Sunday Best

he blows dandelions for his babies in the corner store parking lot
in their Sunday best, following this morning’s sermon
their wishes scatter across the asphalt
with brown paper bags and losing lotto tickets
the chase is on, giggles of giants, tripping over one another as they dash
to catch clusters of dreams daddy makes for them
more daddy, more, they plead

Mother Tongue

Five-month me with my third
chatting with my belly over breakfast
out of the corner of my eye
saw my mother-in-law stare
smiled softly to invite her over
I wish I knew to do that
a tear from her wrinkled cheek
talk to my children when they were inside

Late December in DC

this is how you leave me
late December DC
I chop off all my hair
paint my lips certainly red number 740
let strangers photograph me
posing on barstools
balance stilettos on sticky dive bar floors
this is how you go
with a promise
this time, not to come back
months go by as evidence
no late night calls
slurred voicemails
no Sunday morning invite
to watch the latest foreign film at AFI
no offer to make reservations
restaurants I always feel uncomfortable in
(the kind with multiple forks and expensive wine lists)
this is how you say
I can’t do you anymore
you, get sober
I, last call our spots
this is how I pretend
surround myself people
ten years younger
drink Merlot by the box
smoke Marlboro reds by the carton
sit alone after everyone has gone

You Can Run

you can rent a uhaul
drive 1,615 miles
five month old
buckled in his car seat
leave behind family
heirlooms in daddy’s garage
only home
you ever knew rearview
state signs fly by
welcome to Louisiana,
Alabama, Tennessee
start using the name daddy chose
one you didn’t answer to
when classmates giggled
when you wished your name
was Sarah or Anne
you can straighten brown curls
make you look like mom
oceans humidity far behind
swap Marlboro reds for lights
finally walk where you are going
you can go back to school
work all day, study all night
get accepted to grad school
turn down time off even
after mom gets a stage four diagnosis
you can have more children
buy a townhouse in the suburbs
a minivan too
you can forget names
streets you grew up on
visit less after mom dies
not at all after grandmas gone
you can run
but eventually
it will catch up

Azalea Aguilar is an emerging Chicana poet from South Texas, where the scent of the gulf and memories of childhood linger in her work. Her poetry delves into the complexities of motherhood, echoes of childhood trauma, and the resilience found in spaces shaped by addiction and survival. She writes to honor the past, give voice to the unspoken, and carve tenderness from the raw edges of experience. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Angel City Review, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Acentos Review, and Somos en Escrito. She has been featured at events hosted by the American Poetry Museum in DC and is currently crafting her first manuscript, a collection exploring the intersections of love, loss, and lineage.

Image: Dougtone, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

God Was Hiding

Faith cannot be held as an old grey hand
Nor as a breath to put voice to prayer
In faith I rendered a final exchange
And faced a dying bed for my refrain
I asked to be spared of this tragedy
To find peace and solace in calamity
I prayed to hear my name spoken by him
But there was no god out there to liste

The end owes resemblance to beginnings
As I earned the resemblance of my son
The crown emerged from beyond the curtain
Until the labor bore a perfect child
By then I stopped wasting breath to pray
Instead to watch the first breath of new life
And held the perfect child in my own arms
Sure there was no god out there to listen

Now I recognize the price of his laws
The end is coming true as beginnings
The labor in waiting felt just the same
An unseen portal drank the spirit veil
Until the first of final breaths did take
Hours until the breathing subsided
The body became a clever facade
Old grey hands with the trace warmth of life lived
Yet the spirit had departed from it
There was no god out there to account to

There is only the god that we could amount to:
Each labored breath will end as it began
Each perfect child is owed their old grey hands
Each being held in young hands at the end
Each mouth should be fed where there is hunger
Each body should be clothed where flesh made cold
And each and every prayer should be answered

All this time there was no god that listens
That coward was always hiding in us
As we searched for a god of resemblance
To deny our resemblance to each other
Prayer has always been a call to action
That all this time we went on ignoring
With avoidable insularity
The god and the self viewed with clarity
That all this time we were god and its creation: a singularity

Daniel Cano was born and raised in Mormon-centric Utah County in the State of Utah. He departed from his former faith as a teenager and has taken the position of an involved agnostic atheist with clear Christian cultural influences that appear in his writings. He is of mixed heritage with some part of that heritage being attributable to Native Interior Mexico. His poems explore themes of Apostasy, grief, reconciling religious experiences with the bleakness of reality, the search for belonging in pedigree and the erasure of native ancestry.

Image: Mike LoCascio, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Quarry

The sun looks higher here by the quarry

Daylight savings a forgotten grumble
for the sleep-deprived days of yestermonth.

The time is truly 6:49, but soon the
biddies and the babies will start winding down in their copy-paste townhouses

architecturally distinct from the rowhomes of the city to which they rarely venture
short of a here-and-there First Friday
and maybe an O’s game.

I’ll be awake for a while now,
investing these savings so I have
more to spare come November.

The Redwoods of New York City

There are many sights to see on this lovely planet.
There are many Jeeps to take on this safari.

In this terrain, where chromosomes are spelled with twigs
and plumbing systems blossom the grandest of edifices

a steel beam erects from cement
its daunting burnished bole dappling the concrete below
for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.

Jenna Cipolloni is a poet and filmmaker who works in Washington, DC and Arlington, VA. Their words have appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, Steel Jackdaw, the 2025 Georgetown University Writing Climate Symposium, and their self-published zine “School Nights,” whose poetry was featured in Gallery 220’s “Whispers of Longing” exhibition in Havre de Grace, MD. In 2024 Jenna was a prelim judge at the Womxn of the World Poetry Slam and served on the committee to select Maryland’s poet laureate. They can be found at open mics across the Mid-Atlantic.

Image: Hollowayvideo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons