 Easy Way Out, by Madelyn Roldan (USA) 2025 Death of Snow White Our future queen, While still a teenage princess, Rebelled against Her fate of giving birth To hordes of bees-- The countless honey workers In golden mines, The grumpy dopey clones. Our precious pearl That we adored and cherished, And pictured in The softest blues and pinks, Preferred her death To her maternal duty, And bit the fruit-- The mourning after-pill. She sleeps tonight, And she will sleep tomorrow, And never wake. Our colony is doomed. And as we fade Into the hopeless future, We mourn the ease Of her uneasy choice. Iryna Hall Iryna Hall immigrated from Ukraine in 1997. She is married, has three children, lives in Utah, and writes while managing multiple sclerosis. ** Frankincense I hide my coloured secret where my dreams began and pleasures take place. Visions of life and quality of time becomes a reality. The floury mystery came to life and fantasies galore were lived. My bedtime stories grew up and story book fantasies died. I own my womanhood and romance become sex in all its glory. From now on I am not alone. No more books I have found another way. Sandy Rochelle Sandy is a widely-published poet, actress, narrator and producer. Publications are varied and include: Indelible, Cafe Journal, Impspired, Wild Word, One Art, Verse Virtual, Haiku Universe, Poetic Sun, Amethyst Review, Dissident Voice, Connecticut River Review, and others. ** Adrift Woman struggling, hiding inside her body, adrift and alone. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had short stories, micro-flash fiction, and haiku poetry published. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and adorable Shih-Tzus Breanna and Maximus. ** Staying Alive I had a husband, but he died. I had a friend. She moved away, and then she died. I took a lover, and another, just in case. I got a UTI, and nearly died. Now, I use more lube and pee right after. IJ Harlow ** A Voice Unheard Please bear a soupçon of concern for those no handle, media, who cannot access artist’s voice; opinion canvassed, frame alone. What right have I to comment here, except defence of body’s voice, for though I’m creature of this earth, deny that myth, rib Adam’s cage. Men, private, cower, fear exposed, testosterone of manhood proof, when most know women rule the roost through subtle wisdom, strategy. She would cook, control beast’s feast - imagining he has the Com - while she can bide till timing rite, an Amazon in tribal charge. While vile DV has skewed the power, or its perception, line of fire, but solidarity is more, as anchor chain may be the cord. A tie that binds, umbilical, restricts or holds, togetherness; her story honestly unknown - whatever, grace is not a loan. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com ** Beauty And Hope Need Grit A pearl is always a symbol of beauty and hope Attraction, and that demanding call to connect And yet, the origin is perhaps surprisingly, grit But displayed, once one finally opens the shell Manifest across both wild nature and humanity Whether it’s a growing desperate determination Or for some, exercises in focused conversation Numerous attempts and edging toward insanity Sixty-four times of the month, as one shall tell Periodicity always plays its part, and does its bit Never quite the outcome that one may expect But a stronger resolve avoids any slippery slope Howard Osborne Howard is a UK citizen, retired. Published author of non-fiction reference book, scientific papers and poetry. Interests: mainly creative writing (poetry, novel, short stories, songs and scripts), music and travel. ** 92 BARREN [Adjectives] 1. unfertile, unprofitable; sterile; stark, bare. [Nouns] 1. obsolete equipment, copper mine tailings, scrap metal heap, toxic land fill. 2. as a catatonic, a robot, a river run dry. 3. ornamental fruit tree: pomegranate, quince, uterus, cherry, breast. 4. a blown egg. Barbara Johnstone Barbara Johnstone lives near Seattle, WA where she worked for 43 years as a psychotherapist providing individual and couples therapy. Since she was very young, poetry has been a way to go deeper into what is inside her and what is in the person or world before her that hurts, inspires, heals, connects. Her poems are in a variety of publications including Second Coming Poem-a-Day, Pilgrimage, Persimmon Tree and Crosswind Poetry. ** Induration Scars are question marks for others to ask, “What happened here?” But they move past the navel, our oldest scar. It disappears, appears, conceals a different kind of union. The coil of the womb grows into a seashell. Spiraled figure 8 times itself, making 64 lives below the surface, while one comes up to shore. The easy way out is for my geography to stay private, no visitors allowed. But every woman recognizes sometimes what looks like it hurts, what looks like lithification, is us healing, holding on to our delicate pia mater. María Cristina Jiménez María Cristina Jiménez is a Puerto Rican poet originally from San Juan. She holds an MFA from the New School. Her poems have appeared in Method Writers Speak, and her prose has been published by the Wellcome Collection and The Rolfing Journal; her bodywork practice was featured in the LA Times. ** Better Times The fruit of my womb is not a child, but a perilous orb in