The Children’s Reverie


︎︎︎ Dan Darrah

︎ Dec 7, 2024

Teenage carnies at the end of the summer
in fuck-off land psychologically

Amy and her armfuls of rumors
under oak trees old as parents

Jealous of the teachers’ husbands
Shooting fireworks at your cousins

I wanted to be him
Cut my hair in the hallway

Red-faced fathers in the rink’s bleachers
Our half-wet hair drying in December air

On the grad trip meeting punks from Vermont
Watch ghosthunting shows in a Best Western

I heard Dave’s dad lie on the diner phone
My coffee now resembles my father’s

In June classrooms hating Katie Leary
in who I saw myself so clearly          

Taking the first bus home delirious
from all-nighting at your brother’s apartment

At a dying party where your hair covered the stain
and aren’t you glad you came?                          

Instant summer moon smile
Taking peculiar drugs watching Grind

Light poured through the keyhole
Making shapes on our faces               Marcy and me

Dream of your DUI
Dream of your cul-de-sac

Crying Saturday tears
Consulting the I Ching

Hearing hymns through clerestory windows
walking to Wingstop

Trying barely
Failing inevitably

Three years of senior pranks involve farm animals
Numbered pigs and tipped cows

On a humid porch writing
and waiting for the band to show

On Highway 7 flanked by Thanksgiving hills
Gold apples           Cranberry teeth

The kid on the bus who always hit his tambourine
later collapsed on the shopfloor

Amy in the army
Dave in law school               chanting Hare Krishna

Dream of your gangly arms
Dream of your car’s golden exhaust

We were stranded on Lookout Hill
watching rivers cross making impossible plans

Whip around a thin, disgusting string of gum
Yack from a balcony

Observe circus-going boomers
losing their shit over planes doing aerial eights

Cut off the deadwood of the past,
that which can’t become a good story

Lose the irretrievable minutiae
Banisters       railings       salt-stained tires

We remember in brief flashes
through the people we hurt

When I sleep
I see you now as you were then



Dan Darrah is a poet, writer, and musician from Toronto, Canada. He is the author of two books of poetry, most recently Perennial Fields, published by Permanent Sleep Press.





Outdoors


︎︎︎ Cletus Crow

︎ Dec 5, 2024

cat brings gift
i don't open

cardinal broken

so red you can't
see blood









Cletus Crow is a poet. His debut full-length collection, Phallic Symbols, is available from Pig Roast Publishing.

Also by Cletus: Readings





I do it if you do it


︎︎︎ Joe Nasta

︎ Dec 3, 2024

Enjoy the escape.
Sit alone on a white sheet
copying him

out of the corner of your eye.
He’s watching you, too:
when you shrug, he shrugs.

Raise each other’s
eyebrows, winking.
You were destined

to meet and be silly
together. It’s a bro thing
or are you flirting?

Put your phone down.
He doesn’t want to meet your friends.
He’s still learning how you move your body.






















Joe Nasta is vibing in Seattle. His debut book of short stories Halve It is forthcoming from Blue Forge Press. He is an Associate Editor at Hobart.

Also by Joe: phone call 





A Ghost Inside


︎︎︎ Arcadia Molinas

︎ Dec 2, 2024

I’ve found the weight my dad has lost,
stuffed in cupboards, inside mattresses,
drifting with dust bunnies.

Something
is worming through my dad
and hollowing him out.

I can’t tell you how I know
other than
I know.

He is floating towards me,
I hear the rustle
of his threadbare pajamas.

Dad, please–it’s me,
Dad, I love you–
Dad?





















Arcadia Molinas is a Spanish writer and bartender based in London. She is an editor at Worms and her writing has appeared on Write or Die, Tetragrammaton, Cringe, minor lit[s], Worms, and elsewhere.





Tumblr poem


︎︎︎ Fiona Deane-Grundman

︎ Nov 29, 2024

            0 followers 0 following no hate only love
















Fiona Deane-Grundman is from California and lives in Montréal.