Be at Her House
︎︎︎ Chloe B
︎ June 18, 2025
Dear John,
I’ve moved away. I’m looking for that diamond-shaped floor
tile
in the mall, the one that made you think of the carnival, real
far
away. I parked my car outside. The windows look different
here
at night.
Dear John,
My eyes burn hot, and the light in the stairway has cracked.
It’s
been difficult seeing through the flare but I find myself
standing
under it. I’m trying to be strong and warm to the touch, a
spiral
on the ceiling.
Dear John,
I’m thinking of how I would look at you while I say these
things.
I’ve moved away. I’m looking for that diamond-shaped floor
tile
in the mall, the one that made you think of the carnival, real
far
away. I parked my car outside. The windows look different
here
at night.
Dear John,
My eyes burn hot, and the light in the stairway has cracked.
It’s
been difficult seeing through the flare but I find myself
standing
under it. I’m trying to be strong and warm to the touch, a
spiral
on the ceiling.
Dear John,
I’m thinking of how I would look at you while I say these
things.
Chloe B likes to make images.
Future wife
︎︎︎ Jack Ludkey
︎ June 16, 2025
My friend is looking for his wife
He doesn’t know what she looks like
He looks for her in every woman
She could be anyone
Behind the hair
And freckles
And soft peach fuzz
It’s hard to know where she is
She’s not hiding
If she was hiding he would know where to look
Under the bed
She would be simple like that
Or behind the open door
If she was feeling cheeky
Or behind the curtain
where her socks matches the wallpaper
He had searched these places before
But he double checked
More often than not
He doesn’t know what she looks like
He looks for her in every woman
She could be anyone
Behind the hair
And freckles
And soft peach fuzz
It’s hard to know where she is
She’s not hiding
If she was hiding he would know where to look
Under the bed
She would be simple like that
Or behind the open door
If she was feeling cheeky
Or behind the curtain
where her socks matches the wallpaper
He had searched these places before
But he double checked
More often than not
Jack Ludkey is a writer, director, and poet based in New York City, originally from Madison, Wisconsin.
Also by Jack: Untitled
No Credit
︎︎︎ Jacob Seferian
︎ June 13, 2025
I’m
a loose canon imagine a terrorist
with joie de vivre or Euro teens
taking turns posing in front of Dunkin’
kiddos are less mistrustful
w/ no point of reference for balding
or liquor bloat BATHTUBS OF GIN
can’t dent such collagen, Thank God!
When my grandfather died, his vanity
was mentioned hours & hours
spent looking in mirrors
an inarguably handsome man dirt
Did I let you down? Am I making enuf
money? We are killing our greatest
cities rope tied to a train + feeling
TechGhettoTechGhettoTechGhettoTe
A sign at the deli reads,
PLEASE DON’T SAY
I’ll BRING IT BACK NO
YOU KNOW ME NO
I’LL BRING IT LATER NO
I COME HERE EVERYDAY NO
NO CREDIT.
with joie de vivre or Euro teens
taking turns posing in front of Dunkin’
kiddos are less mistrustful
w/ no point of reference for balding
or liquor bloat BATHTUBS OF GIN
can’t dent such collagen, Thank God!
When my grandfather died, his vanity
was mentioned hours & hours
spent looking in mirrors
an inarguably handsome man dirt
Did I let you down? Am I making enuf
money? We are killing our greatest
cities rope tied to a train + feeling
TechGhettoTechGhettoTechGhettoTe
A sign at the deli reads,
PLEASE DON’T SAY
I’ll BRING IT BACK NO
YOU KNOW ME NO
I’LL BRING IT LATER NO
I COME HERE EVERYDAY NO
NO CREDIT.
Breakfast
︎︎︎ Joe Amato
︎ June 11, 2025
I think of you at breakfast,
at breakfast-for-dinner, at brunch,
and dream the pancakes of our summer lunch
cut short, the broken fast
of an asceticism that couldn’t last:
the fruit broke in fragments in our fingers.
Stains outlive the garment, outlast
noon’s savor, magnolia on a laurel breeze,
mulberries crushed into the bluegrass,
cooked in the pancakes you made fine art.
