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WHAT GLORY THE NATURE OF WOMAN

by Brenda Asterino

Lichen shadowing 

Accentuating 

As green multiplies 

On dull grey bark. 

And sipping across 

To the tops of the cliffs 

Of the carved expansion 

Changing size and shape 

With growth and age. 

Always giving, 

Providing food or sheltering 

For other life 

​

Women, like those trees 

That never stop changing, 

Are always expanding, 

Renewing, in different ways. 

​

The ultimate betrayal of ego

is to give

Over 

To life. â€‹

​As with raw clay 

The potential is the 

Ultimate goal. 

And maybe why the feminine 

Was worshiped long ago. 

 

Without submitting 

To life 

There is only a death inside the skin 

Building walls within 

And without our lives, 

And in regard to 

Our influence In the lives of others. 

 

Women are the juxtaposition. 

That flexibility of change 

Of hard and soft 

Sweet and salty 

Give and take. 

 

What glory, 

To be born 

A woman. 

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Asterino

Wanting / Not Wanting

by Annette Gagliardi

we could not fill the silence between us

 

neither of us could voice the meaning

of fidelity

 

nor love, nor passion

only look at each other

 

and choke on our

symmetrical apologies

 

we could only love the person

not the self

 

not the vision, the image we wanted

because that was impossibility

 

I wanted to make love to you and with you

without touching

 

loving without touching

without the stain of his touch

 

without the feel of him —

in my mind

 

when you touched me —

and I could not

 

I wanted to hold you and have you

hold me, enfold me in your arms

 

and nuzzle your mouth against

my neck, my throat, my breasts

 

without the memory of his

enfolding, holding,

 

touching

and I could not.

The retch of his touch            

the scrape and claw of his nails

reminds me again and again

 

eluding him

is an illusion —

even after the fact.

 

The ragged breath on my neck,

the rub on my bruised nipples, gags

me;  keeps me in a        limbo

 

of wanting and not wanting;

needing and receding

from what I need

 

to free myself

from him,

from his affliction

 

My self-hate became the raging river

of his hot breath on my neck,

the fury of wild horses let loose

 

from their penned stalls;

became the resentment of life

lived by surviving,

 

not vexation, nor indignation, but

 

RAGE

hot, blinding, unsettling rage

 

and I could not

live on.

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gagliardi

in love with the fire spinner on the creaking platform

         (every man who assaults me comes to me like a dream)

by Allen Means

i stand below the fire spinner in the crowd and listen to the stranger speak about us. the

stranger is a big man, with little teeth. he tells me how small she looks. and how young. he

tells me this and i know he says, she. and he knows he means me. (i dream that i am only an

ear, an eye, an aching, and she is the blue bottom of a freshly dipped wick).

 

the fire spinner sweeps the well-loved platform with her feet, dust catching and unsettling in

the red lights at her ankles. the stranger tests the space behind me and i cannot feel him but

(i dream that the fire swims behind him and that she warns me of his presence with her slow crawl and slower creak).

 

he presses a hard, dry hand into my back and i stiffen, my eyes flitting from platform to fire.

you’re just a baby, he says. because it isn’t a question. (i dream that she holds her hand out

to the crowd for me to take and) i fold an ear down by the corner and move closer in to

witness her toss the air and capture its crackling heat.

 

he slides around me like hardening wax. he asks, how is she so brave? i tell him she must be wearing cotton and not polyester. i watch her swing a blazing baton around her elbow and (i

dream that the baton is me). he asks if i am wearing cotton or polyester. i wish she would

meet my eyes and (i dream that she holds me up, leaking white gas and kerosene).

 

he asks about our leather boots, our exposed midriff, our bare skin. (i dream that she swings

me around her shoulders and) i answer, to be safe is to be tight to the body. he melts to be

close to my body. he tells us we are smart for our age, and that we must know a lot about

many things. (i dream that we are fed and fueled, and our sparks are unforgiving).

 

i itch to climb the platform, to feel her growing hissing blue. he tells us to guess his age and

so i do. i tell myself he is too quiet, too slow, and i would rather be afraid. (i dream that she

teaches me to ignite myself and i am thrown, sizzling, out of reach). he asks us where we

live and if we are new here. i answer because i have forgotten how to leave.

 

she makes a show of fumbling, and the platform wanes as she coaxes out its every creak. (i

dream to be vanquished) and he makes a show of hearing nothing but the bouncing metal

and her bouncing feet. (i dream that he leans in and threatens to skewer me over the

torches). she leans in and sucks the air from the torches.

