Two Poems

"Luna is Gone" by Aleksandra Scepanovic

Listen

My hope is that you’ll understand that I am only picking up where we left off. There is no time like the present to never apologize. You said something once

about how people only tell the truth on their deathbeds. I tried to disagree–then failed. The dumping grounds are behind us now, left there; dead weeds, the skull

of a chipmunk, a coke bottle full of deer teeth we collected before the end. I held a shotgun against my shoulder and fired until

the little orange clay targets would explode mid-air. I liked the sound of it best. All of us freshly twenty one, drinking and firing. The ending is always impossible to see

in the middle of things. All those hornets from the yard all went off in swarms to die. Where did their little bodies go? I asked, both of us stoned. You asked:

And how does nothing dirty nothing? Where is all the dust in the basement coming from? We were moving your dresser from the garage into the bedroom.

How can not-nothing want nothing? I used to work at Applebee's in Ann Arbor Michigan. That’s a lie. I used to smoke in the parking lot. One night the moon was blue

and suddenly you were an astronomer trying to tell me why. Did you know that the sunlight is scattered into these little particles— I didn't care. I put out

my cigarette to demonstrate my indifference. Do you want to fight? You better bring a gun to this verbal altercation. I won’t listen without force.

"The Sky is Falling" by Matthew Fertel

Everyone who jogs in this city is my enemy

I’ve been working on my backstroke
in the community center pool and doing
ethnography on the cisgender body.
I hate swimming, I’m terrible at it.
I like control. I’m terrible at butterfly,
and freestyle. And I have no idea how to dive
without turning my stomach red. I like chopping off
body parts to feel their lack. I like pissing on every lawn
in this city like a dog. I think maybe I’ll tattoo
a lion fish across my chest. They know how to swim.
They’re beautiful. Every single time I see someone
jogging in this city I think of
throwing crab apples at their nostrils.
They all remind me of you, your little grin
and purple yoga pants. I’ve never done yoga.
Neither have you, to my knowledge.
I hear there is a position called down dog,
and one called plank, or dead man, or something
where you just lay there and close your eyes
and pretend you have died.
I think I would like yoga.
I think you would call me weak.
Today I was passing a yellow minivan
which had a bumper sticker that read:
BEAUTIFUL THINGS HAPPEN
ON MOUNTAINS PNW.
I thought to myself: I wonder if
I can move to the very top of the highest mountain
and then there will be no one jogging at all,
because they would all die of altitude sickness.
If I could lay there, beneath the snow melt
and die with them.

about the author

Lane Devers' work has appeared or is forthcoming from places like the Scapegoat Review, Heavy Feather Review, DREGINALD, Juked, and elsewhere. His first chapbook “Antarctica is not the Moon” is out from Beyond Words Press. He is a student in Portland, Oregon. 

About the artists

Aleksandra Scepanovic's journey to sculpture began in socialist Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Her professional path traversed the realms of archaeology, war zones during the 1990s Balkans conflict and interior design in NYC. Celebrating the bravery of continuation, snippets from her past inspire Aleksandra's artistic spirit. Today, Aleksandra collaborates with a collective of sculptors in her studio in Woodstock, NY (@atelierwdstk_hudsonvalley). Her sculptural work underscores Aleksandra's experience of migratory displacement and an enduring quest for a true likeness of identity, suspended between war, peace, and culture.

Matthew Fertel is an abstract photographer who seeks out beauty in the mundane. Small details get framed in ways that draw attention away from the actual object and focus on the shapes, textures, and colors, transforming them into abstract landscapes, figures, and faces. His goal is to use these out-of-context images to create compositions that encourage an implied narrative that is easily influenced by the viewer and is open to multiple interpretations. More of Matthew's work can be seen on his website and Instagram: https://mfertel.wixsite.com/matthewfertelphoto https://www.instagram.com/digprod4/