Tanner Barnes 

Florida State University

Dip Can Doozy
My father always dipped into a Coke can, and although no one 
ever saw him nab one out of the fridge, pop its top, and guzzle 
at its rim, he always had one on him, opened, ready to go, ready 
to welcome that warm brown pulp he would plop out. Before 

the divorce and the repeat marriage and the second, quieter divorce, 
Mom would occasionally grab the can, full palm, not noticing 
the warmth that grew from the day’s spit, and take a sip. She 
would make this face, like she’d bit deep into an overripe lemon, 
then spew until she was dry. She never learned, always crawling 
back into that bed, black-eyed, under the covers she went. Until 

one day she stopped. She held no prayers for a visit from Jesus 
or Buddha to show her a passage. That single-wide trailer 
lacked air-conditioning or a savior. She waited and plotted, 
sweating sweet bulbs of fear-tinged excitement, knowing 
the end was coming. Plans had been planned, years of pacing 
divots in the linoleum had reached their peak. He laid out 
in the La-z-Boy. He held on tight, red-palmed, chewing on Z’s 
and Copenhagen. She ran out, a 5’1” woman holding two 
bowling ball-esque kids under her arms, making her exit 
through a cut screen door. And like that, 

Gone was the scent of dip dribbling out of a lower lip, 
Gone was the dangling bit caught in his beard, 
Gone was the red Coke can. 

She didn’t have to wonder if her next drink would cause protest 
in her gut. She drank greedy gulps, leaving behind empty red 
cylinders on every piece of furniture as if they were neon floodlights 
placed around every corner to help you find your way across 
the room at night. When you heard the clatter of aluminum 
meeting tile, it meant she was going to the fridge for another. 

When she got better, she bagged them up, crushed heel first, felt 
the crumble. Each one a nickel. They could be cleaned out, 
iodined, bleached, hang-dried, heated, re-cylindered, and relabeled. 
Filled back up with that lovely juice made of soda water, caffeine, 
and cane syrup, the lip of the can a ready kiss, planted on the lips 
of my father as he pulled it in, arm crooked towards his chest, 
like a place a lover used to run her hand over in bed,
touched again by a stranger by accident.

​
                  Under the Mosquito Lamp

I would wait, sipping on a screwdriver, for your silver Jetta 
to pull up my driveway on the south side of Tallahassee.
It was never a question of how you’d been or if I’d kept 
clean in your absence but a hushed silence as we rushed
into the closed-door click of my bedroom. We would 
tuck ourselves under the blankets of the bed too small 
for two until Sunday came up on us, and you would leave 
again. I thought of a family. I heard baby feet clicking 
on linoleum in a run-down apartment. I ate dinner 
with your family on one of the three times I drove to you. 
I watched how your father chewed, a deceitful bite carving 
chunks of the chicken he’d cooked. I kept quiet, fingering
my calculator to figure up the wealth in your halls, 
from vases to wine bottles. You always had the best gin. 

I was hole-in-sneakers poor when we met; in some ways 
I still am. But I think you liked that. I was always happy 
with nothing, a few poems, some cheap liquor, Scrabble, 
or a puzzle. Nothing had to be crazy. But we fought too often. 
Your father’s bite hid behind your slurred sighs, and words 
were the chunks of chicken you used against my shoulders.
I caught some, threw a few back at you, staining fifty-dollar
shirts and party-favor jackets. But if you, in that blue dress, 
hair tucked up behind your face, bouncing with each step, 
came to me today, asking for coffee or a walk through a rich 
neighborhood, I would half-crack my back and go ahead with it, 
hear what words you’ve got, maybe give you back some of the things 
you left. The first time we met, clinging to chain-link in a park at two 
as the cops asked for our ID’s, your cheeks glowing red then blue, 
we kissed, drunk and concussed in my brother’s backyard.
You can have the truth, April, every bit, I don’t want it.
Tanner Barnes is a senior English major at Florida State University. He has been ripping his hair out and stress-eating a lot as a result of preparing graduate school applications and witnessing Hurricane Michael plow his home town into the ground. His recent poetic inspirations are Kaveh Akbar, Philip Levine, and Barbara Hamby. One of his poems will soon appear in Oakland Arts Review.
Boy2Girl
by Jessica Meng

Carnegie Mellon University
I miss your golden locks cascading down
your back, like waterfalls of caramel syrup,
where my hands are the two scoops of vanilla
ice cream, slowly melting against you.
I don’t miss your shrills ringing in my ears
as you pushed my hands away, a mask
of distress consuming your fragile face,
frosted eyes sprinkled with anger.
I miss sitting on our couch together,
how your manifesting chocolate roots feather
against my neck, how our words dissolve
into the tranquil air as we lose ourselves.
I don’t miss that night on involuntary repeat
in my mind, when I planned to make you mine
forever, but ended up dropping to my knees
as I watched you turn on your cherry heel.
Jessica Meng was born in San Ramon, California and currently attends Carnegie Mellon University, studying Electrical and Computer Engineering and Creative Writing. While she loves working the technical side of her brain with STEM-related subjects, she also very much enjoys being able to express her creative side through poetry and writing. Her freshman-year professor, Jim Daniels, inspired and fostered her relatively new passion for writing. Her favorite writer is F. Scott Fitzgerald, who penned her favorite book, ​The Great Gatsby.
The Faded Photo
by Dustin Synan

Clarion University
I stare at the faded photo, 
black and white. 
There’s my grandfather, 
frozen in time,
in gray-scale tones, 
arm around his girl,
ready to leave in a crisp
uniform and cap for the skies 
above Nazi-occupied Europe. 
He manned the guns of a B17.
It rained ruin on the goose-stepping
fascists below, their factories
and strongholds reduced to rubble,
the way a child would scatter blocks.
His plane was shot down 
and they broke his back, 
locked him up, and 
made him march 
away from rescue. 
He eventually returned home 
and began to fade, 
like that picture of him. 
He had kids who remembered
the man but not the lesson
​he learned in war.
And when ghosts of his old foes stir 
from their graves, 
they do not stand. 
Dustin Synan is a bearded nerd and unashamed hipster currently working on his English degree through Clarion University's excellent online program. He enjoys Dungeons and Dragons gaming, model railroading, and writing a young adult fantasy novel that he hopes to publish someday. He currently works at a local Walmart shoving grocery carts around and asks his readers (if they shop there) to please stop leaving their carts in the middle of the parking lot instead of a cart return.​