Helen A Porter grew up in Scotland before moving to America as a teenager. Porter is openly queer, and was exposed to the beauty behind the nature, culture, and stories of individuals Helen met along the way that continue to influence her writing to this day. Helen currently studies sociology and English at university.
(poly)grammatical gymnastics
you is a useful term because it is singular and plural
they is a useful term because it is singular and plural
for the sake of two teas and a coffee on Sunday morning
for the sake of three croissants and happier than I’d felt in years
say you in Russian / say they in Croatian / say us and say
almost nothing, an almost unnoticeable something
for the sake of a sentence, for the end-of-meeting chat
for the sake of clients, for the sake of simplicity
girlfriend was easier at work (also true / also not true)
deeply closeted but slightly closer to saying something
for the sake of not drawing a triangle and a T shape on a napkin
and getting into the history of multiplicity
couldn’t say they with you (felt like stealing) quietly tucked away
presenting differently everywhere we went
it’s a bit like coming out as gay ten years ago, isn’t it
maybe it’ll be more normal in future
perhaps all my love letters to you are inherently confused
inherently a you that is not accommodated by our language
for the sake of being, for the sake of not having to explain
some days it’s just harder to take up space
Kat Dixon (she/her) is a queer writer living in London. Her poetry has appeared in The Rialto, Butcher’s Dog, Queerlings, Mslexia, fourteenpoems, ReCreation Anthology and Spectrum Anthology. She has an MA in Writing Poetry with Newcastle University and The Poetry School. Her first pamphlet, Eat the Glitter, is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books. IG: dixon_kat
girl wild moon
ah yes, she says, to love a woman is at once
to be known and to know ― this thing
called birth is only a filtered dream
she laughs like a saint laughs, hard
and unrelenting, another flawless jest
there’s a gentle darkness between her breasts
and i rest there like an animal both tender
and wary of what threatens outside
love a woman once in a room cut to size
the walls like preachers too close and never
close enough with their whitewashed truths
love a woman once in shelter, love her like
Samson loved his abstinence, his worried road,
his chin riddled with premonitions
love a woman once, bear her children like
the falling sky bears its sediments,
like a foreign coast dwindles once it’s named
and i’ve loved girls like fickle sons girls that
wanted to be better and worse with me girls
that believed a lie to be only the secondary
nature of truth and that it should be judged
like this girls crooked like towers bent by the prophecies
they carried girls steady and moaning for light
girls that reach for interpretations like washcloths
and falter as all men know girls must
but yes, every morning she raises me like a knife
to my gut and there’s a moon between her thighs
she hopes will go unnoticed one more time
Milla van der Have is a Gemini. She has been published in Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter and Cutbank a.o. She’s has two chapbooks: Ghosts of Old Virginny (2015) and the Spanish-English Avistamiento de ballenas (2021). Milla lives in Utrecht, The Netherlands. She is the host of Poetry Lit!