night driving, ’89 Danielle McMahon __________ we drive southin a silver and rusttoyota pick-upto meet the blue-brown tide & fizzling foamof the atlantic, ourpale yellow headlightsscrape milesthrough the summer’s night the engine drones onan otherwise emptyhighway, through flat-lands of rows of dark pine and tobacco windows down,stray hairs whipfrantic at my face, freckledwith tingling stars…
Read MoreSummer Camp Josh Lefkowitz __________ The sound of gravel beneath our feet.A forest scent of pine and rain.Every day its own canteen,filled to the brim with activity.Portaging a red canoe.Dipping grilled cheese into tomato soup.Tie-dying t-shirts for the talent show.Getting better at tetherball.Wondering if she likes you back.Running to avoid…
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Read MoreOde to the tween summers of the late 1970s Kaila Schwartz __________ the smells of Coppertoneand calamine lotion squeezing lemon juiceon our hair to see ifwe could make natural highlights rushing to get coolby freezing our tonguesthe twin popsicles meltingonto our sticky fingersfrom the rush and the heat the goal…
Read MoreBra Lola Willis __________ I turn the remains in my grieving fingers, black satin thinning, dotted by tiny specks of pink lint. He outlived the pronouns you tossed into the mouth of the beast along with the last scratches of your identity: Army-green jacket, bruised guitar, scarf paint-stained, broken phone—what…
Read MoreQueer Pursuits, Lights the Moon to Spite the Sun, & Mood 48 Is A Gay One Bradley David Waters __________ Queer Pursuits You know that grumbling truck The one with scowling headlights and cow-catcher grill You’ll never catch me I say Pinned in its radiator …
Read MoreLazarus & The First Books They Burned Francis Waguespack __________ LazarusThe morning after the floodwaters recede, my neighbor’s chickens are loose on our street, red hens stepping gingerly over debris, unexpectedly dignified. The elder next door, Ms. Josephine, calls out from her porch: “They survived! Look at them struuuuuuuttin!” Her voice carries across the mud-slick…
Read MoreWolf Moon, 1986 & Blood Moon, 2025 Daniel Nathan Terry __________ Wolf Moon, 1986 There is little a lonely boy will refuse. Littlehe’ll protect. Almost nothing he’ll turn down. Kisses alone he’ll withhold. Only girls kiss boys. I knewwhy other boys turned my head each time I tried to show them love. Wasn’t gay to…
Read Morepoem after a student at my university got on the mic at graduation and said trans people didn’t exist & poem as instructions for survival nat raum __________ poem after a student at my university got on the mic at graduation and said trans people didn’t exist An American sonnet…
Read MoreFCA Doughnuts Mike Piero __________ Suggestive donuts, purified bottled water, and coffeefor the lanky, balding Mr. Burnes marked that spaceof early morning fellowship my freshman year of highschool where I—and a few others, I suspect—workedto pray our nearly already silent gay away. In high school trailers of desert air and…
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