Chanter Literary and Arts Magazine — Spring 2022

Chanter Literary and Arts Magazine

c h a n t e r Spring 2022

chanter (noun): one who sings, or, the part of the bagpipe that plays a melody

Spring 2022 Macalester College Literary and Arts Magazine St. Paul, MN chanter@macalester.edu chantermagazine.com

Chanter would like to thank the following: Our generous alumni donor Professor Matt Burgess The record-breaking 114 literature submissions we received this semester Burnt microwave popcorn Alice, for evacuating during the fire alarm only after saving our copy-edits The 2007 release of the Nintendo® Wii Fit Teddy’s horny clown story (Chanter, Fall 2020) brian-rosenberg-superJumbo.jpg

Editor-in-Chief: Teddy Holt Public Relations Coordinator: Aron Smith-Donovan Literary Editor: Alice Asch Associate Literary Editors: Zoë Roos Scheuerman, Kiên Nguyễn Art Editor: Libby Sykes Associate Art Editor: Emma Nguyen Submission Managers: Lily Duquette, Kira Schukar Associate Submissions Manager: Charley Eatchel

Staff: John Bunting Zeke Cambey Colin Massoglia Tobie Schecter

Writing ~ “Every meal is breakfast” 8 Adrien Wright How to cook a grilled cheese sandwich mid-flight 9 Jordan Doi temporary aberration 10 Rachel Warshaw rum river in sepia 11 Anna Šverclová Dumpster Cyborgs (translation: Mac Squirrels) 12 Annalise Gallagher ice and frizz and bells 13 Kira Schukar DEFINE A HOPELESS ROMANTIC 14 Kiên Nguyễn A SONG IS // a contrapuntal 16 Audrey McGuinness grocery run 17 Maeve Sweeney [to be read with swinging arms and sing-song voice] CW: disordered eating 18 Lucy Clementine McNees Opal Creek 20 Shelby Kruger EXODUS 21 Krys Limin No Edits 47 Anonymous an anointing 48 Lily Duquette ode to my mother’s double yom kippur fast 49 Rachel Warshaw Solar Fragment #3 50 Rowan Stephenson Saint Paul, and other patron watersheds 51 Aron Smith-Donovan To Walden 52 Marley Craine Asphalt Bronco 53 Zoë Roos Scheuerman Visions of judas in which he is not crossed out 54 Krys Limin redneck version of the notebook 56 Anna Šverclová Buying Oranges When They Are Filled With Shrieks 57 Adrien Wright

Ode to Shaving Armpits Je souhaite que la poésie soit ma langue maternelle Transformational Drag Stars

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Madelyn Bradley

60 Charley Eatchel 61 Brett Dunn 62 Skye Newhall

Art ~ Rainbow Mountain 22 Folk in Morning 23 Winter Sky 24 Marty’s Dream 25 Toadstool 26 Snakey Wood 27 Figure Study 28 From the Body of a Pigeon 29 Soul 30 Decorations for a Dupre Dorm 31 The Branch 32 Untitled 34 mom 35 Chip Shortage 36 Remnants of My Childhood 37 “Trash Snake” 38 Cosmos 39 EleCtrIcKiTty! 40 Flowering Heart 41 bussin’ 42 Mewshido 43 Lake Goodrich 44 The Makers — a New Band 45 Evening Tuxedos, 8 and 1/2 46

Jackson Long Andrew Banker Julia Ricks Max Levandoski Jackson Long Jason Beal Alex Zhu Zara Ammar Carly Rock Jason Beal Zeke Cambey Asa Rallings El Alcalá Aaron Woida Emma Nguyen Max Levandoski Maddie Sabin Zara Ammar Julia Ricks Andy Kern John Bunting Carly Rock Andrew Banker Libby Sykes

