We were introduced to ourselves as
numbers on the playground.
Mine was always near the end,
X, Y, Z. Doesn’t matter if your friends
are in the ABCs. Then,
standardized testing.
Social Security number. Driver’s license.
License plate. Insurance ID.
We were introduced to ourselves as
who had what, whose parents
bought them video games, who has seen
the latest movies. I was still always last.
My Friday nights were spent reading
or talking to a friend—
at the birth of instant messaging.
We were introduced to ourselves as
avatars, profile pictures, emojis.
The future started running faster—
and faster— zeroes and ones,
backslashes and brackets. I built my first
website at age 12, a fan site for horses.
Finally, a smartphone in college.
Facebook arrived at our fingertips.
I was chatting online with my friends
and my secret soul lovers late at night,
downloading music on Limewire
and trying not to crash my mom’s computer
with a virus.
We were introduced to ourselves as
technology rose like a wave
crashing on digital doors everywhere.
Now, we Zoom around the world
with each other on mute. We connect
with any other light point anywhere
in the world—
We introduce ourselves as
stewards of this plane,
breathing rhythms becoming
the bridge between ecosystems
and insanity. I’m practicing
seeing the world
through the plant’s eyes—
bubble of oxygen uniting all of us.
The water cycle. The soil. The delicate
balance of wolves to deer.
Mother trees. Pollinators.
We were introduced to ourselves as
polluters, our takeout dinner
container and plastic bags escaped
to the ocean. We began to understand
we, too, are the whales
and the fish and the turtles,
and they are dying,
suffocating on garbage.
We were introduced to ourselves as
part of a global dying—
a clear cutting and monocropping
nightmare state. A rapid decline
in living creatures.
And still, we introduce ourselves as
front yard growers, urban
strategists, bold artists, solarpunk futurists,
everyday geniuses— glowing
with passion and urgency, breaking through
the rain again and again, the sun
getting hotter and hotter, and all of us
gifted under it with a role to play, cheer
of possibility in our throats.
Nancy Woo
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, eco-organizer, and imagination enthusiast who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Nancy has received fellowships from California Creative Corps, Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and others. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and is the author of I’d Rather Be Lightning (Gasher, 2023).
for Jill
We met in a parallel universe or in a dream, dream,
walked near a riverbank, spoke in fragments. fragments.
This is how I recall our story. Two sunflowers brought brought
together by the sunrise. You whispered to me, me,
“taro leaves and sugarcane make a great combination.” Glimpses to to
emphasize moments often overlooked in maddening hours, where wherehere
we occasionally pause between drumbeats of trauma. Will you you
recognize me cowering beneath the awning where once I stood stood
confident waiting for your return? F. Scott Fitzgerald claimed smiling smiling
made life worth living. Facial expressions closing great distances. The near near
perfect curve of your mouth is enough to compose the the
morning sonnet under silk sheets. You touch my lips with fresh mulberry mulberry
and I realize that this is the seed for tomorrow’s tree.
tree.
John Casquarelli
John Casquarelli is the author of two full-length collections: On Equilibrium of Song (Overpass Books, 2011) and Lavender (Authorspress, 2014). He is a Lecturer in Academic Writing at Koç Üniversitesi in Istanbul. John received his M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Long Islang University—Brooklyn. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Teaching as a Human Experience (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), Pen Norway İlhan Sami Çomak Project, Pilgrimage Magazine, Suisun Valley Review, Expound Magazine, Artifact Nouveau, New Mexico Review, Peacock Journal, Marathon Literary Review, Black Earth Institute, River River, Panoply, International Human Rights Arts Festival, and Boarder Senses.
for Thomasina Winslow (1965-2023)
“Can’t tell my future, and I can’t tell my past
Lord, it seems like every minute, sure gonna be my last” –Willie Brown
You sing these lines, convincing
me they were the sign I missed
days after you died. I listen again
your voice sudden, tense, insisting
that every effect follows from a cause
that people don’t just drop
dead leaving others
to find them.
Shock and disbelief—
that’s what others feel. Not me
since the universe swells with meaning.
Except at night,
when he sits on the couch
crying
and words I never speak
collect underneath the cushions
like loose change
knowing you and he made music together
felt the mysteries of connection
all those nights on stage.
I rest my palm on his back.
Still he can’t talk about you.
Still he can’t grieve.
I clutch his shoulder
wanting to impart some shiny
truth to dim his pain.
Days later, a change
has come over him.
I don’t know when or how.
He speaks of you softly,
tenderly, giving you a new name:
He calls you T.
Moriah Hampton
Moriah Hampton holds a PhD in Modernist Literature from SUNY-Buffalo. Her fiction, poetry, and photography have appeared in The Coachella Review, Typehouse Literary Journal, Ponder Review, Hamilton Stone Review and elsewhere. She currently teaches in the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program at SUNY-Albany.