an ultrasound. A Year of the Tiger lunges at me with scalpel claws before its start. Stoic quotes, martial arts—forget it. Your “tigress,” sweetheart, cringes like a kicked kitten, thinks of you until dawn to chants of a heater that lulls her no more. How you’ll… if I… there is no future in the if- or when-clause. The freeze ends, and the little perimeter in which we guard ourselves against the pestilent world looks up at restless clouds in the thinning crowns, browned fans of palms. This time we saved the red leaves on top of rose bushes, and emptiness is not as empty as it used to seem. For so long, you toiled for the fruit of your labour—for better times. All you need now is my body not to fail you. Elina Petrova Elina Petrova lived in Ukraine until 2007, working in engineering management. Her debut book was in Russian. In the U.S. she published the poetry books Aching Miracle (2015) and Desert Candles (2019), and a contest-winning chapbook A Bird from Ukraine (2026). Elina’s poems appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Texas Review, Passages North, North Dakota Quarterly, Porter House Review, Sequestrum, Southwestern American Literature, Another Chicago Magazine, ANTAE, Pedestal, Ocotillo Review, FreeFall. A short film featuring her poem won Best Cinematic Poetry at the 2023 Miami Chroma Film Festival. ** Hysteroscopy My friends go ballistic thinking I’m agreeing to a hysterectomy at thirty years old, but I explain my OB/GYN wants to get to the bottom of abnormal bleeding. First crack, the new scope doesn’t work, I walk away without diagnostics, only deep embarrassment at the lack of professionalism I’m shown. One month later I’m prepared to advocate for respect and modesty I was not afforded at the first debacle. Unclothed from the waist down, I refuse to spread-eagle in front of the team until the precise moment they are ready to start the procedure, reminding them last time they left me exposed and humiliated while they joked and yucked it up over the previous night’s Sox game they’d watched from a Kenmore Square pub. Elaine Sorrentino Elaine Sorrentino, author of Belly Dancing in a Brown Sweatsuit (Kelsay Books, 2025) has been published in journals such as Quartet Journal, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Gyroscope Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Poetry Porch, The Ekphrastic Review, and Haikuniverse. A two-time breast cancer survivor, she and poet Dzvinia Orlowsky present the second Pink LemonAid, a program featuring poetry and art inspired by breast cancer, in October of 2026. ** Split Open Crystal found it on a beach when she was lying there sunbathing face down, just a rock split open lying like her face down, hiding its jewel. Cleaned of sand it gleamed and shone its colours made for her its shape pubescent iridescent a magic match for her nails, her bikini, her flesh. She rose. Stood. Held it before her exposed her crystal, her jewel held it safe. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** Monster You called it "monster," unborn child, blighted fetus they told you to abort; 8-month-old Gorgon unyielding, boy with bad brain, club-footed, child with messed up genitals. Young mother with no clear idea what to do, mother with flushed breath, sister-in-law who endured months of IVF, seasons when early shadows fell as you ironed your husband's white shirts, when you prayed to swarthy saints in that cramped apartment, where outside children shrieked happily, their scraps of voices calling you or so you thought, and hope sparkled like water, glistened like silk, hope unfolding like a paper flower, and then X-ray after X-ray bruised and blundered you declaring how you failed. Leonore Wilson Leonore Wilson is a college English and creative writing teacher from Northern California. She is on the MFA Board at St Mary’s College of California. Her poetry books are Western Solstice (Hireath Press) and Tremendum, Augustum (Kelsey Press). Leonore’s work has been in The Iowa Review, Unruly Catholic Women Writers, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, Third Coast, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, Upstreet, Madison Review, Laurel Review, Pif, etcetera. Her historic cattle ranch and family home in Napa Valley were recently destroyed in the LNU fire. ** After My Birth, I One case of alcohol poisoning One overdose on coke because I couldn’t feel it Fifteen episodes of pancreatitis Distended liver Distressed kidneys One coma Three suicide attempts Two men of whom I will not speak The Night an Hour Outside of Albuquerque Which I Cannot Tell Four heart attacks A triple bypass Five? Six? Other procedures I entered this world with Mother’s umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. They cut me out of her when I tried to work my way from the birth canal back to the womb. I am not supposed to be here Janette Schafer Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Chatham University and is the author of three poetry collections and the chief editor of two anthologies. Her writing and photographs have appeared or are forthcoming in The Missouri Review, SWWIM, ONE ART, Vox Populi, and Split Rock Review. A winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize, she has also been recognized in the Pittsburgh Original