Cover art: Cars 2 aquarelle Andy Kern

Editor’s Note At the beginning of each semester, Chanter gathers to hand-make posters with borrowed Idea Lab supplies. We sit, laughing, on the floor of our classroom in Old Main to cut and collage, to chat and work together in that quintessentially collaborative Chanter way. The posters we make are always strange. This year, though, witnessed some of the strangest and most ominous calls for submissions I have seen in my four years in Chanter. I wish I could credit this to my leadership, but I think it is really a reflection on the year we are having, and, oh, what a year! We were back in person after a year on Zoom and had to remember how this whole thing worked. Supply chain issues derailed our Fall printing, making us distribute copies on a freezing day in February instead of during our Fall launch party, which, to its own strange credit, boasted the most illustrious spread of cheese, crackers, fruit, and cake that a Chanter launch party has ever seen. The entirety of our leadership before bringing new members on was graduating seniors, which has given some of our events the frenzied quality of a man speaking into his ship’s black box before a storm brings the whole thing down, knowing his words are the only way those who come after him will know what happened there.

But it has also been a beautiful year of Chanter. I’ve seen the dedication students have to this magazine, and it has warmed and encouraged me in turn. We broke our record for number of literature submissions this spring. The underclassmen who will succeed me and my fellow graduating seniors are brilliant. I am leaving feeling immense pride for the incomparable Chanter board and staff, the incredible student artists and authors of Macalester College, and for the two gorgeous editions we have, once again, managed to pull off in the span of a year. I’ll leave you with some words of wisdom from our Spring 2022 posters: “Chanter: They paid me CASH for this BABY! And you could be next!”

Teddy Holt Editor-in-Chief 2021–2022

7

“Every meal is breakfast” Adrien Wright My voice makes it mostly home to you.

A glass glints icelight off the stoop, doors open outward and threaten this stillness, sounds shatter from three quarters of the hour— doors always everywhere sublimate into motion.

We categorically can’t not be at breakfast.

Zeno winks into the air between us, nickel and quartering.

I can’t tell you forever but halfway, tomorrow, we could get grilled sandwiches and kiss, and taste like tomato.

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How to cook a grilled cheese sandwich mid-flight Jordan Doi Emergency exit seats are key Whip out the propane and mini grill Start a small fire with propane and kitchen lighter Surround yourself with big bodyguards Have hundreds of thousands of dollars for bribery Take out two slices of bread Get your butter knife and butter and start spreading Mini grill on top of fire Let buttered bread rest on grill Halfway through, cheese it up Sizzle ‘til golden brown Boom! You’ve made yourself a grilled cheese mid-flight

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temporary aberration Rachel Warshaw after Willie O’ Winsbury The ceaseless animal of my wanting howls, hounding after you. It whimpers.

Good lord, lad, lay with me awhile, teach me how the crown is held, and hold me.

Sometimes you know in your soul where the beginning begins and the ending ends, and sometimes there is no divining to be done, simply the encircling arms, the open mouth, the eyes wide, and widening, the ballad sung, and unsung, the daughter married, and the kingly father yearning to be the daughter, have the son-in-law.

If I were woman, as I am man, I’d have you, hold you, knight you nightly, anoint you with my sword, hilt-deep, wound-wet, the cry of the little death.

10

rum river in sepia Anna Šverclová from the bridge on main // it was brown like oil // rum or old car // sooted snow // urine like // iodine // my hands underwater // yellowed // like a pint // of the world’s cheapest beer // everywhere // felt // & smelled // like river // air wet // & full of insects // in mud // covered water // thick air // hot like a gag // gnats // in my eyeballs a streak // of grey organ // the windshield // wing splat // the impact // like glue // in the backyard // swimming // through air // like jesus // the mayflies // mosquitoes the spiders // my legs // in the cornfield // covered // in bug bites // in bed // red buttons // stinging // nettles // poison // ivy slapped // skin red // raw like // burning // a moth // with a mirror // the screen // always tongued through // a desperate // insect // hung from the ceiling // on fly tape // or gallows // a cocktail // with vinegar // a hot tub // for dying // the sky red // in evening // the lampshade // my father // covered in dust // the study // floor // to ceiling // in junk mail // the wet heat // of paper // sagging // sighing // belt loops // laundry // we’ll never get through // the car yard // crimping // my chevy // for money // or swallowed more likely // the river // so hungry // we dumped // and it licked up // the sewage // a body // and no one // could tell // who it was that had drowned // maybe me // in a dream // becoming a mussel // like mouth // my body // sucking a pontoon // or maybe // an earthworm // in the grate // of a shoe // my body // will stay here // the dam // like a cauldron // brimming // with reasons // never to leave // like a tire // tracked through a rabbit

