Silt stirs from the depths of absent fish-bellies:
the quiet, strangling sounds of water bugs mingle
hot with frayed moments, twisted backwards
as if in a mirror.
I threw the wrong stone,
one I had wanted to keep;
it splits the water on my lips.
I wait

Published August 18, 2024

Hyun-Joo Kim is a Korean adoptee from NJ. Her poems have been published in Lunch Ticket, The Maine Review, Poets Reading the News, Beyond Queer Words Anthology (2021), The Elevation Review, and others. Follow her on Instagram: @thekatieladybird

Seth D. Ellison is a Philadelphia-based painter and multimedia artist. He was born in Beckley, West Virginia in 1984, and lived mainly in the southern United States before moving to attend grad school. His formative years were spent compulsively drawing in preparation for a future career as a Walt Disney animator, a period in his life that deeply impacted the paintings he does today.