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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
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      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
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      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
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      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
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      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
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      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
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      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
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      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
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      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025

Derek Berry

still life with diving duck & roadkill


​the river’s whiskey & my body
a raft i have built from detritus.
i burned a city to build a compass
that points only to a deer’s body
splayed roadside, organs exposed.
 
once, i carved an entire forest
into a canoe just to wreck
among the rapids. once, i
swirled the deer’s blood
into a mural on asphalt.
no, not a mural. just splatter.
I am always trying
to make death
into something gorgeous.
 
Instead, i chain a cement block to my ankle,
sink into the river-bottom muck.
lungs filter silt & burn.
i disown
willow bark each time i sing
into the current’s neck.
even the moss knows my name
is not memorable.
 
like a wake of buzzards dipping beaks
into the carcass, tearing pink kinks
of entrails from the gut,
i subsist an entire summer vacuuming
the cream filling from moonpies.
 
i am vulture-drunk
on grief.
once, a corpse i called friend
became a poem, & i woke
with a gun that fit perfectly
in my mouth. once, i drank
too much gin, then plucked an elegy
from between my teeth.
 
the body
decomposing
is too slow
a rapture. 



i know about joy


​tonight even after the sun slacks off, sinks
into the hammock-horizon       i grasp                        lightning bugs in the mesh of fingers                          hold close
whatever passes for illumination                     here.
 
tonight i am lit-wicked roman candle
alighting the backyard                         in a wreath of ruin.
become barrage                       of abandon: each ecstatic                     whizz
smears                         even the dark into kaleidoscope.
call this coronation                              call this halo of fluorescent joy
a crown                                               you wear only until morning
 
tonight                                                 we have occupied the house in the woods for five days,
a friend’s family vacationing in florida            & their home become palace of debauchery:
 
a record catches fire
when it plays the right song                                                    the hallway floods
with toilet water                                   the porch becomes dumping ground
for booze-drowsy bodies                                our bodies vessel the impulse
                          to rage.
in revelry         we confuse plastic pouches of white powder with     joy, half-full
bottles with                              joy.
 
tonight             even what i write about joy
                        becomes eventually elegy,
grasping for what cannot be                                                                                                    held.
                                   
tonight--
 a vinyl forty-five,
its grooves embedded                          with match-strike paper.
the record immolates               when the needle drops & only music
escapes, only a song                            whose words blur.
 
tonight becomes         a husk of glitter—this                                                                                      what we know of joy,
a substance we must slip into our bodies                    so that we might slip outside               our bodies.
what we know of joy is we do not know
how to survive when it is gone. 







--
Derek Berry is the author of Heathens & Liars of Lickskillet County (PRA, 2016). They are the founder of The Unspoken Word, a Carolina-based literary non-profit providing free literary resources to authors and readers. Their recent work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Yemassee, Gigantic Sequins, BOAAT, Taco Bell Quarterly, & elsewhere. 

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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025