 

he asks us to be nice for him. and i ask to be a bloody kill instead of a slowly roasting feast. he

tells us we are the prettiest something, and (i dream that he touches my charred body so that i can finally be at peace, and before the platform collapses, i dream that) the fire spinner reaches down to dip her flame, and she blesses me with the kindest darkness that i have ever seen.

in the reflection of the window

by Allen Means

i watch the mother wave her arms above her head for the trolley. she runs and

runs and excuses herself onto its platform as it stops for her on the road before the real stop. she

thanks and thanks and holds her little boy in warm, dark arms. this is the place, she says. it’s

eleven stops. real ones. the rounds of her cheeks nuzzle against his tiny, scrunched face. the

trolley’s green and yellow edges tuck them both in.

 

                                                                         L texts: I was thinking about you

       

i dismiss it.

 

the mother tucks imaginary hair behind the boy’s ears, her hand gliding back to scratch his

shaved head. the air warms despite the lack of sun inside and i begin to count the stops. one.

two. something about public transportation makes it a good place to cry— no. not good,

easy.

 

                                                                         L texts: I had a nightmare last night about it

                                                                         L texts: *you

 

the mother looks out the window. i feel my chest tighten under her atmosphere. its

protection. an ardent gaze. sometimes it is hard to say what you really mean. what i

really mean is, L started checking up on me after i got roofied on South Beach. he told me

that night that he was so scared, holding me, that he almost called his mom. he said that he

was so angry when i started to cry.

 

when the little boy stirs, the mother coos softly near his ear. he fights a giggle with a forced,

knitted frown. her yellow blouse crinkles as she pulls his kicking legs firmly into the seat. i

check outside for something shining because i can feel it. so bright. 

 

                                                                             L texts: are you okay?

 

i said i’m not angry. nine. ten. i can’t tell you how many times. the mother squeezes the

little boy and begins to bounce him on her legs as they approach their stop. i lean my damp

face on the arm that has been up the whole time.

 

what i really mean is: i wait with my fingers on the pull string for eleven jolts, the doors

swinging each time out and in. the air warmer with each entrance, heavier with each exit, until

the little boy and his mother pass through them, taking it all out.

 

what i mean is: i wish i could call my mother, i’m afraid to call anyone.

 

what i mean is: when i’m barely lucid after passing out, L calls an Uber instead.

 

what i mean is: when the doors close and reopen without them, my arm recedes. i tuck my

hands into the cracks and fold myself into the plastic leather cushion of my seat. the trolley

moves on and the glass becomes sharper from the sun. how it has been removed from me,

some motherly heat. cold collects under my chin, my knees, the black rubber floor tracks.

 

what i mean is: i am far past home by the time i dare to reach back up, and something aches

as i pass through the doors. an hour back down the sidewalk.

 

what i mean is: i text L back. the air still frigid with exit. my body a small pill, lost in the

crack of the seat. waiting for another stop.

Pouting, feeling cheated, motived by

the terror of being alone, adrift and

rudderless, the enraged Ventriloquist

overcame disappointment in the new

Dummy that failed to perform properly.

 

He retrieved the old Dummy from

the closet shelf where he tossed her

a decade ago. He was done with her.

She was not the young lively thing

she had been. No longer the plump,

delicious girl he devoured in delight.

 

Weak and fragile, old and sad, her

costume faded and threadbare, her face

paint crazed and dull with age, there

was not much left of her. Though he

was entitled to a shiny new Dummy

to latch onto, drain the life from and

discard, at his age there would be no

more. He would take what he could get.

 

He was desperate. All of his life

he had devoured one Dummy after

another. He had his “pick of all the

lovelies.” In silence he cried bitter

tears. “My needs. My needs. My

needs” he pleaded. Creating a trauma

bond he toyed with them. Speechless

without him. Only one bided her time.

​

He throttled the old Dummy’s neck.

He grasped her upper arms and shook

her torso. She moaned. He continued

to cuff her about the head in an attempt

to revive what little life might be left,

to own her, to once again throw his voice,

to make her speak the words he needed

to hear, to tweak the wires and stroke the

keys, to force her to play a familiar part.

 

She will mouth his lies to every audience.

No one will see the hidden Entity at times

visible only in a sidelong glance, or exposed

in otherworldly tissue protruding through

a weak seam, an odd unnatural bump moving

beneath its shirt. No one will hear the

dissonant hiss, snarl and growl seeping

through clenched teeth the Ventriloquist

had appropriated from some extinct beast.

 

She owned him. Without her, he was nothing.

 

2014

Tomcats toy with the birds

they’ve mortally wounded.

I saw it happen on my patio

one summer afternoon. I was

young. I knew she needed me

 

I scared him away, lifted

the valiant war-torn bird,

now too weak to resist, laid

her in a cardboard box lined

with a soft towel and placed

the box on a small table 

in the downstairs bathroom

under the sunny south window.

