Tag: queer poetics

widow by john compton

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widow

she danced
so ferally

the twirl
ripped

a boy
from her

skin—
a stork

flung
from his mouth.

she reached out
but both were gone.

the flowers
cut themselves

& arranged
for a eulogy.

*

john compton (b. 1987) is a gay poet who is the author of 20 books/chapbooks, who lives in kentucky with his husband josh and their dogs and cats, and mice. his latest full length book is “my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store” published with Flowersong Press (dec 2024); his new full length book “house as a cemetery” published with Rebel Satori Press (march 2026) & is nominated for the national book award.

Delivered in a Single Dose by Mick “Micki” Topham

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Delivered in a Single Dose

As estrogen sprouts
I find myself crying
out my testosterone—

I broke like a raincloud.

& my eyes
are opening
to who i am:

Since when did sobbing feel so affirming?

My capacity to feel love has expanded.

To hug too tightly
hurts my budding breasts,
but it reminds me
that I belong in this skin.

*

Mick “Micki” Topham (she/her) is a spoken word artist and poet in Washington DC. She has participated in countless poetry events, slams, and competitions including The Charm City Slam. She has taught poetry workshops and performed across the nation, including featuring at an official 2025 World Pride poetry reading. She was a finalist in the 2025 DC Poet Project, a citywide competition uplifting local poets. You can find her most weeks at an open mic, passionately snapping for the incredible poets and performers across the district. Instagram: @the.trans.panic

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.

pr nightmare by Matthew Toth

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pr nightmare

each august i plan a sound bite for my dentist
because my mom taught his children 25 years
ago, the school where she discovered me
thanks to a free test from the faculty lounge.
we tend to diagnose most absence as
infinite— my first gender the ultrasound
misread. in between my suicide attempts,
we couldn’t speak to each other, so i took
to wandering the streets without sidewalks,
though it hailed once and she picked me up
before i had to ask. all that year in a mask,
i sat through group therapy in a park during
sunset three times a week, in those plastic
chairs that fold up into slim bags to be worn
on one’s back, passing the long second hours
whispering my lamentations into a lantern,
counting the dim stars of the altadena sky,
wishing only to ride home in silence and
wake up in the driveway of a different
house. i can’t remember what i said to him
when i was 16, resenting the project of
brushing my teeth, anything that reminded
me, i was alive, there was another fire to put out.

*

Matthew Toth (he/they) is a writer and editor from Pasadena, CA. As a student at Kenyon College, Matthew has worked with the Kenyon Review and Sunset Press, a student-run publisher of chapbooks. His poetry can be found in Tinderbox Poetry Magazine, Exposed Bone, and Vagabond City Lit.

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.

Two Poems by Stephen K. Kim

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

First Time

That summer, I convinced my parents
I was old enough to stay in the city
with some friends I ditched to sneak
through an unmarked door and descend
a flight of stairs where each footfall
echoed and faint whiffs of Irish Spring
reminded me of men whose thighs
strained their jeans.

My heartbeat stuttered,
as I walked into a lowlit room
where I saw the bathhouse’s
skinny attendant turn his bored face
to mine. Clocking fear in my eyes
despite my feigned nonchalance, he softened
his gaze. Squinting as if to gauge
my mettle, his hands
brushed mine as he took
my license and credit card,
passed back a locker key and three condoms
in bright blue wrappers.
I stammered thank you as he shooed me
with a flick of his wrist,
towards the door
I dreamed all year of opening,
and soon I would, the polished metal push bar
cool against my forearm.

Yet for a moment, I wondered
should I turn back because
what lay beyond that door
was something
irrevocable: a reckoning,
a ruination,
a deliverance.

*

You declare your emancipation in Hell’s Kitchen

after Kinsale Drake

at Boxers gay sports bar with your ex-boyfriend. The shirtless
bartender delivers two pornstar martinis. Today, you must

be joyful as you watch the gyrating go-go boy fondle himself
and wonder if he wears a cock ring to keep himself hard

as lonely men like you stuff dollar bills into his jockstrap. Your ex
reaches his hand behind your neck, and you let his tongue slide

into your mouth because today must be joyous. Later, as he snores
in your bed, you open TikTok and a dapper man in a tux asks

Am I the drama? Am I the villain? You ponder this about yourself.
Your ex rouses and tells you to go to sleep. His gruff rasp

reminds you of your father, and you admit that’s probably why
you dated the guy. And the way he cooks like your mother,

using so little oil that takeout feels like it leaves residue
on your teeth. You think about calling them when you remember

you can no longer protect them from your desires which
they couldn’t comprehend because they cocooned themselves

in the fiction that the world did not change since they immigrated.
Earlier that day, thanks to some gossiping uncle, they discovered

all of who you were and slammed the door in your face
when you dropped by. You stood stunned despite rehearsing

a hundred times over how you’d take a deep breath, count to ten,
and knock firmly again. Instead, you found your arms riveted

to your ribcage as you wondered if they could hear
how you gasped for air as if you were starting to drown.

