Finding Deepstaria

I found her in the rust climbing over shower tiles, red-brown on sea-green. She began as spots, then shapes—a rabbit? A snail? A man, then a woman. She was a mermaid with me for five years, singing pirate songs of lost souls in fishbowls and other Pink things; then she grew out of her skin, became an unnamed creature, alive without lines, her hair like fire. Now only one wisp of her tail holds on to the faucet, for me. She floats free in the glossy turquoise beyond, laughing above the rusty piles of what she used to be.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook Bhagat’s poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and humor have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror Magazine, Harbinger Asylum, Little India, Rat’s Ass Review, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and other journals and anthologies. She and her husband Gaurav created Blue Planet Journal, which she edits and writes for. She holds an MFA from Lindenwood University, is an assistant professor of English at a community college, and is writing a novel. Her poetry collection, Only Flying, is due out Nov. 16, 2021 from Unsolicited Press. See more at brook-bhagat.com.

The Importance Of Listening

I went on my own because I couldn't get anyone to come with me. What had once been an orchard was now a graveyard for old tires, sprung mattresses, rusty paint cans, even broken microwaves, scattered over the slope like the indecipherable wreckage of some puzzling event. The trees, untended for years, had long since stopped producing apples and been twisted into painful shapes by time and storms and then overwhelmed by creeper vines and opportunistic birds and insects. I just stood with my head cocked to one side as if trying to catch every single word the crows said.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie co-edits the journals UnLost and Unbroken.