Food Pamela Hughes The white napkins from the Starbucks at the Barnes and Noble are wrinkled and written over. I stretch them out before me like two treasure maps. Nothing had to be wrung or rent. Wonder is no longer yonder. The wash of words have me in their grip. It’s firm but procreative, I postulate poems— they don’t prostrate me. The lines are loose or tight, depending on their position. As a poet I’m not a prostitute— not enough Americans want to pay for a verb job. The discharge of words is a release of sexual energy, though coming is not the end to going. I realized this tonight while reading Rilke at the bookstore. Consummation is about generation. Suddenly there is too much to write about —a commotion of creation waiting to be collected. I try to contain it on the computer when I get home. My husband offers me a Polish pickle— a literal pickle not a penis— even though his penis is also Polish. I put the pickle on the love poem. Now the napkin holds two kinds of food. Pamela Hughes Pamela Hughes’s second collection of poems, Femistry , is forthcoming. Her first collection Meadowland Take My Hand was published in 2017 by Three Mile Harbor Press. Her poetry and prose have appeared: Prairie Schooner ; Canary ; Literary Mama ; PANK Magazine ; The Paterson Literary Review ; Thema , and elsewhere.

Chills Shay Moore You give me chills, give because I still have them. I had begun to know feelings as a distant memory, until you drove them to my house on our first date. Still not sure how you snuck those on me. Maybe you slipped them in my pocket when you opened the car door for me. Maybe you seasoned them into the tater tots we shared while I was nervously checking my makeup. Maybe you smeared them on your lips before our goodnight kiss. Either way, here we are 3 months later I sit in this rocking chair Watching you play video games as I swell with love.

Family Elegy Cat Terrell Clouds get bigger above, and this altitude smells of old books and their worn out pages. Short trees speckle the mountains here, but mostly bushes that are skeleton-like populate the dry earth, reaching upwards with their singed knuckles and cracking fingertips. The ground waits for rain: rocks with millions of husks within them, fossils known to be there yet never unburied even still. There is tension and anger and hurt but not from the dead marine life that haunts these hills. Rather, these stabbing feelings come from an odd family of four, human-like creatures in their flawed demeanors yet persisting together-ness: ones who have tried to love each other, but can't find their way out of Predetermined Essences. Those traits God gives and refuses to take away. The traits are as follows: a father with cynicism, a daughter with her father’s judgment, a son who stows emotion, and another daughter, with her father's cynicism. They walk in the crevice of two ancient rocks, two rocks that hold plenty of dead marine life. The daughter with her father's judgment peers at and picks up every blushing stone she sees. The son picks up large rocks he will splinter to look for fossils. The father points out lizards and kicks clinging ticks off arms and legs. The other daughter walks briskly ahead and asks first to turn around and go back, to leave the crevice. The rock picking sister of hers overpromises and her stoic brother underpromises. Promises don't come easy to her. It is normal, the lizards scurry with each new pair of eyes on them, the fossils remain dead, the conversation only veers as much the path allows. No peak, no river, no loop is reached, but the odd family finds a buried burlap sack heading home. The misfitted and frail gather: looking, leaning, hoping. They all find nothing, as softer earth turns to stone 3 inches deep. The sack rips and is ripped by the father and the son. The main path is once again resumed. And then to home. Cat Terrell My name is Cat Terrell, I am 21 years old, and I'm a poet, musician, mathematician, you get the idea. I like writing poetry that evokes very specific images, and I especially like it when the words I happen to choose have a lot of assonance between them. The poems published here are my first ever published anywhere, and most of them revolve around an incidental theme: growing up. When I'm not writing poetry I am spending time with friends, or going on a walk in nature, or reading. I am so grateful for the three poetry courses I took at PCC that expanded my poetry knowledge and subsequent worldview, so thank you to Van Wheeler, Mia Caruso, and Chrys Tobey for being excellent instructors.

I am of this place Moonrose Doherty Funny thing about salal berries. Each one is different. Their ripening completely independent. Maybe that’s why I like them so much. The surprise Sweet? Tart? an opening to possibility stained fingers I am estuarine water Shore pine Brackish water Crawdads I am sword ferns and red alder I am cold fog and crabs burying themselves in the surf Melting sun and madrone blossoms I am the scent of baking fir needles I am open to possibility Moonrose is a Queer, Non-binary/Genderfluid Poet, Farmer, Plant lover and Knowledge-Sharer who loves dancing with other humans or alone on the edge of a bay while talking with seagulls. Their friends say they're an artist and a creative who spreads inspiration and love of life. Moonrose sees themself as a constantly changing being that feels most at home when expressing and embodying for change. Moonrose Doherty

