Offering – Larena Nellies-Ortiz
Fairy Favors: Seven of Cups – Audrey T. Carroll
moon goddess of autumn equinox – Mary Alice Dixon
The Change in the Leaves Begins – Tinamarie Cox
HOMESICKNESS / Collect Pond Blues – Yev Gelman
Another Sunrise, Another Moon – Robert Okaji
Balance – Larena Nellies-Ortiz
Depth Changes – Ben Nardolilli
The Wake of a Romper – Embracing Death and Life After Goodbye – Katherine Farrel Ginsbach
The Change in the Leaves Begin, Part Two – Tinamarie Cox
in the autumn thin place – Mary Alice Dixon
Close To Me – Claudia Wysocky
Fallen – Larena Nellies-Ortiz
material culture – Sloane Allen
The Disconnecting – Ben Nardolilli
The Change in the Leaves, Completed – Tinamarie Cox
Schrödinger’s Admissions Letter – Erica Baron
Paddling Cher’s Canoe on a River of Lethe – Mike Wilson
Grounding – Larena Nellies-Ortiz
THE HISTORY OF PLACE – Yev Gelman
my granny was a goosebone prophet – Mary Alice Dixon
Autumn Ground View – Tinamarie Cox
One Becomes Two – Robert Okaji
Rot – Elodie Wynters
Collective – Larena Nellies-Ortiz
THE TURNING – Yev Gelman
It will smell for a while, but it’ll go away – Bryce Johle
Gratitude – Larena Nellies-Ortiz
Offering
Fairy Favors: Seven of Cups
I.
A cup as sweet as love (or lust). Gray mists hide the face of a goddess set in stone, mischievous, tempting, tempting, tempting. Scents of first blooms, of the first warm day, of arms embracing her. Such comfort, rarely known, even more rarely assured, gone sooner than clouds in a morning field.
II.
Second hides all yet unknown, a cloth she wishes to clear. Red spores warning that she does not want to know, or is that a beating heart in gold? A mystery to decode, a power she could wield if only she plucked its feathers, one by one, and read the spell within.
III.
A snake’s tongue tasting the unknown, writhing free, lapping heartblood from the mysteries of the world. If she tried to tame it, it would surely bite her, but would she gain its knowledge then? A temptation and a fall, as the story goes, but curiosity and cats and satisfaction—always forgotten, satisfaction. She wants it; she wants it; she wants it.
IV.
A cup of power, its contents fit to crush all resistance. A fist for fighting, or a castle for dominion over… well, who knows? But towers fall. She can almost see the light in the cup—the sky’s wrath, the fire, the teeth of terrain below. To build a place of stone is to build a tomb.
V.
Money, jewels, riches. She would never have to worry again. It would be so easy—could make things so easy. She lives in a world where a diamond can buy—maybe not happiness, but life, at least—a full belly, a roof, trinkets and small joys, all within reach—
VI.
Victory achieved—tied off with golden bow, or undermined by a mask of faceless death (momento mori).
VII.
Disaster always comes. She knows this. Be it beast or storm, no riches in the world can stop it. It is always coming, always—unless it is already here.
moon goddess of autumn equinox
O
Moon
Celtic Moon
Knot Goddess of balance
lace me to you
weave me with corn husks
in witch hazel huts
sew me to harvest
with golden delicious
thread me to star belts
of night
uncowed
by the girth of day
The Change in the Leaves Begins
HOMESICKNESS / Collect Pond Blues
By Yev Gelman
This place that I am entering
looks nothing like the old one.
My fingers know the key better
than my mouth, and my tongue,
loose from wine and English,
shivers with it at night.
Homesickness is a gentle lover,
and I paint her with candlelight,
Barukh Ata.
A growing city, like a child
needs something to drink from.
I like to think that the pond
loved the gaping mouth
even as it sucked him dry,
(G-d knows I would)
It’s nice to know that this city was insatiable long before it learned my name.
I’m a little homesick now
that the clock struck four and some-place, I’m walking
back from school past the old cathedral and the pierogi
stand, smelling of poppyseeds and winter even in the
warmer months, and some other-place I’m here: this room
is bare and lovely and I am writing down a list of things to
fill this strange, city-shaped vacuum in me –
When I close my eyes, I imagine you, asleep,
quiet as our love and vast as this city.
