Tag: Pride Month

boeing 737-900 from oregon to minnesota, 6:35am by Everix Machan

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boeing 737-900 from oregon to minnesota, 6:35am

forehead against frost-blossoming windows
headphones rattling against glass, tapping
faster than a sewing machine’s needle &
silence descends despite the flickering light strip
i wonder how to compose poetry about
something other than dying or isolation
so i don’t mention the ancient craftsmanship
of land felted in dirt—instead i watch as
quilted velvet pinks & greens drape softly
over 1700 miles of rolling cleaved farmland
surged together by pavement & rushing water
gleaming silver seams sundering the land
like carved edges of softened fondant
i don’t point out how the mountains look
like styrofoam box corners buried in cotton
surrounded by lakes of ripped tin foil &
buildings scattered like spilled shards of glass
littering the only home we’ll ever know
i watch the sun kiss the snow with blush-orange
& imagine sitting cross-legged on the plane wing
reaching out to carve my fingertips through
the mist of early morning over the peaks
but a migraine is blooming in my temples,
sleep staining the underside of my eyelashes
bluer than stirring night skies in april—your
knee is centimeters from mine and yet i just
can’t tell you to look how the lakes look like
spilled mercury burrowing into the earth
so maybe this is more about being alone
than i ever intended it to be

*

Everix Machan (he/him) is a queer, transgender, and autistic undergraduate poet from Wisconsin. You can find his poetry published or forthcoming in None of the Above, DYONYZINE, Flowermouth Press, The Gentian, Yīn Literary, The Sandy River Review, The Branches, and The Rebis.

Pride by Irene Axel

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Pride

There is a gentle glow

that comes of

a task well done

or a song well sung

or accomplishing

what you set out to do

or even—

accomplishing what you didn’t.

When they talk about a coming out

as if it’s a singular occurrence,

they usually mean

to those important to you,

such as your parents.

I’ve had an equal number of crushes

on boys and girls

(then men and women)

over the years,

and you would think

my parents would have noticed.

And they probably did,

but if it didn’t fit

their view of me,

then it didn’t happen.

So when I “liked”

my friend,

named for a flower,

and to me—

in my hormone haze—

as beautiful as one,

especially

when she sweat enough

that her glasses slid down her nose

in chemistry class

and she tried and failed

to blow the tendrils

of hair

off her sticky forehead,

and we went on outings

and hung out

and talked about our hopes and dreams,

and then tried

to keep in touch

through college

and the military,

until she got married

and changed her name

(the first one too),

and I hoped she was happy,

and what was left in my chest

for her

was aching

for a different life

where we may

have been together.

And later,

when I brought home a man

and we hung out

and talked about our hopes and dreams

and kept in touch—

but even then,

to me,

he was only ever

a friend.

My mom—

drunk again—

told me she was so glad

I hadn’t “turned out” gay.

And into my stunned disbelief

(which shouldn’t have contained surprise,

but did)

she walked this back

by saying,

“That would make life harder for you,”

as if

my life wasn’t made hardest

by her

and her lack

of ability

to see me.

So when I tell my friends

in passing conversation,

or when I talk with my husband

casually

about the people

I’ve dated,

and he responds

with neutral pronouns,

or when I sing

a love song in public

and leave the words alone,

letting she stay she,

these small moments

are flashes of fireflies

coming together to glow.

And while I never confronted my mom—

which honestly

would never have been received,

since she had already

made up her mind about me—

the smaller moments

of choosing authenticity

with people

who actually matter

feel

like

Pride.

*

Irene Axel is a California based poet whose work explores the complexity of loving those who hurt us. This is her first publication.

ONE ART’s June 2026 Reading for Pride Month

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ONE ART’s June 2026 Reading for Pride Month

Date: Sunday, June 7
Time: 2pm Eastern

Duration: 2 hours

Featured Poets: Julie Weiss, Ren Wilding, Nicole Caruso Garcia, Moudi Sbeity, Abby E Murray, Kai Coggin

>> Register Here <<

(donations appreciated)

~ About Our Featured Readers ~

Kai Coggin (she/her) is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Hot Springs, AR, and a recipient of a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions, 2024). Her work has been published in TIME Magazine, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, American Poetry Review, Best of the Net, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Coggin is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, a CATALYZE and INTERCHANGE Grant Fellow from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry.  www.kaicoggin.com

Nicole Caruso Garcia (she/her) is the author of OXBLOOD (Able Muse Press), which received the International Book Award for narrative poetry. Her work appears in Crab Orchard Review, Light, Mezzo Cammin, ONE ART, Plume, Rattle, RHINO, and elsewhere. Her poetry has received the Willow Review Award, won a Best New Poets honor, and has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is an associate poetry editor at Able Muse and served as an executive board member at the annual conference, Poetry by the Sea. Visit her at nicolecarusogarcia.com.

Abby E. Murray (they/them) is the editor of Collateral, a literary journal concerned with the impact of violent conflict and military service beyond the combat zone. Their first book, Hail and Farewell, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, while their second book, Recovery Commands, won the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize and was released by Ex Ophidia Press in 2025. For now, they live in the Pacific Northwest and teach writing to military officers.

Moudi Sbeity is a Lebanese-American poet, author, and contemplative educator. Born in Texas and raised in Lebanon, he moved to the United States at the age of eighteen as an evacuee following the 2006 July war. In Utah, Moudi founded and operated Laziz Kitchen, a Lebanese restaurant celebrated by the New York Times as “the future of queer dining.” Moudi was also a named plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, the landmark case that brought marriage equality to Utah and the 10th circuit states in 2014. A lifelong stutterer, he is passionate about writing and poetry as practices in fluency and self-expression. His memoir, Habibi Means Beloved (University of Utah Press), and poetry collection, Alhamdulillah Anyway (Fernwood Press), are set to be published in the fall of 2026.

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty (Kelsay Books, 2021), her debut collection, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II (Bottlecap Press, 2023 and 2024). Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, was published in 2025 by Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was a finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja” and was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Her work appears in Chestnut Review, MER, ONE ART, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Variant Lit, among others, and is forthcoming in Cider Press Review, Cimarron Review, The Indianapolis Review, and SWWIM. She lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.

Ren Wilding (they/them) is a trans, queer, neurodivergent poet. They are the author of Trans Artifacts: Bones Between My Teeth (Porkbelly Press, 2026) and Trans Archeology (Lily Poetry Review, 2027). Their work appears in Braving the Body (Harbor Editions), Nixes Mate, ONE ART, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. They were a finalist for Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Prize, are a two-time Pushcart nominee, and are co-curator of the Words Like Blades reading series. They hold an MA in Literature and Gender Studies from the University of Missouri and live in St. Louis.