Michael T. Lawson
Because You Asked How I Could Stand Math

Michael T. Lawson - Because You Asked How I Could Stand Math

Poetry
Michael T. Lawson studied poetry and biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a PhD in the latter and fostering a love of the former. His work has been published in… Read more »
Adriana Beltrano
Hurricane Shutters

Adriana Beltrano - Hurricane Shutters

Poetry
Adriana Beltrano is a poet from Jupiter, Florida. She is pursuing her MFA in poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where she is a managing editor of the Hopkins Review. She was named a 2024-25 Jake Adam… Read more »
Tim Stobierski
Jellyfish

Tim Stobierski - Jellyfish

Poetry
Tim Stobierski writes about relationships, presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. Recent poems are published or forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Gay & Lesbian Review,… Read more »
Cammy Thomas
Lunch With My Aunt

Cammy Thomas - Lunch With My Aunt

Poetry
Cammy Thomas’s most recent book is Odysseus’ Daughter (Parkman Press, 2023), poems written in response to the Odyssey. Three previous poetry collections were published by Four Way Books. Cathedral… Read more »
Stefan Balan
Snowfall

Stefan Balan - Snowfall

Poetry
Stefan Balan is a Romanian-born American living in the Greater Boston area, where he works as an oncologist. In Romania he published one book of poetry and co-authored a volume of film criticism about… Read more »
Carson Wolfe
Strange Baby

Carson Wolfe - Strange Baby

Poetry
Carson Wolfe is a Mancunian poet and Grand Prize Winner of The Disquiet Literary Program 2024. Their work has appeared with Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, The Common, and Rattle. Their new book Coin… Read more »
Dolapo Demuren
Woo-Jin

Dolapo Demuren - Woo-Jin

Poetry
Dolapo Demuren is a Nigerian-American writer and educator from the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. He received his B.A. in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University, M.F.A. from Columbia… Read more »

Strange Baby

Carson Wolfe

He locked his doors— the guy who braked at my outstretched thumb. His name was Froggy. He drove in the opposite direction to Georgetown, is the temperature ok? he turned the radio dial, what music do you like? A white crab pearled in his headlights, he got out, knelt on its shell. I could have run at that point, but his car was air conditioned, I had nowhere to be. He pulled a rope from his back pocket, turned its pincers into its own face and bound them there. I’ll cook you dinner, he said, and lumped the salted moon onto my lap. It squirmed against my thighs, this strange baby, looking to me for a mother. I don’t eat animals, I said. It’s not an animal, he drove on in the stink of rockpool fizz. The island only has one road, I told myself we’d loop round eventually. He pulled into a hotel, abandoned mid-construction. Bare cement, windows gaping like mouths. I wouldn’t touch the crab, was grateful when he tossed it in the back. I stepped out into the evening shrill of insects. Dizzied by the delicate racket of wings rubbed together —he took out a knife and cleared a path for me to reach a secret beach. The sunset is pretty, like you, he said. Like me? I smiled. Like you, he said, down on one knee.
Read more »