JK Miller

FOREVER CHEMICALS

I suspect something in the garden
is killing me. Pulling out the dead
stalks on hands and knees. Dried
larkspur pods pour over black grains.
Poppies' big hard ovaries shake. Salt
and pepper bombs burst. Take cover.
Anoint me valley,
table, cup. Me thinks purple
as in waves of grain and deep-sleep
red—-as in fields of dorothy—
neurotoxic psoriasis.
By what authority do the finest monkey
fingers feel groin and wrist,
elbow and thigh,
aches and pains
and cause
the disjointed pearls
from lips to slip
to grounds?

Did you say let them?


JK's YouTube reading of "Forever Chemicals"


JK confesses: "I like to garden. In my garden there are larkspur and poppy flowers. When they die back, I pull them. They are so beautiful together, purple and pink, but they are both toxic to humans if mishandled. In this poem, it was fun to think about how toxicity could work."

JK Miller is a former third-grade dual language teacher. He lives on the edge of cornfields. He started submitting for publication in 2025. He is the first-place winner in the modern sonnet category of the 2025 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest. His chapbook Bicycling Poems was published in October, 2025. A second chapbook, Rye & I was published in January, 2026. His poems have also been recently published, or will be, in shoegaze literary, Midsummer Dream House, Harrow House, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, THEMA, Rat's Ass Review, 50-Word Stories, Verse-Virtual, Paratextos, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Lighthouse, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Up North Lit, Eunoia Review, Borderless, As Surely as the Sun, ANTAE, Plato's Caves, Tap Into Poetry, 20:05, The Soliloquist, The Metaworker, Press Pause Press, and The Rush. In the summer of 2025 he rode his bicycle from his home to his son's house to see his newborn grandson. It was 1,335 miles.

Kate LaDew

A MAN DREDGED A RIVER

an 18-ton digger slicing through the water
sediment hurled away
leaving the salmon and trout
and bullhead and minnows gasping
the otters and mink scurrying
the kingfisher and sand martin's bellies empty
a man dredged a river
stripped every wildflower
and tree and bush
and blade of grass
to build a road to his home
and then he went to jail
ecological vandalism
on an industrial scale
and as he sat in the corner
and thought about what he'd done
nature creeped little by little
back to the dredged river
the wildflowers grew
and the trees grew
and the bushes grew
and the salmon and trout
and bullhead and minnows swam
and the otters and mink played
and the kingfishers flew
and the sand martins sang
and everything went back to how it was
the mile-long scar
down the middle of it all
covered over entirely by green
and buzzing things
and full-throated
gleaming life


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "a man dredged a river"


Kate confesses: "I came across an article online about a farmer who destroyed miles of land for his own purposes. While I don't agree with his actions, I didn't write the poem to shame him. I was simply amazed by how, when left alone, the world rights itself."

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Arts. She grew up in Hammond, Louisiana and lives in Graham, NC with her cats James Cagney and Janis Joplin.

David Anson Lee

TAX EXEMPT

The chapel carries a donor’s name
carved deep enough to outlive theology.

So does the stadium,
the laboratory,
the business school where futures are priced
in credit hours and compound interest.

At orientation, freshmen are issued
lanyards, passwords, a map
that loops back to debt.

The university expands like a body
forgetting where pain begins:
roots descending from branches,
branches feeding roots,
a system that mistakes growth for virtue.

The adjunct teaches in the blue light
of a refrigerator open too long.

Somewhere, a quarterback signs autographs
beneath a screen the size of weather.

At commencement, caps rise
like startled birds released too early
into air they cannot afford.

Years later,
the birds return
as monthly statements
that never learned mercy.


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "Tax Exempt"


David confesses: "This poem emerged from observing how moral responsibility can be obscured when harm is mediated through systems that are legally protected yet ethically ambiguous. I was interested in how language of exemption can also function as a form of emotional distancing."

DAVID ANSON LEE is a retired ophthalmologist, educator, and poet born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A former endowed chair and professor of ophthalmology, his poems explore medicine, ethics, identity, history, and the hidden costs of institutional life. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.

Jennifer Lagier

APOCALYPSE NOW

Ooh war, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears, to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives

–lyrics to the song "War" by Edwin Starr


Morning headlines announce anti-war icon,
Country Joe McDonald has died.
We remember his name from Vietnam,
Woodstock, the Fish cheer, Veterans for Peace.
As our government mimics Nazi Germany,
pacificists mourn loss of charismatic leaders,
lament Reverand Jesse Jackson’s passing.

Targeting an Iranian girls’ school,
the U.S. annihilates students and teachers,
massacres civilians as part of a campaign
to distract from full Epstein files disclosure.
Online photos of open graves
illustrate the magnitude of our moral failures.

In the Pacific Ocean,
heavily armed military operations
burn through taxpayer dollars,
ignore due process to assassinate fishermen
they suspect to be drug runners,
deliberately slaughter frantically waving survivors.

Washington D.C. resembles a festering sewer
where the rich and powerful buy politicians,
pervert rule of law, protect their own interests.
Daily, the body count rises.
Our country’s crimes against humanity
continue to burgeon.


Jennifer's YouTube reading of "Apocalypse Now"


Jennifer confesses: "Here we go again, another senseless war based on lies, designed to distract from the corruption and malfeasance of the current administration."

JENNIFER LAGIER lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar. She has published twenty-five books and in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines. She taught with California Poets in the Schools, edited the Homestead Review, currently edits the Monterey Poetry Review, helps publicize Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Saturday readings. Website: jlagier.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/