Eunoia Review

My father has always been my father. I could say his name, but it would echo back to me, reverberate in the night. The fire grows in the woods. It will consume. I will not keep silent in the deep bluedark. Instead, I eye the stars, hold memory close, hold my dying mother closer. Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Arts Center, 2021) and Apocalypse Rainbow (Rockwood Press,…

I suture you back together, unfail the begonias, unmake your shame, reverse your fall, get you off that roof, undo your heartbreak that repeated your whole life. I alive you. Resurrection, at a cost. Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Arts Center, 2021) and Apocalypse Rainbow (Rockwood Press, 2026). She is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry and lives…

My wife makes me some roasted corns and bush pears since they are now prayer requests. In the kitchen, the kettle on the stove rattles like the train track’s throat. My wife glues her eyes to her phone, looking up bone straight hair. Relaxed. On the phone, my father asks me about America. I squeeze my reply into the phone. Not long after, a fly hovers over my corn. I swat it, slaying the…

will you hold my face in the cup of your hand one last time by the river where we met. i need nothing more or less. Greg Wood is a southern cosmopolitan poet with roots in Virginia and connections to Alabama and Amman, Jordan. He has recently been featured in Dodging the Rain, Amethyst Review, and The Lake, among others. Next July, his poem about an Amish woman in the Shenandoah will be printed…

clumped with birch leaves and bark                on the surface of our pond, neck unfurled                                                    over the edge of a lily pad. My bare feet                            slip-slick on water             droplets in the grass, the wet clover                                                             clings. Clinging to my knees, I imagine…

the nurse led me down a corridor still smelling of disinfectant and lilies. somewhere, a drawer shut on a name. i said yours under my breath, but the syllables slid like marbles. there was a window. i remember it. outside, marigolds curled black in the sun, their stems bent, refusing resurrection. i thought of your shoes by the door, hollow vessels, waiting for a pulse. in my chest, the hymnbook…

My father, resilient like ice, aware when he is turned upside down. Not bothered by disorientation, always recovers and flips himself up right. Seeing him, you’d never know what he’s lost. The heaviness he carries— took his mother twenty-one years to say, I love you. His love dissolved by the sun. He holds these tight, shuts me out to stay comfortable, only hugs for show. He comes from…

            jumping the banks of the river, the sky flutters overhead like it knows something I don’t. Like             loveliness is something you can pick up and swallow, like we only ever open up from outside -in. Woke up this morning and realized I was in love             with you. Sorry, sorry for waiting to hear your voice over the phone when I should’ve just called. Sorry             for…

morning came gently through the window broke the silence awake and stirred us into existence we are repeating / regressing your bangle in my bedroom found thrown upon the floor an unspoken reminder i don’t wish you to leave i just want you to stay burn inside it will hurt at first but there must be reparations if we are to continue because we’ve been here before we’ve done the stations of the…

In the gap between fluid air and still water spirit lamps light the way down disused paths Alan Catlin has some new books out including Work Anxiety Poems (Roadhouse Press) and Still Life with Apocalypse (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions).

Bodies without features hand and arms turned to water legs thin as ice a river flows beneath Alan Catlin has some new books out including Work Anxiety Poems (Roadhouse Press) and Still Life with Apocalypse (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions).

There is a substitute for everything. Seven dead zinnias in a windowbox. Condensation on a dirty pane. I crave the last drop, unadorned, opening directly into the sacred. Hallways we travel night-blind until, somehow, we know the sky outside is dotted with grackles. Jim Zola is a poet and photo artist living in North Carolina. Several of his books are available on Amazon.

I have a jacket with pockets like dark envelopes I fill with letters. This one tells about my kids, who ride broken bicycles forever through the night. Another explains why I walk with eyes downcast, in search of shiny things, how alike we are. I’ve had enough of me. Someday I’ll empty each deep pocket. Jim Zola is a poet and photo artist living in North Carolina. Several of his books are…

You sleep alone. Something above the ceiling answers to its own hours. You arch your back because no one’s watching. The scars thrum. One foot out, toes bite at the cold. The room holds still. Your breath goes up first. Then your ribs, one by one. Then your last scraps of pride. The corners are furred with dust. You play skeleton until the body turns traitor. Nothing blesses you. The body…

I live in a cyclone that stopped spinning years ago.             Everything is dissident             and chilled, a long morning that never             ends.                         Napping in the abyss. I’m just                         waiting for my frozen pizza                         to be done. You can’t fight city hall, and I’m too old to be building killdozers.             I used to run…

We used to think talent had something to do with how quick you could die. The truth is, it’s how long you can keep from swinging after everybody starts talking about your early work. Have you read my early work? Artists die for such dumb reasons. Lack of affordable mental health care. Murdered by jealous fans/ lovers/self. How many of them even know how to swim, when they’ve got a pool right…

So much is written on the mirror’s surface to be read back in steam, I suppose, if at all. I prefer something with a little plot. I’ve been guilty of wincing at myself plenty of times, and telling everyone who couldn’t get away all about it, but I don’t pretend the hearts I’ve drawn will survive a good cleaning. I wonder what it’s like for them when they come out of the bathroom, that cave of…