Mercury Retrograde

you have brought me a cold      and

car trouble    my head full of pebbles

and water        you scrambling

planet       hot little god    of cock-

sure orbit and    a handbag name

all merch     and mayhem

you turn   this day      like

a trick     toward hell     nothing

works   not zinc    not the new fuse     not

even love     functions    you little fucker

🟣🟣🟣

Leslie LaChance is a poet, essayist, and editor who splits her time between New York’s Hudson Valley and Nashville, Tennessee. She teaches literature and writing workshops and collaborates with fellow artists on various projects. Leslie’s poems are lyrical cartographies of every place she’s ever been or longed to be, real or imagined. Her work has appeared in Still: The Journal, Birmingham Poetry Review, Greensboro Review and elsewhere. She is a regular contributor to The East Nashvillian magazine and is always planning her next road trip.

Fox Henry Frazier is a poet and essayist. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Southern California, where she was also a Provost’s Fellow. Her poetry collections include The Hydromantic Histories (Bright Hill Press, 2015), Like Ash in the Air After Something Has Burned (2017), and Raven King (Yes Poetry, 2022). Fox created Agape Editions. She lives in upstate New York with her daughter, her dogs, her gardens, and her ghosts.