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Dumpster Cyborgs (translation: Mac Squirrels) Annalise Gallagher grapefruit serenade edible plastic for dessert glances tossed like volleyballs except there are no teams a wooly mammoth shell peeled into dirt blood on furry paws like juice from tangerines garbanzo beans, apple seeds, spray-painted chocolate chips melting in your puffed cheeks as soft as a wound sliced suction-cupped to trees while gravity sits licking its lips choking down wooden spoonfuls of uncooked rice this life may be razors to your knuckles but the taste of cinnamon butterfat that smears this expansive ground is more flavorful than any honeysuckle you will be remembered with extensive Lore, stomach kissed by all these kids tossing roses at your door.

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ice and frizz and bells Kira Schukar She looks just like me—frizzy blond hair, blue eyes like twin lakes across a narrow strip of nose.

In French class we pick new names and I take hers— as oiled as a bell toll.

I found it resounding between my Irish and Prussian ghosts— a Gaelic c squeezed into an English k over the Atlantic Ocean.

Names seized from genealogy as ripe and red as plums.

The first girl I ever liked looked just like me—twelve years old and terrified, the ski lift binding us together frostbite nipping at our skin.

I steal her name like the stars brought down and sink my teeth into its cheek— my ski slices into the ice as I chase her down the Midwest’s excuse for a mountain round and round until my feet go numb.

Her name echoes in mine like the bell tower, a reminder of my haunted syllables, those roots I can’t recognize and when I ring it out loud it dribbles over her lips like nectar like ice and frizz and bells—

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DEFINE A HOPELESS ROMANTIC Kiên Nguyễn from summer import you ‘’’ a friend once told me, not without the sway of five tequila shots, that one day, and not specified how far one day implied, even love could be automated on your front porch, caffeine-numbed, sunlight-bleached, taking turns sunscreen-ing knowing how summer yields to real life I tasted your lip one last time lavender and citrus and regret ‘’’ def aHopelessRomantic(): ‘’’in whatever metrics there are’’’ for i in love: myHeart = 50mph # or rather, a heart that once was mine myWords > ‘life’ while i == True and you == False: if None in time: break else: i = [] assert i and you in [here] return somethingBrokenRegardless

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‘’’ it might have been you or was you, or was never you a light brush of citrus in a coffee store, a snowy afternoon, in the peripheral of my fantasy I couldn’t say ‘hello’ lavender is sweet under any name but lingers more beneath the scorching sun, while faltering in the snow I strained to taste its sweetness like metal on my tongue cold and bitter, better than blood ‘’’ AssertionError: print(“we can’t be here, won’t be here, was here but never will”) ‘’’ for if it were to be machinery surely it functioned like my heart clockwork can’t match how I ran back this year, next year, whenever the sun blooms at the summit of purgatory searching for lavender, and citrus, and regret, and how I looked back and who’s to say computers are impervious to infinite loops that break, that crack well-oiled gears, screws that trail and circuits that short do bleed and yell for their host to stop ‘’’ aHopelessRomantic()

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A SONG IS // a contrapuntal Audrey McGuinness A map, unfolding as you steer through it to commit to memory the twists and turns until the decrescendos become as familiar as the lines on your palms and the dents in your fingertips are tracing melodies like neighborhood streets and forward your mail to the first note

Alive, find its breath and throw yourself into the swirls of its current and the heartbeat pulsing in your ears as if it’s your own you and the music connected by life support cables so tangled and it’s unclear who would die if you pulled the plug.

