CHONKERS

by Tammy Smith

Only a stellar sea lion

weighing two thousand pounds

can bark incessantly

and still gain a following.

Instagram. TikTok. Facebook.

Crowds gather

in the city by the bay

to watch Chonkers 

sprawl across K-Dock

at Pier 39,

sunbathing, grunting—

no one accusing him

of wasting his time or talent.

It isn’t fair:

a massive marine mammal

earns devotion

for taking up space,

for being louder

than his boisterous California

sea lion buddies.

When I lived in San Francisco

in my early thirties,

on the edge of poverty,

in the throes of mental illness,

no one admired

my high-pitched growls,

no one praised me

for memorizing every word

to an Otis Redding song

as I wandered

Fisherman’s Wharf,

envy smelled like
salty sea air,
regret like sourdough,
loss like fish markets—
urine.

Tammy Smith is a poet and licensed clinical social worker from New Jersey. Her work appears or is forthcoming in ONE ART, Paterson Literary Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The New Verse News, and elsewhere. She received honorable mention in the Journal of New Jersey 2026 Poets Prize.

THE AMERICAN VARIANT

by Pepper Trail

It has always circulated among us

We know that, and we know

Mutations happen all the time

So what makes this so virulent

So easily transmitted

Neighbor to neighbor, father to son?

 

It is airborne, that is clear

Transmitted on the breath

On the words carried on the breath

Capable of crossing great distances

Broadcast on the seething turbulence

Filling our air, our airwaves

 

Experts speak of it with awe

The terrible beauty of its design

How it targets our vulnerabilities

Binds to our fears

Produces an inflammation

Disorderly and wild

 

There are treatments

Not painless but effective

But the problem is this:

The genius of this variant

Its most deadly symptom

Is denial of the disease itself

 

And so the epidemic rages

The world waits for the crisis

For the fever to break

To burn itself out

Or to infect every last one of us

Burn everything up, at last

Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.