troglodyte femme fatale she’s a midnight hoot all the fang-boys love her silky mane, fingernails an orange sherbet clunky green boots, ripped fishnet stockings malodorous pheromones, a psychic turn-on she’s no momma’s girl & daddy’s long gone Marlboro lights and BV chasers, her a.m. pick-me-up she sucks at miniature golf and laser tag digs Bukowski, Patti Smith worships Ted Hughes she loves honky-tonk polka, double four-time met herself a fine young Liverpool lad— snuck out back with his old man for an after-dinner Boxing Day fuck Mummy, as you can imagine, not too keen on that dusk’s embers shudder amid a northwest gale our little rose turns her head, then fades away
Julie Allyn Johnson is a sawyer’s daughter from the American Midwest whose current obsession is tackling the rough and tumble sport of quilting and the accumulation of fabric. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her poetry can be found in Star*Line, The Briar Cliff Review, Phantom Kangaroo, Lyrical Iowa, Moss Piglet, Cream Scene Carnival, Coffin Bell, The Lake, Haikuniverse, Chestnut Review and other journals. Julie enjoys photography and writing daily haiku, both of which can be found on her blog, A Sawyer’s Daughter.
Featured Artwork:
Blue Whale
Painter and poet Carmen Germain is the author of four poetry collections, the latest being Life Drawing, featured in MoonPath Press (2022). Her paintings and drawings have appeared in various literary art journals, and she has been a visiting artist-scholar at the American Academy in Rome. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, the traditional homeland of diverse Indigenous tribes near the Salish Sea.