*

Stephen K. Kim (he/him) is a queer Korean American writer and educator in New Jersey. He enjoys spending time with his husband and his cat. His poems appear in Ghost City Review, Neologism, Thimble, and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net nominee, a student and teacher at the Writers Studio, and a reader for Only Poems. He can be found online @skimperil.

Two Poems by Laura Foley

~ ONE ART ~ 5 Comments

Coming Out to My Sister

My sister—
the aloof one—
wasn’t, that day.
She took my arm,
led me through Georgetown,
sunlight on brick sidewalks,
into a small boutique
where we found clothes
soft as permission.

I chose a black silk cape,
delicate women stitched
across the back—
a garment that felt
like stepping into myself.

For a little while
she smiled at me,
held clothes to my shoulders,
wanting to see
who I might become.

Many years now
she hasn’t called,
doesn’t answer emails—
has slipped again
into distance, into silence.

But the cape still hangs
in my closet,
light as breath,
reminding me
of the one day
we were gentle
with each other.

*

Tea and Sympathy

She drives all the way to my house,
up a steep hill in the woods of Vermont.

“I understand—this is someone’s life,”
she offers, as she stamps and signs,
as I sign and sign, blue pen looping my name.

We sit at the kitchen table.
She pats our dog,
explaining how, in her free time,
she takes in elderly Labradors
at the end of their lives.

“Give them a year or two of happiness.
One just passed, last week.
I still wake at night to take him out.”

We share spiced cookies,
Earl Grey tea,
as she tells me about her health,
a difficult teenage son,
how she loves to work on her own.

Meanwhile, I’m signing page after page—
tax documents, a deed—
as I sell my sister’s townhouse in Texas,
the one she flooded
as she was dying in her tub.

Sheila places her cup in the sink,
scans the documents into her phone,
beams them off across the country.

As she leaves, I feel lighter,
freer of a sister
I hadn’t known well—hadn’t seen in forty years;

thankful for the sympathy—
a notary
whose stamp feels like kindness.

*

Laura Foley is the author of, most recently, Sledding the Valley of the Shadow, and Ice Cream for Lunch. Sister in a Different Movie (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions) is due out later this spring. She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Poetry Box Editor’s Choice Chapbook Award, Bisexual Book Award, and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, ONE ART, American Life in Poetry, and anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence. She holds graduate degrees in Literature from Columbia University, and lives with her wife on the steep banks of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire.

Ode to the rainstorms that keep my friends close by M.J. Young

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Ode to the rainstorms that keep my friends close

Bless my friends
who, when I came
out to them, said
deadass not because
they didn’t believe
me but because
I had finally said
I’m gay, bless
their hooting after
I confirmed
with my own deadass
even though I don’t
like using profanity
but their happiness
overpowered my guilt
so it was okay
even if
the librarians inside
were wondering why
five young
twenty-somethings
were huddled under
the covered patio
in the butterfly garden
when it’s raining
so thickly, laughing,
but it wasn’t as if it
was raining
when we got there
and when it started
to rain we figured
that it would stop
in a few minutes
because it’s summer
and the rains
are usually frequent
but quick,
spits, as my mother
says, but I don’t
because it reminds
me of having saliva
in my face
and the accompanying
words I’d rather forget
and I’d rather be happy
when thinking about
the little dash
of summer rain
we’re gifted, laugh
with my friends
who were scrambling
to pick up the pieces
of our board game
as the wind tried to
claim them for itself,
me hugging
a copy of The Goldfinch
to my chest
because even though
I wondered
if Tartt would make
Theo canonically gay
or bi or something
before remembering
that this book was popular
so that wouldn’t happen
I still like
her writing style
and besides,
I was with my friends
so who cares about
Theo who doesn’t
even exist
when the wind
made us hysterical
in a giddy way
because in that
moment
the most important thing
was to make sure
that none of
the character
or room or
weapon cards
or score sheets
got too wet or were taken
by the wind
which was a nice worry
to have
compared to everything
it is we were dealing
with on our own,
but under the patio
in the middle of
the butterfly garden
walled in by the rain
that smalled
our worlds,
we could laugh
with each other
and not look past
the problem
of getting out
of the rain unwetted.

*

M.J. Young is a writer and MFA student at Florida International University. His poetry can be found in Vagabond City Lit, Stone of Madness Press, and more. In his free time he enjoys listening to Philip Glass and exploring bookstores. He can be found on Instagram @mjyoungwrites.