MaKenna Sweeney
Twist Cookies
MaKenna Sweeney
Twist Cookies Nowhere near Christmas time,
April in Florida, where the humid,
hot sun leaks through the windows.
The freezer cold dough sticks to our hands,
reminiscent of the winter cold in Connecticut
weighing on our hearts, heavy in our minds.
We braid the dough, weaving in memories
and mourning
with each sugar coated strand.
Each plait is a reminder,
no one can make them quite as they were meant to,
twisted with love by our grandmother’s hands.
When the glass mixing bowl clatters to floor
and our cookies are just short of perfect,
my sister, the culprit, says it’s a sign:
Babci agrees.
Natalia Maria DeLeon/Acrylic
Untilted Oil
Monroe Standish
My Body is a Temple
A pool of mercury gurgles in my guts.
Where my heart once beat now a stone settles,
Sand in my shoulders and mud on my eyes.
And in my skull, the heaviest of all –
My own thoughts.
They growl between my ears,
Crawling over one another to be heard.
A churning mass untamed and unsatisfied.
For every blink, a new one born screaming.
Through the cries I crumple on silken sheets.
My corpse is a temple for millions.