The pond was filled in and now there is a fountain there,
and now that love letter I scribbled in the sand is no longer,
But you are still there, waiting for my mouth
to open wide again: a Hudson River mermaid,
lovesick and green with rust.
Another Sunrise, Another Moon
By Robert Okaji
1.
I have no more lies to tell. Everyone
laughs when I say this, but I saw
the whale breach that day
and though nothing changed,
in that instant the world
stopped spinning and I rose
above that battle gray deck
to join the low clouds,
molecules fluttering,
cells dispersing, but only
for a flash,
before I came to,
standing,
gape-jawed,
22-years old
but aware.
2.
Texas lives in my rear-view mirror.
Could I have stayed on my land,
harvesting those sour persimmons
for jam, watching vultures soar,
napping in the heat of day
in hopes of observing cliff frogs
at night? Would that have been
a life? Would that have been enough?
3.
I didn’t come here to die
but the possibility remains.
Will my ashes soil the streets
of Indianapolis? Soon the grass
will turn brown. Trees will bare
their branches to the wind’s icy
fingers. Snow will blanket
the cornfields, and I
will bake bread and pies.
Make pizza and rich stews.
Touch. Talk. Dream.
Sing. Read.
Love.
4.
Another sunrise another moon which follows which?
Balance
Depth Changes
Attached to the end of the dock like a steel barnacle,
This ladder has become a swimmer all its own,
Dipping in and out of the waves with a dunk and dive
Against the shifting green surface, it holds out,
And without any nearby fish, fowl, or public
It has as much life as a character in prose or dream
Between the peaks and troughs, there is a drama
As readymade as the sea’s current and tides,
With brine and mist antagonists to these rungs
They vanish for a moment of seeming setback,
With bubbles rushing over where they once clung,
Are the steps now a path to a permanent descent?
I hold my breath, unsure if the ladder is gone,
Sunk forever into distant mythological chambers,
Where it will pressed to mint out a treasury of rust
But as the water recedes, my stainless hero rises,
Emerging from the minor maelstrom to glisten,
Time for me to leave now, and preserve a happy ending
The Wake of a Romper – Embracing Death and Life After Goodbye
I could not believe that I found a black romper the day of the Irish Wake. In the midst of running around finalizing the logistics, I stopped into a shop hoping to find something black to wear. Rompers, for the record never look good on my disproportionate body, being 5’9”, I have a short torso, small boobs, and long legs, so any romper that fits in the top is always too short to be appropriate on the bottom and any romper that fits on the bottom is always a little big on top. But there it was black, with shorts long enough to be appropriate, stylish, fitting, and did I mention black. It was like the equivalent of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, except it was a romper. I didn’t care how much it cost; I was buying it.
I’m Irish Catholic, which means that I always thought my penchant for melancholy was a cultural burden and my relationship with death was normal. What Irish child didn’t grow up reading obituaries and learning that mourning is really the national sport? That was until Ansel pointed out how often I brought up death. Living in Alaska made death feel closer.
I wasn’t sure if the tears that came in the days before the wake were for sadness, grief, or relief. I didn’t know if I was crying because Ansel was gone or because that meant I could come back. Death and grief are complicated and so is the duality of holding feelings.
No matter, I’d be embracing death the rest of the evening and I spent the rest of the day finalizing the preparation for the Wake– food, check, drinks, check, rough agenda, check. Of those who planned on attending, few had ever taken part in an Irish Wake. A friend would give a brief eulogy, I planned a poem, another friend also planned a poem and I figured the rest we would wing it. I had changed at the house, finding a last-minute black hat in the closet to really pull together the mourning widow look, and I caught a glance of myself in the mirror– wow, I look good, like really good, maybe the first time I had a thought like that in 2 plus years of my relationship. I rearranged the living room to accommodate a space for food and the coffin, I put drinks out, and had a playlist ready. I still had not been able to confirm the bagpipers, despite my attempts at assuring them it wouldn’t be weird and the neighbors wouldn’t mind. But otherwise everything was ready.
A knock on the door told me it was time, I took a deep breath and opened it to find Ansel standing there. “You look good,” I said, and he gave me a quick hug, “Can I put these things in your room?”, “Sure,” as I gestured down the hallway. It felt clunky that he’d have to ask to enter a space that he used to occupy so often but here we were.