I slid a heating pad beneath.

​

From her safe enclosure

she could see the sky. The

view may fill her with visions

of a flight to safety that should

have been. I left her be in peace.

When I returned she was

motionless. She had inched

her broken body toward

the warmth before her final flight.

Decades passed. Unaware

I had constructed a safe enclosure

within the confines of the greater

cage where the predator toyed

with me. Certain terror and

hopelessness weakened me

and assured my continued

captivity, the predator left me be.

 

But my wounds healed. I regained

strength. One morning, arising

from the marital bed, as I

descended the staircase

to begin another day of surrender

with thoughts only upon survival, 

a window open before me.

Blue skies appeared.

 

And I flew away.

 

2024​

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Cupid's Arrow

by Odi Welter

Cupid’s arrow struck
your heart
and sent you after me
like Apollo after Daphne.
I turned into a tree
every time you touched me,
but it didn’t stop you.
You stabbed
your fingernails under
my bark, snapped off
my branches as you
scaled toward the sky
you claimed as yours.
You dug down
to my roots and
ripped them free.
You turned the arrow
you claimed to be from god
into an axe
and splintered your way
to my heartwood.

You ripped your heart out trying to possess mine.

 

I teetered on the edge

of collapse;

a tree isn’t heard

falling in the forest

even if it screams on the way down.

But I scattered

my wood into

flower petals and helicopter seeds

that blew away from you,

leaving you alone

in the forest with a hole

for a heart and an axe

built from what you called

love.

Childhood Friends to Lovers

by Odi Welter

I’m not supposed to miss you.

The hole you left in my life

is supposed to be filled with nothing but hate

for your name, face, and what you did.

And it is, but there are bubbles of something else,

like the carbonation in sparkling water,

a sneeze of fruit without the sweetness.

They sting the back of my throat,

and I miss the parts of you that didn’t hurt.

The companionable silence while we built

Legos or completed puzzles.

The excited exchanges of our favorite parts

of Star Wars or Percy Jackson.

Humorous insults tossed

when card games turned competitive.

Lightsaber fights in the basement

and commentary whispered in the back of church.

The way you listened with a soft smile

while I babbled about marine life or fairytales.​

The way you yelped when you saw spiders

and begged me to kill them for you.

It was the only time I killed spiders

instead of relocated them. 

I grieve the spiders I killed for you

as much as I grieve the you I could’ve loved

and the parts of myself you killed.

I watch childhood friends to lovers on the screen,

and see the ghosts of me and you.

Your ghost morphs into a monster

that rips mine to shreds.

The fiction has a happy ending,

and I remember our plot twist,

how budding romance turned horror movie.

The worst part of it all is that

if you had listened when I said no,

someday I probably would’ve said yes

and we could’ve been

childhood friends to lovers.

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There was always something different about my brother. His loud laugh and bowlegs
ran too fast for his own good. After we’d fight, he’d hide as far as he could from our father’s

hard hands. The wind whisked underneath autumn leaves, and my brother howled beside dead

trees. One dark winter after dinner, my father’s softer hands opened the Gospel. He’d read

scriptures to give us “Jesus dreams.” Because he demanded that we believe and forgive him if we

crossed his path on a bad day. So, my brother and I kept our bloodied distance, nursed the red

marks on our butts and backs and learned to quiet his shout. But it was our hearts that hurt worse,

and every prayer that went unheard. The big man was too busy to fly down from storm clouds

and intercept the next crack across our thin bodies.
 
My uncle mailed a tapestry of The Savior to our house when he served in Nam. I kissed the silky

threads of that sweet Jesus weave, hoping he’d bestow mercy on me. One night, after a fight with

my mother, my father slipped into my bedroom and took down my underpants and jeans, ignored

my pleas to please leave,  and repeatedly slapped any sense of self-loathing back. He left the

room quietly while I wept the memory away. Nine years later, an angered husband punched my

arm to spare my face, leaving me silent in the cold bed, my body burning red. A few days later,

my brother saw the bruise and said I must have deserved it. Yes, I replied, programmed to hide

lies because it was the only answer I could honestly give.

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THAT NIGHT

by Duanne Herman

He was on top of me

twice my age,

twice my weight,

and now –

with no underwear,

as I was too,

remove for massage, he’d said.

Isolated farm boy,

Socially inept,

what did I know

of intent?

He, an acquaintance,

far from home,

stopped for the night,

mounted me

and asked for lube.

I froze, paralyzed:

What? What? WHAT?

The handle of a shovel,

hoe, or garden rake

entered me:

OH, GOD!

It HURTS! It HURTS!!

 

He finished, kissed my back,

returned to his bed.

Next morning…

I still felt him inside.

​

 ~ Previously published in Ichnographical: 173

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