elementia

Sonatas for Diana

By Marisa Oishi

New

We wake up and feel the absence of warmth.

*** 
Waxing Crescent

Slowly now, we embrace
the blossoming light all around.
Was sleep an absence
from the world, or an immersion
in it? Eyes open, the lights
offer us their hands.


on watching a jellyfish cam in a dark room

By Caroline Stickney

i watch jellyfish billow on the screen like souls floating across skies, their bells blooming as gracefully as bloodstains in bath water, and i reach through the pixels toward some form of salvation, some return that promises in the next life i’ll be something softer, something expansive, wounds


to the crab nebula and back

By Anonymous

I vividly remember
the rough feel of my closet’s carpeting beneath my fingers
as they traced lines and circles and stars
like the ones that filled the sky that night.


Silver

By Anonymous

in girl scouts, they teach you sayings
ones you sing around the campfire
they’re supposed to teach lessons
“make new friends but keep the old
one is silver and the other is gold”
except no one remembers the silver
the second-place trophy
the insignificant