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grocery run Maeve Sweeney it was negative ten waiting for the bus groceries at my feet no gloves so my hands stayed glued to the bottom of my pockets and I saw one, two, three firetrucks pass sirens blazing, each a few minutes apart and the night was so quiet when their sound faded and the chill was so strong that when I finally got on the nearly empty bus I had the strangest feeling like I might already be dead like it might only be a matter of time before someone tapped my shoulder and told me I wasn’t going home

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[to be read with swinging arms and sing-song voice] Lucy Clementine McNees I’m to the point of wanting, almost begging that you’ll please tell me: you’re taking the out I gave you last week, you’re taking the out I gave you last week and that is the reason I’m feeling so weak: not that I have an empty stomach / full muscles / surpassing bone structure for skin.

We’re new and it’s okay— I’m impressed with how quickly [a week] you saw how I felt [too weak] Maybe you could love me another day [next week] but I know it’s too much [this week is too long to wait].

When you saw the notes with numbers on numbers you asked me to dinner, you asked me to dinner to talk.

I can’t get dinner with you.

This conversation happens when I’m skinny and starved, in happy exhaustion so I can show you feelings I’m not having.

Thank you for the week, truly, truly thank you for the weak, truly weak.

Dinner is not the place for this conversation: 100 200 300 400 counting, counting, numbers added to my eyes added to my stomach—

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GUESS WHAT I DID TODAY? I threw out a full container of yogurt! It was too full! Too full!

Too much to look at and not enough for my stomach don’t touch [my stomach] just know I’ve surpassed the bone structure that eats / my skin crawling with empty air touch is too full! touch is too full (of yogurt! of calories!) as it grazes over my hard-earned bone structure.

I promised open communication: I will never love you as much as my sore inner-elbow, you will never treat me better than my manic hatred has, I am too full!

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Opal Creek Shelby Kruger It’s July, and you’re playing Kendrick Lamar as we drive east down 22. I’ve never heard these sounds before, low bass and spoken word, jazz and funk fusion melting through the stereo. I’ve never felt so absolutely content, holding the steering wheel while your fingers twirl my hair aimlessly. We wind our way into Jefferson Wilderness, pull off near the creek and start walking. There is a five mile trail here that I’ve never finished. Each time I come, I crawl off the path through the tree line down to the water, where large stones emerge from the current like stagnant turtle shells. We lay our towels on the rocks, lock eyes before leaping in the water. The cold is penetrating, freezing, and when my head emerges you’re already halfway back to the shore. Your voice carries through the ripples Swim! Swim!

I kick as fast as I can until I reach you and am wrapped in your towel. We climb back onto a boulder and lay in its divots, let the sun dry our hair and shoulders, dripping in opal water and clementine juice, until our fingers and arms melt into the pebbles and stones. I remember the pink yellow red behind my eyelids, flaming shadows searing each moment into my mind. The absolute permanence of it.

Last year I drove back through the forest and saw the blackened tree stumps, noted the missing house a mile back that couldn’t have been saved. The passenger seat is empty, the windows rolled up, the radio off. I think of the smoke, the melting, the ashes. The absolute permanence of it.

I wonder if the spot still exists where my shoulders fit perfectly into that stone. Today I don’t pull over.

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EXODUS Krys Limin i am going on a journey. the road is unkind to me but it owes me not. i will drink from my cup of suffering i will discard my heart i will sleep no more i will look back no longer i will walk this path shoeless sustained by a sip of suffering sustained by the weightlessness of a heartless chest sustained by the rocky road, a trail of waste and blood i will bring only what i can carry. i will ask nothing at all, not even how this journey ends.

