This one is not a promise but you may read it as such
︎︎︎ Salomé Mercier
︎ Feb 22, 2025
I keep seeing foxes on my walk home
I’m eager for signs, I know I said I left church but I still believe in everything that shines
I’m begging for manifestations from another plane I need
a fox a full moon a familiar name on a headstone
a cloud in the shape of your neck a glitter
blood trickling down my right leg
in the shower a baby waving at me
a whole mythology we’d build just for the two of us
my missing earring
a painting of my namesake a head on a silver plate
groundbreaking love
Religion taught me about desire in a way nothing else ever will, taught me wanting taught me brushing against the surface
of hips poking under the white linen, of hair falling untucked over my collar of the oh-so-obvious foreshadowing that later on
this body would want to ache swallow whole melt into arch against —
Religion taught me how to be wrong over and over again, how to dip my fingers in lit candles how to wait on my knees
A lifetime of waiting
A lifetime on my knees an endless new devotion
I’m eager for signs, I know I said I left church but I still believe in everything that shines
I’m begging for manifestations from another plane I need
a fox a full moon a familiar name on a headstone
a cloud in the shape of your neck a glitter
blood trickling down my right leg
in the shower a baby waving at me
a whole mythology we’d build just for the two of us
my missing earring
a painting of my namesake a head on a silver plate
groundbreaking love
Religion taught me about desire in a way nothing else ever will, taught me wanting taught me brushing against the surface
of hips poking under the white linen, of hair falling untucked over my collar of the oh-so-obvious foreshadowing that later on
this body would want to ache swallow whole melt into arch against —
Religion taught me how to be wrong over and over again, how to dip my fingers in lit candles how to wait on my knees
A lifetime of waiting
A lifetime on my knees an endless new devotion
Salomé Mercier is a French writer and translator living in London.
mulling spices
︎︎︎ Josh Lovins
︎ Feb 20, 2025
in a cold room
a setting sun
cannot move
descend again
it is your fault
rise there was a sting
you found by feeling
does it hurt here
and turned it rotten
quiet as down
dark as feather under
light as it drifts feather light
goes up squeaking
lick of sunrise
morning fear, mother,
violence is feeling
a kind of thought
a setting sun
cannot move
descend again
it is your fault
rise there was a sting
you found by feeling
does it hurt here
and turned it rotten
quiet as down
dark as feather under
light as it drifts feather light
goes up squeaking
lick of sunrise
morning fear, mother,
violence is feeling
a kind of thought
Josh Lovins lives in New York.
ON PURPOSE
︎︎︎ Lamb
︎ Feb 18, 2025
Slowed into a blue snown wood,
bootshafts swallowing the flake,
found a felled, unquaking aspen,
giving thanks in my disgrace,
axed the length in quarters,
wept for green ringing the core,
split trouble from my shapely
heart, carried home two cords
and in my eye a little map to go
back for the rest. This was back
when accidents were tragic,
and men died for their women,
and women for their children who
stared into a sun forever overhead.
bootshafts swallowing the flake,
found a felled, unquaking aspen,
giving thanks in my disgrace,
axed the length in quarters,
wept for green ringing the core,
split trouble from my shapely
heart, carried home two cords
and in my eye a little map to go
back for the rest. This was back
when accidents were tragic,
and men died for their women,
and women for their children who
stared into a sun forever overhead.
FOUNTAIN OF LIGHTNING
︎︎︎ Haley Alani Rain Wood
︎ Feb 17, 2025
THE INNATE BOND OF INSTINCT
THANK YOU MOTHER
MOTHER IS MY ONLY REFERENCE
IT HAS TO BE BROKEN OUT OF ME (US)
GNŌTHI SAUTON
KNOW THYSELF
KNOW YOUR SOUL
BLOOD IS QUANTUM
LOVE IS QUANTUM
FREEDOM IS QUANTUM
LIGHT SIGNATURE
WE ARE OUR ABSORPTION
NOT REFLECTION
ABSORPTION=SPECTRUM=INTRICACY=DNA=YOUR CRYSTAL=RADIANCE SYSTEM=RADIANCE EFFICIENCY ©
INFINITE
TRUST
I AM FOREVER YOUR DAUGHTER
THANK YOU MOTHER
MOTHER IS MY ONLY REFERENCE
IT HAS TO BE BROKEN OUT OF ME (US)
GNŌTHI SAUTON
KNOW THYSELF
KNOW YOUR SOUL
BLOOD IS QUANTUM
LOVE IS QUANTUM
FREEDOM IS QUANTUM
LIGHT SIGNATURE
WE ARE OUR ABSORPTION
NOT REFLECTION
ABSORPTION=SPECTRUM=INTRICACY=DNA=YOUR CRYSTAL=RADIANCE SYSTEM=RADIANCE EFFICIENCY ©
INFINITE
TRUST
I AM FOREVER YOUR DAUGHTER
Valentine’s Card
︎︎︎ Selen Ozturk
︎ Feb 15, 2025
The worst part of love is waiting for and getting it. The worst part of getting it is having it. The worst part of having it is not knowing why. I know: You were waiting for love too, and I tried with grave zeal to be lovely and calm and interesting but not so much I’d put it worse than this: So you said yes and I said YES! and nothing more than this has made me your precious slave forever. Or if there's more to it, please tell me what.
Selen Ozturk is a San Francisco-based writer born in Istanbul. Her work appears or will soon in Necessary Fiction, Hobart, minor literature[s], Evergreen Review, Split Lip Magazine, Expat Press, the SF Chronicle, and SFGATE.