweeping you across town to the children’s hospital 
clutching your favorite things. I discovered you each day 
washed up on the bank of your hospital bed, wires and tubes 
twisted around your withered limbs like prehistoric vines.
  
For our home, you became a mysteriously vanished creature, 
a question sleeping at the end of a trail of footprints,
and I became a scientist logging your every trace,
following your ancient tracks, cataloging your fragments 
while your nurses and doctors reconstructed you. 

Now, each time I think I have you adequately described 
and slouch toward the podium of my heart to proclaim,
“I hereby present my findings so the world will know
this child, my little boy, who roamed this very Earth—”
more evidence appears, the sediment of my hours 
is scoured away to reveal more mundane marks 
made sacred by distance, disaster, the old economics 
of despair: your preschool mat on the floor like a shed skin, 
your crayon drawing of our family, crumpled, a primordial leaf, 
your t-shirt sleeve peeking like an ancient tooth 
from the laundry pile, and the wondrous sets of trackways 
I found one afternoon when I collapsed face-down on the floor 
near where you and your puppy used to play, 
the tiny footprints tell where you both scurried in 
from a sudden storm, faint mud on laminate flooring, 
puppy and boy, a cataclysm of joy frozen in time. 

Spring was a hundred million years ago and in every second since
I have lived a life of hope and mourning. These new tracks emerged 
from behind my tears like your toys when I would drain the bath. 
Where do they lead? Perhaps to the children’s hospital 
and your den of blankets and tubes, or to the counter 
and the photo of your dying child’s smile,
or into an uncertain future where I 
cannot see you, surely because
you are only bounding ahead. 

Dustin Michael lives with his family in Georgia, where he teaches English writing and literature. He and his wife share blogging duties at https://phinphans.blogspot.com/, where they write about their son, Phin, who was recently diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

NO TWO ALIKE

by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky

          for B.A.

 

In the night snow fell

upon the bittersweet

and lined the land from stone

to sleeping limb with hope.

 

The waking sky reveals

it’s hardly deep enough

to cover the frozen leaves

of grass, but having fallen

 

far and wide, traces

each intention—tire tracks

down a road, fox footprints

fading into the woods

 

dividing neighborhoods.

Despite these separate paths

the snowfall wakes me up

again to the bracing truth

 

that we are joined to one

another and this place,

fragile icy pieces

formed in community—

 

We robe ourselves in frost

yet thrive in unity.

Felicia Sanzari Chernesky is a longtime editor and picture book author who tracks life’s footprints with poetry as her lens. Her microfiction has been nominated for a 2021 Pushcart and Best of Microfiction. She lives with her family in Flemington, New Jersey