Short Play Series and the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival. ** Symphony, Numbered There lies in each of us a conch-shell song unheard, a moment of beginning unfurling, a longing to exist beyond ourselves, a musical transcendence beyond the first notes and last notes of time that envelops our entire being-- until a miscarriage is recorded, as an ectopic pregnancy, and the medical verdict is bleak, when monitoring hormone levels safely back to zero becomes your only new existence. Notes that, if not played correctly, or slightly off-key, vortex into a cataclysmic outpouring no consoling confidence can fix. The tide of a woman's body washes in and washes out, one day never to return a sailcloth cut from the same tired flesh. Each hope, a battle enduring ultimate defeat, ever more painful than the last-- hearing each song breaking like a meadow lark into broken glass, cutting deeper than the last. Pinged in a symphony, numbered, that cannot be recycled-- a note on which the music must end, hand-knitted cardigans, folded, for a newborn never born. Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is a support worker for adults with learning difficulties. His poems have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies, both online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** To Madelyn Roldan Regarding Easy Way Out It's still a gem though cultured pearl from grit required for petri swirl beyond both bodies, then embraced, implanted as if odds were chased, and yet dismissed from birth travail by gentle lift to first inhale of breath as spirit given life by skill of foresight and its knife with solemn reverence sensed as due the sacred work that hands must do where they become intended means for parenthood that vow convenes so preciously beheld in eye that wells with tears at heaven's cry. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** Facing Herself I press my ear against the shell hearing the faint rush of waves whispering shame, embarrassment, failure Indelible thoughts swirling constantly through her mind that never can escape her lips or fill her throat The pain is felt deep and cold, an ache of loss and misshapen identity, of who she was meant to be What are we to become if our fundamental natures are unable to match our own wants and realities? We have a choice to support her, to look beyond her unwept grief, to build toward a future Some would look away, find excuses to leave her in her sadness, blame her for random biology But love/friendship/compassion is building bridges, patching wounds, and searching out solutions together The shell is an echo of what won’t be; we must help her move on to a multitude of other pathways. Brydon Caldwell Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. He was recently named the winner of the 2026 Icelandic Festival of Manitoba Short Story Contest. His writing can be found in Boudin, The Ekphrastic Review, New Verse News, the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies. ** Not Your Ticket to Ride You might think it’s the easy way out-- dress up in your gown and glitter. Accept his tiara, his strand of pearls. Yes, you’re a sparkler, his arm candy. But his mind's always on a trade, acquisition, or a small white ball on a country club course, insufficient to grasp the fragility of eggshells, you, ova held up on a blood-red tee, waiting for him to avoid taking the easy shot. Too hard to do the right thing. Because (to him) you’re just a tasty piece of pie, propped amidst cloud pillows. Not his problem if something goes awry. And when the penny drops-- he has a pill to cure it, a friend of a friend who can fix it, fix it for you, fix you. It’s happened before after all. Robin Gabbert Robin Gabbert is the winner of the 2025 Fran Claggett-Holland Award and is a Pushcart Poetry Prize nominee for her poem The Palm Reader. Her book of ekphrastic poetry The Clandestine Life of Paintings, in Poems was published in 2022 and a full-length book of poetry Somehow, I Haven’t Drowned was recently published by Blue Light Press. She will be speaking on ekphrastic writing for The Eastern Shore Writers Association on October 8th. ** Counting Blessings cramps come sudden a stone hand squeezing squeezing her abdomen a blood moon hovers slow-drips gold coins into flow of tide another lunar cycle tears on an aborted beach fear as hard as pebbles blue siren blank screen a wand surfing her belly a monitor flickering light crescent curve cradled in a woman’s purse pulsing immeasurable treasure Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar. Her poems have appeared in webzines and magazines including Stand, Fly on the Wall, Alchemy Spoon and Poetry Scotland. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** Barren During our flight to Atlanta, our daughter kicked so hard my blouse moved. Everyone could see her joy traveling somewhere new for the very first time. An older woman near me asked, “Is this really your honeymoon?” It was, but I guess she had a legitimate question because who in their right mind considers a trip to the Peach Bowl a honeymoon especially when you’re pregnant with one hundred dollars to spend during New Year’s Eve in a city like Atlanta? But we were on our honeymoon, hoping for a Cyclone win. My husband drank until he was falling-down drunk, and I floundered, miserably sober. Two months later the baby quit kicking. No one seemed to believe me, but on a heartless day in February, I delivered our one pound one ounce baby girl. Afterwards, a fiery grief seared my soul. I laboured in a dense brume, questioning my faith, questioning my purpose, questioning my ability to survive my now desolate, empty womb. Barbara Edler Barbara Edler lives in southeast Iowa in a little berg called Sandusky. Art inspires much of her writing endeavors. "Barren" inspired by Madelyn Roldan's art No Easy Way Out shares the heartbreak one experiences when losing a child before term. ** Middle of Nowhere What is existence exactly? Is it the same as living? Can living ever be safe or is it always in proximity with death? Is death a type of existence? Is anything ever really lost? Or does it just change form, its matter blossoming inside a different configuration? distant memories-- the calling of the ocean, spirals, echoed songs There are so many answers that seem to be secrets, leaving me helpless to change my fate. Where are the guardians of myth and story, the ones whose presence provides comfort and guidance beyond, or in spite of, what can never be known? an idea, something not actually present-- and yet—mourning, tears Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry and art have been featured online by Feral, Pure Haiku, Collaborature, The Chaos Section Poetry Project, and The Ekphrastic Review, and published in The Anthropocene Hymnal, and The Polaris Trilogy. Follow her explorations at https://kblog.blog/. ** Who Am I Without My Rarely-Used Female Parts? Where it comes together is where it falls apart. A prolapsed uterus? No, Stage 1A cancer. Who am I without my rarely-used female parts? Robot arms snatch C-cells, toss on rolling cart, the remains of what made me a woman answer where it came together is where it falls apart. Fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix depart, weigh only fifteen ounces, no time for chances.. Who am I without my rarely-used female parts? Would people sit with me? Would my C-cells restart? Would radiation cure me? Would I need lancers where it once came together and now fell apart?. No one asked about my cancer, no one had heart. Alone, each zap blasted innards anti-cancer. Who would I be without my once-used female parts? And you, my sisters, asked nothing, blessed sweethearts, you scalped my wallet while robots scalped my cancer where it came together is where it fell apart. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner was diagnosed with Stage 1A uterine cancer in July 2014. After surgery and radiation, it remains in remission. She writes about health and family in the ekphrastic poetry collections The Wanderers (Shanti Arts, 2026) and Insomnia: Poems After Lee Krasner (dancing girl press, 2026). She lives and teaches in New Jersey. ** Still Held So many stained falls, empty - still you carry light: velvet-lipped, jewelled, whole. Helen Freeman Helen Freeman started writing poetry and flash fiction whilst recovering from a car crash in Oman and got hooked. She loves trying her hand at challenges presented on The Ekphrastic Review and reading the different interpretations chosen by editors. She currently lives in Edinburgh and her instagram is @chemchemi.hf ** The Translucence of Beginnings In those days she searched the beach for shells– conch conus and cowrie– collected empty vessels to celebrate the sea. In those days she built temples sand sanctuaries– all peace pastel and promise– experienced existence through an aquarelle lens. In those days she listened to the surf the sounds of surrender– all roar ruckus and resonance– observed the silvery dispersal of ocean waves. In those days she held the translucence of beginnings the rise and fall of life where the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun unfastened like the tide. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts has authored nine books, seven poetry collections and two illustrated children's books. Her most recent full-length poetry collection is titled On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). She writes poetry and prose influenced by artwork, the human experience, and the natural world. Her work appears in various books, anthologies, print and online publications, including Amethyst Review, The Ekphrastic Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. ** Beauty In the Pain? I see your miscarriage of justice as My botched D&C, another notch in The belt of some unfit invader, does It even matter who put what where? Instruments of pain, all of them digging Into the psyche of our maiden wound Wombs made for our babies, not tools to probe Our bleeding hearts through another passage Of the time left. Sister, we’re family Branched from the same bent tree, I understand. Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass is a poet and lyric essay writer living in Decatur, Georgia. Recent work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in The Avon Review, Lit Shark, Green Ink Poetry, Collaborature (winning poem, 9/25), The Ekphrastic Journal (Nominated for Best Small Fictions, 2024), The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. She enjoys writing about place, memory, and the intersection of humanity and nature. She often collaborates with Jahzara Z. Woods, writing as “The 1965.” ** In the Mirror In the quiet frame of the mirror, I am reassembled as Picasso’s art. One breast less, the plump curve of thighs. The full length of the glass, And the question: why? In a single reflection My eyes taking an inward bow- You are just one patient less, Or one patient more. In a world of definitions, I lie un-anesthetized. Deep in my hollows Stretched across the floor. Twisted wrist underneath, Watching bloodlines flow- Steadily spreading all around The cold tiles. Sterile air dissolving into a voice: “Patient saat-do-zero=zero-ek aa gaya kya?” Abha Das Sarma Abha Das Sarma lives in Bengaluru, India. An engineer and management consultant by profession, writing is what makes her happy and fulfilled. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, The Wise Owl, Poetry X Hunger, here and elsewhere. She has also contributed to several anthologies, Pixie Dust & All Things Magical and Soul Spaces: Poems on Cities, Towns & Villages, among others. ** Without You We are told: Tolerate the chaos. It is an honor and your sacred duty, to stand firm in the fire. To create, to nurture, to soothe, to love. To submit. To endure. For the greater good. Even as flames torch the earth, the trees, the perfect little houses built on faulty promises and fantasy, we must stay. We must protect your fragile ego. We must serve. Where is the quid pro quo? Where is your provision? Your promised protection? We are appointed sentries against the collapse of your precious curated world. And yet. We are diminished, silenced, ignored, berated, despised, discarded, reduced, beaten, disfigured, murdered. For daring to demand respect. For daring to say no. For daring to say enough. For daring to stand. For daring to rush from the ashes of your lies. For daring to create a better place. For daring to choose our own path. For daring to exist. To be. Without you. Robin White Robin is a lifelong poet, writer, painter, collagist, and mixed media artist. She was born and raised in a small gown in Georgia. She uses poetry and art to explore and process as she deconstructs, dismantles, and reconstructs her views and beliefs. ** Easy Way Out They call it the easy way, one pill, yellow as a coin, pressed flat against the site where something had already started without my permission. Sixty-four. Not a bingo number after all, not chance, but a dose: mifepristone first, then the second pill waiting in its foil, patient as a held breath, to finish what the first one starts. Where they said a womb should be, the painter opens a geode instead: quartz, rose, citrine, crowding up through the dark like something that grew precisely because I told it not to. Even ending things, it turns out, glitters. My hands stay where I put them, laced in front, the old pudica gesture, modest, they'd have called it, a woman shielding what a man might want to see. But I was only holding the door on a decision, not a secret. There's a difference no one taught me the word for. One line of red still finds its way down the seam, slow as a wick, proof the body is doing what I asked it to. I let it run. I do not look away. Easy, they say. They mean it doesn't require a hospital. They don't mean it's simple. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen is the author of Shoes for Lucy (SCE Press, 2023) and More Than a Handful (Woodland Arts Editions, 2020). Her work has appeared in One Art, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. She received a 2024 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as editor/interviewer for Blue Mountain Review. She lives in rural Delaware County, New York. ** Ageless Rosy as the first morning light she stands unfolded, open, her face eclipsed by its own resplendent glow. That radiance alone protects us from her gaze that like Medusa’s could turn us all to stone. And yet her body stands unwarded, arms unflexed. hands the cradle for an open womb making no pretense of shyness or coy innocence, making no attempt to hide the intimate gate at the body’s juncture, where pearl rides the curve of nacreous smooth shell, coiled round its moon-wise moon-shadow, gravity’s meridian, turning to the measure of the blood moon’s dance, the tide of generation. She stands in her own reflected glory mutable, unchanging, bone and blush, petal tender, midnight’s queen, young as our first wordless dreams. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired registered nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic, The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible is available from Kelsay Books, Amazon, and the author. ** Pink or Blue Pink or blue it never mattered I just wanted one to stick every month the excitement timings, temperature, the motions ever hopeful, ever disappointed it got to the point of naming eggs it got to the point of a long weekend getaway to Dorset not just “hiking” around the Cerne Abbas Giant believing with all my might in the fertility lore in the gift shop, a cup in pale orange and gold tones Sylvia in swirling cursive mittelschmerz told me that she came from my left or was it the right? They had started to blur nothing made a difference, none of them stuck Sylvia