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Rainbow Mountain digital photography Jackson Long

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Folk in Morning bas-relief in butternut Andrew Banker

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Winter Sky print Julia Ricks

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Marty’s Dream felt ink pen Max Levandoski

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Toadstool digital photography Jackson Long

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Snakey Wood 2x4, dowels Jason Beal

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Figure Study charcoal Alex Zhu

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From the Body of a Pigeon acrylic, Urdu calligraphy Zara Ammar

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Soul acrylic Carly Rock

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Decorations for a Dupre Dorm glass bulb, steel rod, note Jason Beal

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The Branch ink, poetry Zeke Cambey

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A branch in a river Twists around rocks Dodging kelpy fingers And comes to rest by a small pond A beaver approaches Inspecting the small stick He takes it And breaks it in two Adding it to his home The branch rests for a moment And the heavy rains Wash it further down the river To great waters it is lost for a time Far from its home Until it is tangled in thick grasses On the banks of a river A small child picks it up Shouting with joy For he has found a magic wand Shouting gibberish and laughing He bangs it on the ground Skipping around Dusk approaches The boy goes inside The stick lays beside the river For a time Bark stripped from his side Ends broken and splintered Smiling in the nearby roots Knowing that somewhere far away His tree is still standing tall And if it saw him here It would be happy too One day he may be taken back Perhaps in another rainstorm Or in the beak of a bird He may find The comfort of his great tree

But perhaps not Perhaps it is simply enough To rest in the soft grass On the banks of a shining river If he knew the way home Maybe he would go Or maybe it has been lost this whole time The great tree broken Cracked by lightning Or cut down for a small cabin Or maybe it still stands Waiting for him And the branch may look east Or west Or up Or down And see the great tree Standing tall above some distant forest For now though The soft grass feels rather like a blanket Pleasant and warm If I knew the way I would take you home

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Untitled digital photography Asa Rallings

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mom gouache El Alcalá

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Chip Shortage collage Aaron Woida

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Remnants of My Childhood digital photography Emma Nguyen

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“Trash Snake” ink Max Levandoski

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Cosmos drypoint etching with watercolor monotype Maddie Sabin

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EleCtrIcKiTty! acrylic Zara Ammar

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Flowering Heart print Julia Ricks

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bussin’ aquarelle Andy Kern

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Mewshido graphite John Bunting

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Lake Goodrich acrylic Carly Rock

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The Makers — a New Band basswood Andrew Banker

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Evening Tuxedos, 8 and 1/2 cut paper, glue Libby Sykes

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No Edits Anonymous I’ve had people spill red ink on my words deliberately, blotting out my purposed words, and filling in the “grammar deficiencies” because God forbid I, a student in pursuit of higher education, make a mistake in someone else’s grammar.

God forbid I, a student fortunate enough to attend a PWI, write sentences that don’t fit in the colonizer’s mouth.

God forbid I, the long term tourist of this institutional melting pot, choose to use the education of my family over the education of this place.

God forbid I, a person who is guaranteed my rights, not use the word “God” even though I have no god who could forbid me. when I say no edits, I mean No Edits. leave the words that I, my mother, my father, my grandparents, and my ancestors have woven for you, and if you don’t understand, then read it again and realize that I am not speaking for you.

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an anointing Lily Duquette security to the wooden house covering the neighbor’s look tired with a cloudy gaze grace to the linoleum chair carrying the light-jacket weight of four wishes for spring balance to the redpurplebrown carpet moving to bend with bare feet to bend against volatility repose to the cave of a bed made by swallowing each ache open to all unsure of sleep

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ode to my mother’s double yom kippur fast Rachel Warshaw Each year brings new prayers I have not learned, new fast days to observe—though they never pass quickly, and I have yet to get far enough through the hunger to meet God. What would I say to the silence that lives there?

The rollercoaster operator has removed some screws, or has screwed you over, to always be descending into a battalion of losses, already at a loss: first a fast day for the book, and another for the bones, or what they contain.

How many times must you atone? How many misheberachs, Mama, do I have to tone-deaf attune myself to before I attend Yizkor conservatively, surrounded by other orphans, partial and full, and in-between?

Blessed are you, Adonai, Our God, God of Our Mothers, I wish you’d let my mother be, hineini, hineini, I am here, ripe with organs to offer up, A ram for Isaac, an eye for an eye, a gaping wound for my mother, my mother for the wound, indeed.

