Kira Stevens – Scraps From Lilith
I am dwelling in
the outside and the ambiguous;
the premise and the lantern.
This is the church I want.
The sun makes me so sad.
These flowers grow helplessly
and compulsively.
When the weeds like heads
of the hydra rip the ways we cope
open, the wreath shreds itself
and turns back
into the forest.
An atom bleeds light
and then a universe
seeps in.
Imagine the face outside of itself.
She was and was not hopeful.
Every crossroad
reveals the riddle
between the thought.
Slithering behind fallacies
and grief there are zig zags
which make up the world.
A concrete river
is crying outside
of every secret puzzle.
They are tiny graves
in a bottle.
Awareness is in the background,
at war with its reflection.
Kira Stevens is a poet and visual artist from Delaware. She earned a B.S. in psychology from the University of Maryland and an M.F.A. in creative writing poetry from The New School. Her work has appeared in Fauxmoir, Delaware Bards Poetry Review, Bullshit Lit, Cathexis Northwest Press, Open Minds Quarterly, and others. Her chapbook, "Highly Noted and other poems" was published by Lillet Press in 2021. She can be found on instagram @words4food and on Twitter @kirawritespoems
Artwork: Ifigenia by Giuseppina Brandi
Giuseppina Brandi lives in Naples, Italy, with her five-year-old son. She has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literatures, with a Dissertation on Poetry in Europe during WWI. She is currently taking a Professional Course in Literary Translation. Autodidact, she has always loved drawing and painting, and she takes inspiration from natural world and human emotions. With a great passion for poetry too, she believes in the power that art and poetry have of healing and connecting. Her artwork has been published in Black Bough Poetry edition Sound and Vision, Acropolis Journal: Issue Seven, Blue Motel Rooms Poetry and Art inspired by Joni Mitchell, The Poetica Sisterhood of Sylvia & Anne, Fever of the Mind Poetry, Art&Music: Issue 8, Cover art of the Spellbinder literary Magazine: Autumn issue 2023, Acropolis Journal: Issue Eight, Moss Puppy Magazine.