Issue #28.11 A Triple Issue: Steve Lambert, Corey Miller, Tim Moder
A Poem by Steve Lambert
After Schuyler
I.
Tardigrade Means slow stepper And that’s your New name, Junior But it doesn’t mean What you think it does Just because you’ve found Some neat words for it… But it helps And it’s good to find Things that help And ways to keep going Even if slowly
II.
Aging, your new-old friend, Brings over for you New-old definitions of pain And previously unused words for it Like chronic. You meet them. Come on in, You say, but I have to leave soon, Pal
“I don’t know where I’m going, But I’m gone.”
III.
And, as if a crowd of punishments, The people Arrive As they always do Ruining everything Until the whole world Comes out talking In a burn of yellow morning In the evening And that’s something, too And everyone leaves To see the show Except you And your newfound aches Who may never leave But will teach you new- Old ways To keep going
It’s what they’re there for,
Probably
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Steve Lambert was born in Louisiana and grew up in Florida. His writing has appeared in Adirondack Review, Broad River Review, Chiron Review, The Cortland Review, Emrys Journal, Longleaf Review, The Pinch, Saw Palm, Tampa Review, and many other places. In 2018 he won Emrys Journal’s Nancy Dew Taylor Poetry Prize and he is the recipient of four Pushcart Prize nominations. Interviews with Lambert have appeared in print, on podcasts, and public radio. He is the author of the poetry collections Heat Seekers (2017) and The Shamble (2021), and the fiction collection The Patron Saint of Birds (2020). His novel, Philisteens, was released in 2021. He and his wife live in Florida.
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A Poem by Corey Miller
My Mentor Sends Me To Nikki Giovanni
She’s turning 80, this will be the last time you’ll get to see her. She’s reading for the reopening Hough Library off Superior, where I used to live in a refabbed school on the second story. English chalkboard running the studio where I paid for my escaping heat until I couldn’t. Where I studied broken music composition, snare drum gunshots putting me to rest until the shiny chamber orchestra was directed at my heartbeat. Frisked for cash beneath snow pants as if my genitals were concealing counterfeits. I contain reasons to riot, but I don’t possess the manpower. Nikki doesn’t read poetry, talks about her life teasing Rosa Parks. When Nikki signs my book of hers, I ask if she has advice for a young poet (I consider my 33 body new to the game), she says You know Rock N’ Roll, do the same. Copyright everything so you don’t go home to sit on coal.
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Corey Miller’s writing has appeared in Salt Hill, Booth, Pithead Chapel, Smokelong Quarterly, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. He has received support from Literary Cleveland’s Breakthrough Residency, Vermont Studio Center, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. When Corey isn’t brewing beer for a living in Cleveland, he enjoys taking the dogs for adventures. Follow him on BlueSky @IronBrewer Instagram: @IronBrewed or at www.CoreyMillerWrites.com
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A Poem by Tim Moder
Ceres Orders a Fourteen-Inch Hand-Tossed Gluten Free Elote at Pizza Luce, Duluth, Minnesota
It’s late in the evening. I’m with Ceres, waiting for her daughter to show. She looks me up and down, shaking her head. It’s late in the evening. She says, your method of living is making you tired. I assume it’s the drugs. She says, no, it’s not the drugs, it’s how you disregard tradition. I say, listen, “first fields, first fruits”, I get that, but can’t you make a holiday for the ghosts? I order a non-alcoholic beer. The lights go out as she starts to laugh. The pain is in your head, she says. I can hear the pigeons on Superior Street. They laugh with her. It’s late on any evening. A fox runs through the dining room. The food comes. Tajin Sweet Corn, Applewood Smoked Bacon, Fresh Jalapeno, Sliced Green Onion, Feta Cheese, Mozzarella Cheese, Bianca Sauce, Drizzled Cilantro Aioli.
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Tim Moder is a poet from northern Wisconsin. He is an enrolled member of The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. His poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Cutthroat, South Florida Poetry Journal, Sho, One Art, and others. He is the author of the chapbooks American Parade Routes (Seven Kitchens), and The Angel of Coincidence (Inkfish).
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