As is customary with my Irish family’s obituaries, we state the cause of death, as if to prove it was not self-inflicted. In this case, no cause can be given as I’m not convinced that my body failing me isn’t what also saved me. I had a panic attack at the end of December which unleashed what I thought was all the anxiety I had been carrying in my body since I started working on COVID-19 response. It made me finally realize how stressed I had been and in the aftermath, everything became more terrifying and amplified. In the days, weeks, and months that followed as I tiptoed around my brain. I tried it all, yoga, meditation, hypnosis, anti-anxiety meds, somatic release, spiritual guidance, talk therapy, EDMR, I thought about going to Oregon and finding a guide to take mushrooms so I could finally be healed but had enough anxiety about a bad trip that I didn’t do much beyond that. Throughout it all I felt like I was subject to the whims of Ansel, only finding relief when we would plan something for one to two weeks out, realizing that we’d be together for at least that time–but with no guarantees after that. I was slowly getting better and climbing out of the dark well that I had somehow ended up in; foreign to this area of my brain that had failed so spectacularly, but it wasn’t fast enough for him. At the time I was so upset that I had let myself get to a place where I had the panic attack as it forced my hand in a way that I had never experienced, I had no option but to seek help. I kept telling myself if I could just find stable ground then we could get our relationship back on track, he often reminded me that our relationship couldn’t heal until I headed. Even before the panic attack, I never felt like we were a team and that became more evident after the panic attack and my mental health spiral. When the relationship was good it was good, but those times were always punctuated by the bad and felt like they often came at my expense.
I lost myself in the relationship and didn’t realize it thinking the isolation and restrictions were a result of COVID. When we broke up, I gained my freedom back and with that so much joy and happiness that didn’t seem to exist during our time together. And after he decided to break up with me, I decided to throw a party, as I now got to fully exist and embrace all the weird parts of me I felt like had been stifled. I thought of it as a celebration of sorts, sure we could mourn the past but also find joy in what was about to exist. I didn’t think nor wanted him to attend but he thought it would be weird if he didn’t, otherwise it would be a party letting everyone know that I’m single, which was not how I thought of it but only reinforced how much I felt misinterpreted. After the breakup, part of me felt bad because I never felt like Ansel got to experience the joyful, happy girl that I often am, but in time I realized maybe I was hiding her to keep her safe.
The Irish Wake was amazing, with the eulogy, poetry reading, an unexpected penny whistle, and singing and dancing. Like a true Irish Wake. People were most impressed by the coffin, a custom-made pinata with a photo from the early days of our relationship in it. I had a blast and felt as if I was beginning to settle into my own skin again. One of my roommates dressed up as a catholic priest and handed out tequila shots, another made sure that I always had some champagne in my cup, little acts of love that had felt absent for so long. And in true Irish Wake fashion, 13 people fell asleep on the floor and three threw up over the course of the next 12 hours. I was pretty pleased with myself; I didn’t throw any theme parties during COVID-19 and this was a great one to start off on.
Life, like death, follows no clear trajectory, rhyme, or reason. I always thought our relationship didn’t work out because of COVID-19 but now I feel like the only reason it worked was because of COVID-19. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, the isolation lifted, the sense of doom was gone, I was no longer worried about taking a step unsure of the footing, I could take up space, be loud, laugh without hesitation, feed the friendships that had withered, it was my narrative to claim. In the months that have followed I’m learning to hold space to be more compassionate for myself and not judging myself for the things that I overlooked early on– the lessons I learned during COVID-19 are helpful in my approach. What I did in March 2020 looks very different now, but now I have more information about the virus and can make wiser decisions. Same too, I don’t judge the girl in March of 2020 who put her heart on her sleeve and continued to try and see the best when the muddy water has now become clear three years later. I learned that I could break myself into 1,000 smaller pieces and those tiny pieces would still be too much, so why break at all.
The day after the party I was at a friend’s house for dinner when a good friend came up to ask me why we broke up, “you guys seem so good together”. Cam had never seen the worst parts, no one ever saw the worst parts as I kept them hidden, “Oh yeah, but we had to die so I could live.”
The Change in the Leaves Begin, Part Two
in the autumn thin place
when corn shuck
falls to ground
when cattail bends
to burrow
when summer
swoons September
making Green Men
dance in circles
I am taken
in the thin place
where goosebone
rims your wrist
where birch bark
curls your hair
I am taken
in the thin place
where moon time
equals sun shine
where I coven
with my sisters
carry corn dolls
to our altars
Green Women
to our beds
Close To Me
It’s lovely, the number of times
you look down on me and forget to see,
as if from your corner of the sea—
You could not hear once I begin to plead;
It takes a little time before you come,
To coax me back again up to the dreams.
