Waiting for the ultraviolet

to cover all my scars

I kissed you so hard,

just as my lips began to crack

It wasn’t that hard

to sit beneath the willow

With your fingers connecting

every freckle on my back

Maybe the lucky break I'll catch

is in a different lifetime

The one where all our stars

return back to your shrine

In this reality,

all my mirrors are shattered

But lover, you were the one

who poured the sweet wine

Claire Shalhope is an emerging poet, creative writer, and artist in Denver, Colorado. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English with a minor in History at Southern New Hampshire University. Her work is profoundly shaped by embracing being a femme lesbian, her queer friendships, and her love for creating community. You can find her other work in the literary magazine The Green Blotter ‘25.

Bonnard, it was said, painted from memory.

The bluish-brackish brightness

of a spoiled morning – or was it a winter’s

afternoon? catches on

Marthe’s chair de poule just as well

as another woman’s

and the fact of this, somehow,

does not lessen one

or the other.

Marthe/Not-Marthe runs circles around me,

the blood rushing to her cheeks

from a small death just before

or a funny joke going over my head.

What a callous thing to be –

an intimist

to make me think of things

like that, in the twentieth century

wing, and marry them with the spots

in my vision from its faulty,

still-wanting light.

Margot Guilhot Delsoldato is a French-Italian writer and filmmaker from Parma. Currently, she is doing an M.Phil. in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin. She writes short stories, creative non-fiction and the odd poem. She hopes for her writing to stick to the back of your teeth like a piece of toffee, or to make you feel less alone.

Arjan Lushi writes poetry and fiction focused on memory, longing, and the blurred lines between self-myth and truth. He is based in Kosovo.