Twilight Corryn Pettingill The sun is at its peak as Trinity and I prance around the sprinklers of my small front yard, laughing as the cold water hits our bare legs. It is a refreshing respite from the day’s tickling heat. It leads into a warm night where the sky feels open and endless, the stars infinite and marvelous. Our days are as free as the crows that hop along the telephone wires above our heads, cocking their heads down at the two children that run and play in the soggy green grass. The blades cling in between the crevices of my toes and kick up into the air as I attempt a cartwheel, submitting my upper torso to the spray of the sprinkler for the smallest moment before clambering away from the water. Trinity taps my shoulder and races across her driveway into her yard, avoiding my touch as I hop along her spiky dead lawn. I cringe and run back to mine, avoiding the pain on the other side of the pavement. Hose water washes away the grass that sticks to my legs, but the blades that don’t slide away leave itchy welts and a scratchy throat. I rinse it all away, for now, not thinking about it as I continue to play. Trinity’s long, black hair whips around in a blaze as we scour the boundaries of our two properties and roam around its premises, knowing two very important things: never run into the street, and fear the ice cream truck as it passes by. We could just imagine an evil man, deviously sitting behind the wheel searching lawns for small prey. The tales of an evil ice cream man kidnapping children told by our parents remain vivid in our minds, therefore we hide behind the wheels of our car as people pass, but scream with joy as we splash into the spongy lawn. “Olly olly oxen free!” I say as I grasp the predetermined neutral zone of the stair railing. I am safe, for now. Twilight arises and we play tag for the last time before heading inside, the closure of our childhood creeping nearer. It isn’t long before we fall out of rhythm, our schedules never matching and the sun setting sooner in the day as winter arrives. I hardly wave goodbye before Trinity’s family pack up all of their belongings into cardboard boxes and move to the other side of the city, making our front lawn turn into a simple square of grass. The evenings that previously welcomed laughter are now left reserved for homework. Rain comes and washes away the chalk and the biting snow hardens the earth, but the crows stay. They stay and they watch as twilight opens the window of the past.

Wishlist Poul Suero I wish I had a way with words Communicate through song, like birds Some way I could share my mind I wish that I could understand All the seas, the air, the sand crashing, swelling in my mind All I feel every time I stand next to you What I feel every time I walk away from you I wish I knew what it all meant To know what’s what and where it went And sort out what’s undefined I wish my heart would stay at rest Not try to jump out of my chest Can’t catch a breath, I’m out of time All I feel every time I stand next to you What I feel every time I walk away from you I wish I had a way with words I wish that I could understand I wish I knew what it all meant I wish my heart would stay at rest All I feel every time I stand next to you What I feel every time I walk away from you I wish I had a tale to tell That all worked out and came out well But all my thoughts are misaligned I wish that when I rang your bell You’d say hello and not farewell Life moves and I’m left behind All I feel every time I stand next to you What I feel every time I walk away from you

Waking up, Again Erin Clarke Pleasure is the wake-up call, The ding-dong come and play Edged with twinkling tingles Charged by leaned-in conspiring, It’s silky body butter Remembered right after the shower, Whispering sweet nothings with each glide To all your luscious landscapes, It’s donuts after sleeping in, Then lying flat to spot Constellations in the spackle– A galaxy of favorites tucked in rorschach ceiling blots, It’s warm slippers on cold toes And neck nuzzles at breakfast, It’s a ripe pear yielding To testing teeth and curious tongues, It’s walking for the sake of beats Pounding through concrete And the excuse to pull fresh breezes Into your restless cells, It’s absorbing all the string sounds Echoing through hollowed wood, Loving the hands deftly Worshiping their instrument, It’s celebratory wiggles because soft clothing Kindly hugs and your favorite mug is waiting To be cupped by grateful palms, It’s wearing sparkles with no agenda, and playing like you mean it, It’s Doubt shrinking into the corner Newly chastened, power waning, While the body sings YES in gorgeous chorus Forging intrastellar joy, Selene and other goddesses Can’t compete with my delight, I gush Disco glitter moonbeams wrapped in chuckles wrapped in rapture When the tendrils of depression finally slacken at long last, When I am unbound and once again awake. Erin Clarke Erin Clarke is a poet, copywriter, and linguistics nerd currently living in Portland, Oregon. In her work she draws inspiration from meditation practice, physiology, nature, motherhood, and her decades-long history with major depression. In addition to writing poetry, she enjoys tap dancing, singing, hiking, learning new languages, and watching anime. You can read more of her work at erinclarkewrites.com and on Instagram @eeclarkeish