That there is no moon,
only we are nearer the stars—
I am but asleep. And yet, here we lie: Far apart.
At some point I think to wake myself up,
To make sure I haven’t been lying,
And when finally I realize it’s true—
I find myself so faint; Holding too tight; Too cold.
I think it may be time for a change after all.
But as things are today—or so it would seem—I’ll sleep here alone under the covers awaiting you to come, more closely to me at last…
Fallen
material culture
By Sloane Allen
fossil tooth, ammonite
tide pool, azurite
the way you held me, all alone,
[like a girl] monotone
linoleum, tornado drill
painted lockers, chlorophyll,
shifting earth, layered time
glacier flow, shale, lime
cell migration, thrifted clothes
do I look cute? I
decompose
beetle wings, microscope
cortisol, intrusive hope
textile culture, shards and rinds
midden heap that no one finds
The Disconnecting
Quantity parties today, without any regard to history,
our pasts are rarely consulted either
This technique has been bending the day around us,
sun and stars mix in constellations
Hidden beyond the origin of origins, we all struggle
to see day through the plastic cocoon
Shielded from any kind of destination as well, we feel
nothing but rolling into the blue
The Change in the Leaves, Completed
Schrödinger’s Admissions Letter
By Erica Baron
You walk up to the mailbox and open it. In that moment when the stack of envelopes appears, you both have and haven’t gotten the one you’re waiting for.
Its less important cousins have already arrived in their various forms. The email from the state university you knew you would get into saying that your confidence was justified. The notification on the Ivy League admissions portal indicating that, as expected, you had not cracked the secret code that would allow you to enter their hallowed halls. The letter and email that had arrived on the same day from the perfectly nice liberal arts college offering you a spot. The precise alignment of the two forms of communication is the most impressive thing about that school so far.
You pull out the stack of envelopes and flip through it. And there it is! The Letter. From The school where you knew you belonged as soon as you arrived for your visit. The one whose course catalog you have read over and over like a favorite novel. The one where you spent an evening listening to your student host and their friends talking about all the things you want to spend your evenings talking about. The only place you’ve really imagined being despite dutifully applying to others.
Holding the envelope, you both have and haven’t been accepted. You both have and haven’t been rejected.
You open it. Your eyes skitter over the page:
“Thank you for your application and your strong interest… “We cannot offer you a place in our incoming class at this date…” “Your application materials demonstrate great promise…”
And land:
“We would like to offer you a spot on our waiting list.”
Paddling Cher’s Canoe on a River of Lethe
By Mike Wilson
My Jack o’ Lantern has dementia.
He doesn’t remember October.
His cheerful smile sags inward
like an old man who forgot his teeth.
Soon, this orange and holy gourd
will break, decay, and disappear
in mouths of communicant squirrels.
Oh Cher!
If you could turn back time
could you find a way to make him stay?
I don’t think so.
Still, I’ll sing with you.
You are a warm jacket.
It’s November.
Winter is coming.
Grounding
THE HISTORY OF PLACE
By Yev Gelman
This house on Larrabee is now my mother’s,
but before that was where my grandma lived.
When I was ten, I spent a summer with her
& slept in the same room where I am now
sleeping, twice as old &
otherwise the same.
Everywhere in this city there
are ghosts
& yours is just one of them. How strange
that for nineteen months I knew you & now
I bike in circles, afraid to ride down your block.
Across the street, the police academy has
been torn down & construction signs
promise us brighter things ahead.
Sometimes I still wish I got to show you
where I am from. Now, I watch the news &
wonder when it became too late.
The truth is, it takes all of me
not to crawl back into my
mother’s bed and ask her for
a lullaby;
like this season, I’m stuck
between shapes – ten years
ago & still my mother’s
daughter,
I flew across the world, not knowing
who I’d become & three years ago now,
I had just said goodbye to you, sweet girl,
and began to change in full. Imagine that:
the body they touch is not the same one
you held. That one’s reserved for you.
my granny was a goosebone prophet
Who told the weather
in colors of bones.
When winter died
I saved what I could
in an ark granny
christened with spit.
We nested our soul
in sea ice kept alive
in the freezer, then in
snow globes of glass
with goosebones of hope.
By dawn even the glass
had melted
but we still had our ark
and memories of snow.