was never my daughter born that six-week mark always spelled doom the tears, the guilt, the blame the treatments that bore only stress then, six losses and many years later, one finally stuck past the usual timeline anyway the joy, happiness, finally we would be three such a happy eight and a half weeks then the sonographer’s sing-song voice, oh, your baby is dead, there’s no heartbeat a missed miscarriage they called it, my body would not let go surgical management they called it, waiting to go in I partially lost my mind my baby is not dead the second opinion, decreasing hormones they were all wrong, I thought or possibly screamed they let my husband come in to wait with me I sobbed until they wheeled me off weeks later a letter from the consultant tests results from the tissue, actually his name was Jack Trisomy 13 it said, not compatible with life it said absolutely nothing you had done, they said the months that followed were bleak I lost hope, gave up trying and then almost a year later, it happened for real a most stunning baby boy that wiped clean all that had come before a rainbow baby they said a few years later, Poppy, miscarriage number eight then time was up, we would try no more almost twelve years on and those peachy pink and blue pastels make me wonder what happened to the Sylvia cup donated to charity, in storage, or smashed to cathartic smithereens? any could be true. Susan Philip Susan lives in Scotland with her son, husband, dog and five cats. She recently embarked on an MA Creative Writing and Wellbeing, and is interested in all aspects of writing for healing. She writes memoir, fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. ** It was my day off, and I was in my living room, thumbing through the pages of Mrs McGinty’s Dead, a book I had enjoyed in my teenage years, when the first jolt of pain rippled in my belly. Frowning, I trudged to the kitchen. The top left shelf housed painkillers, antibiotics, and first-aid kits. I popped a paracetamol tablet in my mouth, and one again for good measure, swishing them noisily with a swig of orange juice. As they slid down my throat, the old pain, heightened tenfold this time, fell against my abdomen like the swash of a mighty wave. “It can’t be period cramps,” I spluttered. I had been on birth control for the last two months, in a desperate attempt to ward off acne breakouts. Perhaps it was food-poisoning, though I couldn’t recall eating anything particularly greasy. I plopped down on the living room floor, massaging my belly. The pain did not subside; it scraped the bottom half of my body, insistently making pinprick sounds, like a very small creature begging to be let out. My body grew cold as I entertained the possibility that something was growing in my stomach. “I haven’t done anything,” I whispered. It was true - I hadn’t so much as touched a man. I was as devout a Muslim as they come, and likely asexual. But I found myself unassured nonetheless. What if someone had slipped inside my bedroom in the dead of the night? “You’re insane,” I told myself, my warbling voice failing to imitate firmness. The bedroom window had been glued shut since the beginning of time, and I always bolted the door before I went to bed. No, I had probably forgotten a few doses. That was the only explanation. Yet, despite presenting myself with these logical counterbalances, my heart thrummed noisily, and beads of sweat rolled down my neck. The apartment door creaked open and my roommate Jenna surfaced from the gap. “Christ,” she said. “Are you okay?” A warm fluid spread across my thighs. “I think so,” I said shakily. I wearily attempted a fistbump before locking myself in my bathroom. I undressed and watched ribbons of blood drip down my legs. I sighed, disappointed the birth control had failed, but relieved that it was just my period, nothing more. Pain lurching in my belly still, I cleaned up and headed to the kitchen for more paracetamol. “Oh God,” said Jenna. “You look awful.” “Rude,” I said irritably. “I got my period. Turns out my birth control doesn’t work.” “Uh-uh,” she said. Warm blood pooled in my pelvic region, forming an ominous-looking splotch on my trousers. The pain metastasized, pressing like a mantle against my arms, my legs, and my head. I began to waver in and out of consciousness. The cosmos spun around me like a tendril. As I took in its numinous beauty, the damned pain speared me, as if the growth (if there was one) wanted to punish me for doubting its existence. The pain made the cosmos recede, transporting me to a foggy, decaying city, where several women with distended stomachs, myself included, repeatedly chanted “My body, my choice!” Severe-looking men shook their fists at us, and my parents looked on in disappointment. The pain took me back to a preposterous childhood myth, in which geckos would dart inside the closets of little girls and lay undetectable eggs on their clothes. Any girl who wore the tainted clothes would be afflicted with a tumid belly, and an unsightly half-gecko, half-human child. My organs writhed uncontrollably, and I reflexively pushed, pushed, pushed. A gristly, metallic-smelling lump slid from my legs onto the floor. It was sodden with blood and mucus. The growth. The pain had abated, but I couldn’t stop shuddering. Jenna