The forest files a missing persons report
Collins C. Oparaocha
August 12, 2026
species: human
last seen: believing ownership was another word for love
distinguishing marks: pockets full
Canopy Literary Review
Shore
Some women’s voices
are heavy with stories
of men who never make it home.
Their oaths unbraid
in unguessed fellowships,
regions where fists
circle shot glasses
like shipwrecked souls
reaching for shore.
*
In a diner window booth,
a child bored with the adult-speak
of her father and his friends,
presses her face to the pane.
She watches shadows pass.
Like the stripclub dancer
yet to be embellished
in fishnets and slit-gown,
who will, in some small hour, whisper
in a man’s ear,
I am everything
you cannot touch.
One Way to Deflect the Perfection of Allegory
after Brigit Pegeen Kelly
When she’d ask for candy,
she’d get a rusty tin of marbles.
For test scores good enough to skip a grade,
her father’s wartime fear of falling.
For insight into the future, a ghostship
leaving a harbor seen only in a dream;
a red scarf blowing past her window.
For a clear autumn day, cool and windy,
a greenhouse trapped in steam.
When she sought intercessory prayer for a dying brother,
she got a requiem for sparrows.
For a way to leave town forever,
her face staring back from a china plate,
her mother licking honey off a carving knife.
Solstice
Come this overdue season, I’ll breathe Yes
when it arrives steeped in sunheat.
I’ll breathe yes to the warming rains,
rivulets turning to steam on the asphalt
lot of the dead box store where lovers
and dopers shield themselves in shadow.
I’ll acquiesce to the crows,
their dull wings invading my street,
dim beaks craving the shiny coins
that fill no one’s pockets now.
I’ll even give a nod to the sundress that mom
could at least have washed after filching it
from the Good Will bin. Afterwards,
I’ll say yes to trespass a private beach,
slink through sand threaded with lost sandals
and seawrack, a handbag snug beneath my arm
to slip gin beyond the No Alcohol sign.
Yet I’ll fail to answer the herring gulls
leveling in wind to drop clams that’ll burst
on the anvil of stone walkways to feed hatchlings
recessed on the roof of a seaside motel,
their mouths tangled in hunger far beyond my sight.
JULIETTE ALFIER’s (she/her) most recent book of poetry is The Shadow Field. Journal credits include Copper Nickel, Faultline, Fugue, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, River Styx, and Vassar Review. They are also a collage artist after the styles of Francesca Woodman, and Katrien De Blauwer.
species: human
last seen: believing ownership was another word for love
distinguishing marks: pockets full
VANTAGE is an explorer, photographer, artist and writer. Instagram – @_vantage1_ Link Instagram
Photo by Tim Mossholder Promises tugged. Skin awaiting to be sawed. Free from the loose strangle of
1 / We already know how bad language can be—poor grammar and creative punctuation; potty-mouths and shitposters;
Photo by Roman Denisenko alight in the south field where the sky is bigger than you knew
My body laid against the pillows
damned,
yearning to get out of these years of