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Solar Fragment #3 Rowan Stephenson and my chest is full of swaying sweetgrass sawgrass beachgrass bluegrass and it seems i’m inconsolable

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Saint Paul, and other patron watersheds Aron Smith-Donovan I’m jealous of the mighty Mississippi, babe, it’s bigger than the rivers back home, even way up north here, where its impotence is unseemly relative to further south.

The Christina, that blue-grey-green-grey not-beast runs past the bus lot and the movie theater, and I could pretend it touches the ocean, I could lie and grin and say, no!— the river I sprouted under sure doesn’t stop short and feed the hungry Delaware, greed of Washington’s ghost, gaining— but the Mississippi is a king!

Each time I drive along the Hudson I imagine I am someone from a brimming sort of city with a bigger river and niftier rocks, blessed backwoods and barge boons— I could swim the Schuylkill, yes, my righteous rivers twist tongues, Potomac to Sassafras, Youghiogheny to Susquehanna— better yet, imagine me, the good-for-nothing river-chaser: coasting cruisers down bus-banned Lake Shore Drive, I drink Lake Michigan down with whiskey and an orange rind, take over Massachusetts Bay and the Cape and be the sea salt prince of Provincetown, twist the PCH beneath me and I’ll soak the whole Pacific— give me open water, fresh or salted both, drown the seaboard, soak it down, give me brackish-bay blood and ruddy-creek cheeks, sodden soil and its sopping sainthoods; Old Man River doesn’t scare me anymore.

If I were honest for a second, I’d say I’ve only been close once: summer before last, scorching August, steaming sweat, and big Mississippi green and blooming on the banks— I hope it freezes over, same as storm drains on the street-side with the ice and underflow, trodden tributary with a sluggish sort of silence.

My river, way back east, she almost never freezes, though it’s not by any virtue, simply lucklessness of southbound.

Cramped creeks roundabout that mid-Atlantic city-town, where the level ground obliges the water-run to slow, in the heat are stiff and stagnant where the insects like to breed.

Though it’s always been that riverfront: old Christina, bugs, and me.

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To Walden Marley Craine It’s like nothing has changed, except now Walden Pond closes at four-thirty instead of eight, my hair is curlier, the trees are naked, my car’s tires need air, and your dad is dying.

The calendar in my bedroom has been stuck at August since I left, like everything just paused, and I refuse to even touch it. My walls are still so blush pink, my muscles remember how to climb rickety attic bedroom stairs, and my feet still know how to balance clutch with gas.

So I’ll tell you to come with me to Walden, since it’s beautiful there in August, but I take one look at you and remember it’s November and I want to run home and rip my calendar to the ground. There’s nothing to do here except talk about it but we won’t.

The pond will hum as it does, and we’ll listen to it, and we’ll see the people pass and watch the man in the wetsuit swim. Your phone ringer is on and your eyes droop a little—they gleam under summer light but fade against this autumn gray and I take 117 home quickly but not one mile above the limit.

Your dad has tickets to see The Nutcracker tonight but he’ll probably be too tired. Last August he had season tickets to the Red Sox and went to all the games. Some people say ballet and baseball are similar but I don’t see it. It’s like nothing is the same at all.

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Asphalt Bronco Zoë Roos Scheuerman This is it: rocketing through the golden hour, hugging the highway’s curves like a lover’s. I can’t see over the crest of the next hill. Maybe there isn’t anything on the other side of this millisecond, and we’re about to go careening off the edge of the Earth. Every bend suggests a new warp in the spaces between the trees: First comes a deer so dark that it looks like an absence with too many rows of teeth. Then, a person, or maybe two people, or something else with four legs. After the sun dies, they will all come out to play chicken with the cars on the highway, daring late-night truckers and weekend warriors and eager, bored teenagers going down to the lake for smoking and skinny dipping. A bobcat is astute enough to look both ways before darting across the highway. Is its heart in its mouth the same way mine would be? A few more dips and twists in the labyrinth, and I see a possum that wasn’t as clever.