So granny told me
to muscle myself
to save autumn, said spring
is the lover of fall
and the dark
in the goosebones
tells the coming of cold.
Autumn Ground View
One Becomes Two
By Robert Okaji
Resilient in failure, comfortable in loss,
I still miss my old dog’s wisdom. Oh, to hike
those limestone hills again, knowing the difference
between accuracy and truth, the left hand’s
response to the right’s negligence. And all
the subtle grays between. The large mass in my lungs
now presents as two. When Jackboy died, I sobbed
in the parking lot, feeling that I’d failed him.
Separated. Apart. I do not believe
in afterlife. There will be no reunion,
yet we go on. What else can we do? What else?
Rot
TW: Death, Buried Alive, Suffocation, Claustrophobia
The first surge of regret came almost instantly.
My insides began to writhe and contort with an overwhelming anxiety that matched the unconscious movement of the trees in the dark wood above. Centuries of evolution and growth compelled them to reach out to one another in a desperate bid to feel less alone, yet their deep roots only allowed the creation of a rotting arbour over my newly erected grave. Wiggling my ring finger slightly, the circulation was momentarily suffocated by a circle of string measured exactly to my flesh. Limbs pressed against cheap wood, eyes gazing at nothing, the descent into the abyss was gradual. Repeating this action incrementally became a form of anchor, matching breaths to the clutch and release of pain.
Eventually, the oak finds its place on the earth’s floor, shifting gently on uneven ground. Above, the nervous chatter of my guests mingles with the wind slipping through gaps in the hinges, creating a distorted, ghostly wail. Unbeknownst to my anticipation, the ceremony begins with a piano tune warbling through the speakers, making the box around me quiver. The first heap of soil scrapes against the top like a knife on a plate. Despite the suffocating darkness, I can feel the coffin’s lid inching closer, almost feeling the material against the tip of my nose. It’s not long before the first splinter flies off, piercing my ribs. A soft crackle of a hairline fracture slowly winds its way around the circumference of the box, creating a web of spreading on the interior, destroying its foundations.
Releasing my finger all the way, I wait for the reassuring sound of the bell to make this all go away. Instead, it comes away from its anchor, the taught line now slack and untethered. My nose is suddenly cold from the dampness of the soil, and the limited air treacle in my lungs. I try to scream before the next shovel’s contents become lodged in my oesophagus. In front of me protrudes a tiny thread of light, I focus on it, waiting for the soil to overtake my organs.
Why didn’t I pick cremation?
Collective
THE TURNING
By Yev Gelman
It’s now November. There is a
garden by the river under the
railroad tracks. Above it, you are
sitting with me, and one bench
away, some old couple
watches the day as it passes. Me, I
watch a bee make its way through
the drying grass. You are trying to
separate the sounds from one
another:
leaves rustling under some
passerby’s feet; distant cars and
planes and trains all humming past
us; the two gulls resting on the river’s
edge, taking turns
to call out to one another. Like us,
they watch things move past, and
past they become. Presently, it’s
autumn. I tell you I could swear the
trees
weren’t as bare three days ago,
and a year ago now, I had just
watched you cross the room for
what would be the first of many
times.
Like the colors of the trees, words
such as present and past are
bleeding into each other. Me, I’m
letting them. Look:
a man is walking past us. He’s on the
phone, speaking Spanish to his children
and when he turns the camera, they
squeal at all the yellows and reds and
browns.
By the time he passes, there’s only
one gull left and the old couple has
long resumed their walk. Like pages
of some story, these leaves are
turning:
yellow then red then brown, but it’s
not winter yet. Last night, you told
me that after we make love, I
sometimes have the face of
someone in disbelief.
I find that you are, as always, right. But
I can’t tell you that, can I?
What I can say is, Did you
know that in Russian, you
can’t tell
the difference between the word for leaf
and the word for page, so every
time you speak, you must clarify
whether you mean leaves
that you write on or the ones that fall.
On days like this, I can’t help but marvel
at you, still next to me, even with these
leaves, this turning.
It will smell for a while, but it’ll go away
By Bryce Johle
We just missed fall peak
for our honeymoon.
But it’s not so bad
sleeping with the chipmunk,
his little stomps
and fur swishes
inside the wall,
a barely audible poof
of breath
behind our heads.
She saw where he got in
and sealed it off,
a short-term friend
for the beginning of winter.
Gratitude
Skeleton Flowers Press 