Some say no one can predict the rain.

In every interval is an archive,
or a revolved named after a snake
you notice only when you look away.

Of God’s determination to keep quiet,
it’s the garden spider who eats her mistakes.

That bird I thought was an insect was a bird
watching you being then, just then:
the surface pines and a damp June wind.

Bell-skirted, ruffled, pouf-sleeved
I overthink therefore I overam
this tempered halt,
its alien script across the sky,
the version of me you love is only
patched.

Unfilled wolf,
take yourself out of some context, an A sharp as
piecework.

Night:
come back.

I just like having someone there in the dark
and confetti, with torn moonlit
spinnerets,
shivering.

[Laura Sabbott Ross, Makalini Bandele, Hailey Leithauser, James Davis May, Eric McHenry, Traci Brimhall, Alessandra Lynch, Robin Myers, Emma Hine, Anya Silver, Eric McHenry, Robin Myer, T. J. McElmore, Emma Hine, Bobby C. Rogers,, Hailey Leithauser, Makalini Bandele, Bobby C. Rogers, Gina Franco, Bobby C. Rogers, Michael Bazzett, Hailey Leithauser, Amit Majmudar, Robin Myer]

This is a part of a series of centos in tribute to lit mags I have to give away for lack of space. I wanted to imagine these poets in a room (though not limited to a stanza) and put the poems in each issue in dialogue with one another as a way to save what touched me. Formally, for the most part, I have kept the poets’ original line breaks.

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