lake michigan, two feet under
madeline lauver

​       Eyes flit open, tears mixing instant with water.
                      I make a magic pupil potion, it flows

        around my face as I spin alone in warm waves.
                        Silver fishes weave between my legs

           as I look up, seeing the sun through the lake.
                                  I love a sweet morning. I love

 thinking that because I am in the water, I am more
                                                         fluid than most.

contortions in blue
jonathan fischer​

worth
madeline lauver

​Our claws are only keratin, but we love them as gold, and I won’t lie and say we don’t still love
gold. Gold like the evening screaming for dusk; we love it in the murk, in the sunset hidden by
the storm, in the times when negative space is thicker than its pot. We’ve said I love you in that
muddied air;  we’ve touched our clawtips to your fleshes;  we’ve filled up with water and blood
and  spit  and pretended to be real;  we’ve found the recipe for  normalcy and,  my lord,  we’ve
dissected it. We’re still arranging the teeth and hairs and other diatoms;  soon we’ll have a mask
to hide behind;  we’ll shrink to the size of a pinhead and then we’ll look the same as you. We’ll
crack  off our beak  and smile wide with our new jewels and  our arms will wave a cry of hello,
how are you  still believing that you’re free, you’ll think that I am right, and I am you, and I am
just one thing.

Madeline Lauver is a poet and documentary filmmaker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently based in Germany. Her work has been published in The Cauldron and Cellar Door. Madeline's creative interests include multimedia poetry, anti-binary thought, and lakes.

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​Jonathan Fischer is a poet, artist, and writer from New Jersey. Jonathan writes short stories, poetry, nonfiction, and dabbles in other forms of literary experimentation. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Orphans, Futures Trading Lit Magazine, The Chiron Review, Driftwood Press, and others.