hauled me into her car, reclining my seat so that I could rest. Bathed in sweat, I grew immobile with guilt and anger. I had let something grow inside me, not knowing I had, definitely not wanting to. What would my parents think? What would everyone think? My thoughts would go back to the girls with the gecko babies. The half-forgotten memories were inexplicably clear. In every tale, the little girls would be banished from their homes, forced to raise their spawn alone, or murder them out of desperation. In my state, the Planned Parenthood facility appeared filtered in pink. It was inside a strip mall, and spiral cypress topiaries framed its entrance. Jenna jogged along, eyes lit with concern, as a nurse wheeled me inside a small room with blinding overhead lights. Trembling, I recounted the events to a kindly-looking, thirty-something doctor. She took my vitals and made me pee in a cup. “Everything’s normal. Your friend brought the lump along. Sounds disgusting, I know, but she did the right thing,” she said. “What is it?” I stammered. “Nothing serious, thankfully. A decidual cast.” “What’s that?” “It means your uterine lining came out in one piece. Think of it as a mega period. We’ll get you an ultrasound, just to be safe.” In another room, another doctor laid me down on a narrow bed and smeared translucent gel on my belly, pressing it with a pump-like instrument. By the edge of the bed was a black screen. I stared at it blankly, unable to stop fretting over the decidual cast. I couldn’t believe I had been so ignorant as to be completely unaware of the phenomenon, fifteen years into adolescence. “Nothing to see here,” the doctor said pleasantly. “You’re good to go.” Jenna squeezed my hand. On the car ride back home, a heavy feeling settled over me. Whether it was a delayed sense of relief, or shame, or gratitude for the kindness of Jenna and the Planned Parenthood staff, or because I mourned the fate of the little girls, I didn’t know. Fatima Sajjad Fatima Sajjad is a writer from Karachi, Pakistan. She finished her MFA in creative writing at the University of South Florida in 2026, where she was also a fiction editor for Saw Palm Magazine. ** 64 She drove toward town and her appointment, her rusty truck complaining. There was no bus service out here on the edge of the woods. Her woods, for a few weeks more. Eminent domain had taken care of that, thanks to the Kelo v City of New London decision. Come winter, the trees would be felled, and the road would be widened, and where her little house now stood (a blight, the councilmen had said), construction would begin on the new housing development. She guessed bus service would soon follow. But she’d be gone. She pulled the truck over to the shoulder, lowered her window, and inhaled autumn. She’d imagined raising kids out here, taking them on mushroom hunts. Grandkids too, she could hear them stomping leaves and laughing. A crow swooped low and blapped her windshield. She snorted. Yep, poop on those plans. Still, the math gnawed at her. If she had two kids, and each of them brought two babies into the world and so on, within four generations she would have 64 descendants. Well, maybe the math wasn’t that neat, but roughly 64. And they’d have 64 vehicles, and 64 apartments, or condos, or worse, McMansions. She started the truck, eased it back onto the pavement as a squirrel ran halfway across the road, then doubled back. Pick a lane, buddy. There’s room for both of us. But was there? As the truck sputtered its way toward town, toward the clinic, she held her belly and wondered. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer and poet with work appearing in 100 Word Story, Bending Genres, Flash Frontier, and Best Microfiction (2026). Tracy’s poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions. She lives in Southern California, where she enjoys hiking by day and film noir by night. You can find her on Bluesky. ** How Medical Professionals Have Characterized My Left Ovary Shy, but in fairness, I too would hide from ultrasound technicians if I had the chance. Unremarkable, which was in itself remarkable: a healthy, normal ovary, surrounded yet untouched by endometriosis. Textbook, actually, but I’ve seen the photo from the surgery, and I wouldn’t shut it away inside a textbook. It belongs on the cover of a magazine, an ovarian supermodel, radiant and flawless. Laura Nagle Laura Nagle’s flash fiction and poetry have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, HAD, Ellipsis Zine, Trash Cat Lit, and the Irish-language journal Aneas. Her translations from French and Spanish include Prosper Mérimée’s 1827 hoax, Songs for the Gusle, and Adela Zamudio’s 1913 feminist novel, Confidences. ** There is No Breathe this reality in; taste the brittleness of stale air, forced on us by chicken feed companies insistent on belief. Smashing our bodies with the hammer of being the best, this is what we need. Yet, nothing is the best, not like it used to be, when mother’s ran the house, when children fell from bikes and got back up to pedal their pains away, when trees stood guard protecting us from the sun, from the governments, from this reality. She did not ask to be born, who does? Then life is made from the bun in the oven, from the idea that we are sacred, that we should respect the very people who grope and shame and fire and fight. Who shout and rage and punish and burn. Protect them, they wrote, in a book no-one bothers to understand any more. Then her legs unfold and he falls into tears, because he fears his own rules, and it is quite pathetic. The power lies within, he is too far gone to know what that means. So he loses his breath, slumps onto the bed, drops his mess to the sheets, and expires with not a single drop of regret from her eyes. If she wanted to, she could feel; she’s yet to meet anyone who deserves that. Not since... Zachary Thraves Zachary Thraves is writer, performer and Keynote Speaker – The Mental Health Detective. His poems have been published by Broken Sleep Books, Juste Millieu, Nitrogen House, Asylum Magazine and at Poetry Worth Hearing. His plays have been performed in competitions and festivals across the country; in 2023 he created a one-man fringe show exploring his experience with bipolar, and in the same year won best actor for portraying Charles Dickens. Zac also co-hosts a podcast. He lives with his partner in East Sussex. Find him on Bluesky and Instagram. ** Brave the Cave Passion It’s beyond imagination. Passion Eve was a mind-field to be sown come snake or shine Adam was a farmer to toil until the apple’s fall. Passion Odd ball Right apple Wrong couple Earthly agony rolling for heavenly harmony. Logistically impossible in this honeycomb case in point. But when your entire world gets enchanted it responds smart and can make itself fit the honeycomb myth by stripping fast from any vanity and getting back to the honeycomb divinity to capture the silence of the sounds echoing beyond biblical bounds and pressing for presence into the cosmic indifference. It only opens for lost keynotes. Like the scribbled here forsaken footnotes when you woke up a fallen angel There you are in passionate vigil: nude – sans masquerade safe – sans snake in the primordial breadth of your honeycomb cave. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA in Philology and Philosophy writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems have often been honoured by The Ekphrastic Review and its challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** Hiding in Plain Sight back in the stank recesses that are the annals of medicine dusty vestigial texts flagrantly spew atramentous bunk tainting scholarly endeavours with necrotic, stenchful muck beside the pearly suture of whorls that is the uterus conch rete ovarii quaquaversally exude aqueous riches bathing iridescent abalone ovaries with nacreous, vibrant life Lara Dolphin A descendant of immigrants, Lara Dolphin lives with her family among the Allegheny Mountains of Central Pennsylvania on the ancestral land of the Susquehannock/Iroquois people. She has written three chapbooks In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, and At Last a Valley. She, like countless others, hopes for a world filled with greater peace. ** Manual to Read Before Unboxing She stands there. The plastic woman. The unfinished woman. Her skin has no history. No liver spots. No stretch marks. No scars. She is painted beautiful because beautiful is easier than alive. Her pelvis is a threshold blue, pink, purple the colours of enclosure. But she is not permitted to emerge whenever she chooses. She is permitted to be beautiful. At thirty. At forty. Whatever age the buyer decides she is still worth keeping. When the colour fades: replace her. When the skin loosens: replace her. When the waist softens: replace her. There is always another body. Another woman who has not yet become difficult. An old woman is evidence. She has survived the age at which they wanted her most. So they put her back in the box and call it protection. And still under the paint: organs. Blood. Bone. A woman who could say: No. They can reproduce the shape. The skin. The mouth. The breasts. The waist. Not the woman who lived inside it. Beneath the plastic she is herself. Not finished. Not obedient. Not for sale. Angela Segredaki Angela Segredaki is a Greek poet. "Manual to Read Before Unboxing" was inspired by both Madelyn Roldan's painting Easy Way Out and Sylvia Plath's "The Applicant." The poem considers how the expectation that women remain desirable and seemingly ageless persists, decades after Plath wrote hers. ** Invulvement When I'm sixty-four, My pink pearl will finally Catch up with itself. Ruth S. Baker Ruth S. Baker has published in some online poetry journals. She has special love for animals and visual art. ** A Man’s Point of View As a man As a father As a grandfather Not yet a great-grandfather, Pregnancy and childbirth Remain a mystery. As a man As a father I have never considered Having a baby To be an easy way out For women. As a man As a father As a grandfather Not yet a great-grandfather, I have always admired Women Mothers Grandmothers Great-grandmothers And somewhere in the world Great-great-grandmothers. Jean Bourque Jean is from Montreal. He is the proud father of four children. He was present at all four births and remembers, as if it were yesterday, that the delivery was grueling for his wife, especially with their first child who is now 51 years old and in good health.
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