Another blind spot, another turn, and— BAM. The trees disappear, the earth crumbles away, and my line of sight cracks open like an egg. The lake churns beneath us, and I tread this tightrope of a bridge as well as I can. A murder of crows feasting on the shoulder shrieks and blossoms into a cloud the same color as the smoke billowing over Gary.

These are the places where I love this town: on its rim, by the cavernous water and the endless, uncharted woods that we all know are hiding bodies. In the sunset, where everything glows like a bonfire behind one of the little churches near your (my old) high school.

Let me be clear: This is not a homecoming. I mean, when the red-tailed hawks migrate, which end of the journey do they call home? I can list the serpents swimming beneath us—cottonmouth, copperhead, timber rattler—but when you tell me about people you know, I don’t recognize their names anymore. I don’t recognize my old self.

Or the old could-have-beens.

A girl went into the woods, and the coyotes took her in. A girl walked out of the woods, and she flew north to live under snowflakes and streetlights. There is no other future.

Reluctantly, I turn back toward our parents’ house. The speed limit climbs. I put a little more pressure on the gas pedal, and the car rattles like a dying man.

Tree bark is not a headstone; the names will not stay. Ink the oak between your shoulders, and that won’t stay, either.

It’s sunset, finally. The swelling scarlet reminds me of fall leaves in a colder climate.

The warmth of streetlamps does not replace the warmth of other stars. Climb to the tallest branches, and you can touch the nearest sun.

Finally, gravel crunches under car wheels like a million dry exoskeletons. In the backyard, fireflies blink like tiny radio towers.

Scarlet is also a door. It used to be a different color, but I was too young to remember.

You can’t retrace your steps back down.

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Visions of judas in which he is not crossed out Krys Limin i. judas does not have drones or planes or a hang-ing tree. he only has his body; so he

explodes.

the gore is not like tears in the rain it is blood, distinguishable it is the stench of a pocketed cigarette butt on a street in london, singed and acrid, everlasting un-un-do-ab-le. the crowd lies beneath it; there are burns, where there shouldn’t be burns. his mother picks a splattering of his brain from her hair, there are no dental records to identify him; this is what she will remember. judas is haunted and haunter both. i gave you salvation, he thinks, i kissed My Love goodbye and let Him save the world.

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(there were no bins to dispose of it),

betraying Jesus was the worst thing he ever did, and the silver pieces bought the Shittiest Piece of Land he’s ever owned. i should have let you all burn in hell.

I Should Burn in Hell. ii. judas buys a piece of land with the tallest tree, the quickest death, with a neck that Snaps

just like that. his body bursts on the roots below. he has moved the pain somewhere it can’t touch anyone else. his

not directly, at least. his mother still weeps, his father still curses the day he did not hug son

goodbye. judas protests at the gates of Hell, she didn’t pick my brains out of her hair, at least give me that. the Devil was made not for giving mercy, but for justice; “she still looked at your dental records, o son of the mourning.”

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redneck version of the notebook Anna Šverclová black & mild snuffed face-first to the concrete fists in the back lot of the high school the bag of ket the acid, fake acid, snow, he has his hands on whatever he can get his hands on: my cheeks slapped pink from svedka out the bottle in the bed of the truck, lifted, meaning his dick must be huge, I feel it against my thigh & it’s midnight & I’ve never seen such a full moon as this over the river, rum, & I trust the liquor to warm to a fever & I am always the one saying sorry in situations like these

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Buying Oranges When They Are Filled With Shrieks Adrien Wright After Christopher Citro My therapist says I will need therapy the rest of my life, which feels more like a business model than a forecast.

I am good at some things and bad at others.

This costs money and seems apparent, like some people are good at cartwheels and others are not good at cartwheels, like I am not good at loving people who know how to love me, balancing life and work constructively.

I spread my arms again, wrench fingers of work up to the gathering clouds, fresh feels dirty on my tongue again because I’m not versed in ripen points: me or fruit or you or fruit, the part where the bottom of the basket starts to groan. It’s a business model.