Last month I drove the twisting path
for a look at your old place one evening—
in the garden stood the mulberry still,
fruiting for a family who knows nothing
of our summers in their rooms. They drift
across the picture window on our past.
at breakfast-for-dinner, at brunch,
and dream the pancakes of our summer lunch
cut short, the broken fast
of an asceticism that couldn’t last:
the fruit broke in fragments in our fingers.
Stains outlive the garment, outlast
noon’s savor, magnolia on a laurel breeze,
mulberries crushed into the bluegrass,
cooked in the pancakes you made fine art.
Last month I drove the twisting path
for a look at your old place one evening—
in the garden stood the mulberry still,
fruiting for a family who knows nothing
of our summers in their rooms. They drift
across the picture window on our past.
Joe Amato is a writer and culture strategist based in San Francisco. He received an inaugural Passage Prize for poetry.
Also by Joe: Last Night
I Had Already Arrived
︎︎︎ Parisa Torkaman
︎ June 10, 2025
I said I’d go to the café to feel less separate.
Three hours passed.
The map said twenty minutes.
I lost time the way we lose faith, our bobby pins—
not gradually, but in a single gesture.
I thought I might find it again shoved into the crevice of masonry,
stubbing Vogues Bleus just beneath the cornice.
I carried a book by Ouspensky. I didn’t read it.
Held it as if the weight might absolve me.
I stared at people’s shoes instead.
I saw a girl in Repetto flats and thought:
I should get a job. A life. A husband.
Somewhere, blurred arrondissements.
I smiled at a man then wanted an orgasm, for punctuation.
I carried a trench, a woollen scapular, a paperback,
rolling papers, a novice’s silence, a list I never checked.
I always pack for transformation.
The tables were fake marble, chipped at the corners,
positioned under the nave of Haussmann façades.
Real despair.
Twenty euros for a cappuccino
because Kate Moss sat here in ’97.
Men in cassocks—black soutanes,
buttons like rosary beads down the front.
Women, in white coifs tucked under navy trench coats.
They were location-scouting their lives.
Everyone was mid-homily in a film I wasn’t in.
I love architecture because it stays.
Even in ruin, it remains consecrated.
Unlike me. I fold.
I loop the same Springsteen songs
until the falsetto becomes liturgy.
Until the repetition annoys me.
I had already arrived the moment I said I would.
The temple had always been a café.
And I had come dressed for communion:
an outfit planned the night before,
as if silk might keep me from vanishing.
The waitress didn’t see me.
I left before the sun could touch my skin the wrong way.
I took the ashtray.
Porcelain. Green font. Made in France.
Three hours passed.
The map said twenty minutes.
I lost time the way we lose faith, our bobby pins—
not gradually, but in a single gesture.
I thought I might find it again shoved into the crevice of masonry,
stubbing Vogues Bleus just beneath the cornice.
I carried a book by Ouspensky. I didn’t read it.
Held it as if the weight might absolve me.
I stared at people’s shoes instead.
I saw a girl in Repetto flats and thought:
I should get a job. A life. A husband.
Somewhere, blurred arrondissements.
I smiled at a man then wanted an orgasm, for punctuation.
I carried a trench, a woollen scapular, a paperback,
rolling papers, a novice’s silence, a list I never checked.
I always pack for transformation.
The tables were fake marble, chipped at the corners,
positioned under the nave of Haussmann façades.
Real despair.
Twenty euros for a cappuccino
because Kate Moss sat here in ’97.
Men in cassocks—black soutanes,
buttons like rosary beads down the front.
Women, in white coifs tucked under navy trench coats.
They were location-scouting their lives.
Everyone was mid-homily in a film I wasn’t in.
I love architecture because it stays.
Even in ruin, it remains consecrated.
Unlike me. I fold.
I loop the same Springsteen songs
until the falsetto becomes liturgy.
Until the repetition annoys me.
I had already arrived the moment I said I would.
The temple had always been a café.
And I had come dressed for communion:
an outfit planned the night before,
as if silk might keep me from vanishing.
The waitress didn’t see me.
I left before the sun could touch my skin the wrong way.
I took the ashtray.
Porcelain. Green font. Made in France.
Parisa Torkaman lives and writes in Paris, France.