Amy Barone | Orange Is My New Black

Orange Is My New Black

I’m tossing black from my world —
black clothes, black cars, black moods.
Banishing dread and gloom.

Black was cool at sixteen and slimming at thirty.
Now I’m occupying orange-hued vibes,
loosening the shackles to dark tones.

I’m deporting colorless lingerie and sex.
When I sleep, instead of jumping into black puddles,
I’m going to emerge from tangerine dreams. Glowing.




Reprinted with author's permission from We Became Summer (NYQ Books)


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Amy Barone’s latest poetry collection, We Became Summer (New York Quarterly Books), was released in 2018. She has also published two chapbooks, Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing), and is an active member of  both PEN America and the Brevitas forum for short poetry.  Her poetry appears in Paterson Literary Review, Philadelphia Poets, Sensitive Skin, and Standpoint (UK), among other publications. Haling from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, she now hangs her little orange dress in New York City.

Isabelle Lorion | Yellow Mood

 Thammapa Supamas’s Yellow Cat

Yellow Mood

A yellow cat is miaowing
He’s calling for the love of the stars
His yellow eyes are glimmering
Among the shadows of the night
He’s jumping in a meadow of daffodils
His growl turns into a song
You might hear him during hot summer nights
And never forget
Yellow is the color of the sun
When I rise in the morning
Yellow is the color of my mind
When I wonder
How do I fight
For my rights
He passes at the end of the streets
With a hat of melancholy
On his head
And a coat of solitude
He holds tight
Against his pale chest.
She gratifies him with a yellow smile
When he leaves her behind
The cat opens his maw
And yawns
He puts his paw on her cheek
And gently caresses it
To console her
For the loss of her lover
She holds him tight
In the silk of the night
And rocks his dreams
Singing softly an old lullaby
For yesterday and tomorrow
The young man dozes in the tenderness of her love
She borrows a yellow fish
At the market of miracles
And lets it swim
In the hollow of their secret garden
A young fellow is sleeping
In a rocking chair made of purple willow
His mouth is open
And his dreams are chaotic
His flesh is trembling
With the variation of his thought
And the weeping willow wobbles
Over his scared shaking face
When he opens his eyes
He draws a sad smile
On the yellow sand
Of the remote beach
And the light of the sun
Plays through the yellow foliage of the fall
After they’ve gone
Only yellow memories
Mark the places
Where they once loved each other
Mellow yellow memories
Melt in the shallows of lost hopes
He follows her again
And howls his sorrow
Through the window of the past
For yesterday and for tomorrow
He sews her a dress
With the golden thread of his love
She wears it
And she dances
In the shadows of the night
A yellow cat is miaowing
In the heart of the night
They borrow the marrow of happiness
For yesterday and for tomorrow
To follow the direction of their dreams
To grow
Toward the slow show of the cows
On desolation row


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I was born in the mid-1950s in the suburbs of Paris.
I ran away. I traveled. And I wrote and played music.
I love walking.
I’ve been working with children.
I go to poetry scenes.
I love horses. And all animals.
I am an anarchist.

Ron Kolm | Sigmund, Surprised by Joy

Sigmund, Surprised by Joy

Sigmund,
A thoughtful child,
Transcribes his dreams
On his bedroom wall
Using a yellow crayon.

When he plays
With his die-cast cars
Pushing them across the rug
He can’t help but hear
The music of the spheres.

Sigmund asks his mother:
“Can we stay up late tonight
And watch the stars come out?”

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Ron Kolm is a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin magazine and the author of several books including Swimming in the Shallow End (2020), A Change in the Weather (2017), and Night Shift (2016). His writings also appear in And Then, Feuerstuhl, Local Knowledge, The Opiate, and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder’s Mouth Press). A collection of his papers (some 35 cartons of correspondence, notebooks, objects, chapbooks, signed first editions and runs of literary magazines) was purchased by New York University and is now part of the Fales Library’s permanent archives.

Geer Austin | Beige Black Green

Beige Black Green

Sometimes I think about the beach,

how the sand with its soothing

bland color and soft texture

flows up from blue and warm water.

Nighttime lets light into black.

I had a black dream.

Black film without any white.

The memory of childhood summers

is green — meadows and lawns

and those endless rows of privet

clipped flat like an empty tabletop.


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Geer Austin’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Poet Lore, Manhattanville Review, Big Bridge, Plenitude, BlazeVOX, Boog City, and others. His short story, “Stuart Livingston Hill,” is a recent episode of the podcast A Story Most Queer. He has served as a judge in the PEN America Prison Writing Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards. He is the author of Cloverleaf, a poetry chapbook (Poets Wear Prada). He lives in New York City.