They put the milk and eggs in the back so you have to walk past everything else.

The verse sounds a little different again, like you made me fill to the point of acid maybe, made me want you to be well, both building something, (a perversion about perversion maybe).

It’s the pile of hardware receipts on the floor.

It’s watching us stringed and pulped. It’s you because I need to feel good at something again or need to work my hands dirty in something again, I’ll meteorologize, say, at overhead lights, guess at when the wrench might come in handy for the rest of my life.

No one in this supermarket has noticed I’m already full.

If they asked me to do a cartwheel I would have to say No, I cannot balance life and work constructively, this blows me off course, I would drop this basket of oranges I am carrying, I would want to, but could not stop them from rolling to the planted parts of someone else.

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Ode to Shaving Armpits Madelyn Bradley I brush a finger over my skin my secret prickles lined with sweat tickling the pad of my finger God damn i need to shave the pits i feel rank stepping into the shower gross & imperfect soft skin marred by stubby black weeds urging me into a rush of water my hands slip the soap crashes jeez i chase the soap around the bottom of the shower my armpits are patient the soap evades my grasp finally. i stand under a torrent my arm raised to the sky asking the question the same one, always, do i have to? i guess not but i can’t not weeds keep growing

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sprouting new shoots as constant as the tides my compulsion to shave my pits 5 or 6 careless cuts done. falling from its root spiraling way headless weeds now lurk beneath the skin waiting i emerge dripping tank tops replace t-shirts and my confidence sprouts from the hairs’ nipped buds temporarily my body feels lighter on the earth 3 more days or 4 till i’m scrambling for the shower but would the world sour if i let the pit hair flower

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Je souhaite que la poésie soit ma langue maternelle Charley Eatchel Let my tongue live lyrically Sew sonnets and psalms Not phonic facsimiles of faith furieux Find me at an altar of spilled-ink baptisms Drinking first-verse communion Pleading pentamic prayers— Mon Dieu, let my fast-phrased fluency frenzy Into cutting couplets Count these hallowed blessings Pouring from my pen-tipped pilgrim lips Let my mind sing stanzas Instead of this folie à deux Twitching, codeswitching, twisted tongue Tying gnarled knots Half-formed and fraying Stumbling, clumsy through my stilted jaw Un cauchemar of complicated cadences Words atrophying under accented pressure Pressing poison in the name of poetry Trading saintly syntax for my infantile expression A detached impression de mon cœur Further testing my grammar’s grit, my vocabulary’s vigor Figure, what’s the point of soiled speech?

To hell with what my Devil may write In that demonic tongue The snake profanes le paradis, says Silence saves the sinner Unless there’s something in the sin Unless there’s value in the vitriol of a pagan poet If my novice fumblings can find root in pious pews Then, my soul will spit my muted meters My rotted refrains and impure iambs Sip le vin, l’amour, et la vie From my misshaped handmade cup And keep trying, aspiring To speak sweetly In a language Not made for my mortal mouth

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Transformational Drag Brett Dunn Inhale— A burning tingles my lungs.

I bear the wince, this feeling is familiar.

Perhaps it is all I have known.

Through the thinning smoke in the garage of the only home I know, light rays stab between thick cobwebs and encrusted dirt splotches of the miniscule window pane overhead.

There you are; in the only spot it seems you are when you are not away, lighting one more hour off your life.

A friend said I look like you.

The bathroom sink scatters shaven stubble, my hair tones darker every year, my height remains in place.

There you are; as we make eye contact through the reflection.

Exhale— the awful comfort of this awful scent and this awful feeling smothers me with the smudge of a sole.

I am no longer the one who exhales.

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Stars Skye Newhall Beasts, more than one in number, licked the last sweet bit of Soft Moon Music and spirited away into the Silence.

Clever Creatures.

How empty the world if they vanished for good.

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Chanter Literary and Arts Magazine

c h a n t e r Spring 2022