Sad Vacation Josiah Webster F ive thousand Hellobucks. That’s almost enough to buy a rocketship. You can pick up a few if you watch a 30 second ad, or if you complete the Daily Slog. But the real source is cold hard cash. Ħ100 for $2, Ħ300 for $5, Ħ1000 for $12. At the $50-$100 range you get loads of Hellobucks for free, but I can’t afford that right now, so I just buy them a few hundred at a time, slowly saving up to get that rocketship. I’m going to name it Glenda. Isn’t that pretty? But it’s only a game. I play it at night when I’m trying to sleep. When I’m too exhausted to move. When I am filled with the dread of sleeping because I know that it will pass too quickly. There are ads–they come in little batches of twos and threes, always at random, always too loud. They are always the same ads. For $10 you can turn them off. But if you turn them off, you won’t get any Hellobucks for free. I’m playing more these nights. When the light is off and I am lying in bed, so sapped, and stomach growling from noodles again. The screen is a pulsating spotlight, binding my head in its glow like a tractor beam. Blue beam. Reflecting off eyegloss, noseshine, and the matte white of my pillow. My eyes have been stinging, vessels distending. The sclera is red by morning. And there is seemingly endless game to be played. The numbers get bigger at each new stage. I was at one point grinding for a covered wagon–now look! Now the numbers are bigger. With glitzy cheesy sound effects through tinny-speakered phone, the vaguely wood- sounding tap of the fingers on plastic. Expert quick tapping. The screen with its slight pliability. The cachet of rewards, of boxes that glow when they open, momentously opening. Of course, you could beat the game without buying anything at all. It just takes time. These false currencies are used to buy skins and trinkets and great beauties like Glenda that would take so, so much longer to earn the old-fashioned way. The game is not designed to be satisfying that way. But if you grease it, it almost can be. You just don’t have the time to be that unsatisfied for that long, not when you’ve rent due and work in the morning and nothing in brain but the strained sub-emotion, the half-thought; the need for a moment to breathe or to wander outside yourself, empty with lightness and hope for a piece of the— peace of the mind. There is no time. No energy left. There is just enough to keep the eyes pried and play the game. Plugged into the wall all night as you play, because it drains your battery, because your battery’s never full. Because you’re too tired to get out of bed except when you have to in mornings on too little sleep after the long night up getting nowhere in particular except for maybe somewhere on a budget far, far from here that doesn’t exist. When I get my Glenda, she sits on the virtual property, unable to move. It isn’t programmed like that. I tap on her, furiously tapping, and numbers come out. They’re bigger than ever. Weighted to my mattress, I wonder where I would fly, if I could. Josiah Webster Josiah Webster's favorite place to dwell is the uncanny gulch between the real and the perceived. He also dwells in SE Portland. His recent publications can be found at Ergot Press and Figwort Literary Journal . You can also find him via @byzantine_dream on Instagram and Twitter.

Fiction Where There's Smoke Travis Erb When the Bough Breaks Alli Tschirhart The Butler's Dilemma Samantha Sampang Sad Vacation Josiah Webster At the Rooftop Garden Emily Miller

He Lived up on the Bluff Hunter Bordwell-Gray The bass on the wall croaked a twee song to electric perfection: Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Sheet metal cowboys swayed so sweet, languid in that summer heat, a kindly sight on June’s dreary eyes. And no ocean deigned to count itself so vast as the sagebrush flats on which they danced, innumerable, incalculable as nature is. Yet grander still was Grandfather’s study, filled to the brim with little toy tractors. His leather-bag laugh bound clear to the walls and back. Such sanguine warmth not made to be contained, like a desert wind. Hunter Bordwell-Gray I am a lifelong Portland resident and a first-year Creative Writing/Poetry student at PCC. I started my journey in elementary school, intricately crafting my first novel on a rundown laptop…as far as a 10 year old could stay entertained before chasing the next shiny idea. Since then, I have delved into the realms of poetry, tabletop campaign writing, and multimedia production. For me, writing is the only medium that allows me to clearly convey my ideas and experiences to other people where otherwise I sometimes struggle to express myself. I take much of my inspiration from a hodgepodge of nature, analog horror podcasts, and the roulette wheel that is my taste in music.

Admete Sean P. Hotchkiss S he is truly the spirit of the ocean sent to walk among us. Barely contained, always moving, shifting, changing. Usually benevolent and giving, but subject to wild changes when outside forces push and pull her, testing the limits of her patience and personness. Fascinated and captivated, he watches as she ebbs and flows in her randomly deliberate motions. Rising and falling, waves crashing in varying intensities against the shore of her life. Enthralled by all of it, even at the prospect of the raging storm he has never seen. Knowing he would weather it–not unchanged but unscathed–and still her friend. Her waters reach out to pull the willing into her embrace and force those that cause her pain away. The more time passes the more willing he is to drift into her waters, excitedly moving toward the depths. Eagerly anticipating the waters closing over him, surrounding him with her magnificent presence and intoxicating embrace. Willingly would he drown in the sea of emotion and intellect that is her, because he knows he will merely be reborn as something more when she places him gently back on the shore, having been baptized into her life—forever. Sean P. Hotchkiss Sean P. Hotchkiss was born and raised in the Portland Metro area of Oregon. Other than a 4 year stay in Anchorage Alaska, where he married and where his first child was born, has lived in Oregon his entire life. Sean is the father of three, widower of one. He recently rediscovered his love of writing after returning to college after three gap-decades. In addition to his “day job” as a digital marketer, he is also a reading and writing tutor at Portland Community College. He pursues his writing with passionate inspiration or, perhaps, inspired passion. He believes he does his best work where thought meets inspiration, and seeks out those things and people that stimulate both. You can engage with Sean on Instagram @sphotch_the_writer or on his website .