Crystal Cox was born and raised in mid-Missouri. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Idaho. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sonora Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Phoebe, The Shore, Nimrod, like a field, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. With seven years of literary publishing experience, she serves as editor for Outskirts Literary Journal. Read more at crystalcoxpoet.com/.
The rain stopped, then started again. Nearly indiscernible. From here, with every turn of my head, a mountain ascends. On the street, pigeons strum with emerald, incandescent wings, domesticated to deliver our messages then starved. My sister keeps calling from her kaleidoscope, asking if I can see the colors morph into stars, triangles, diamond maps for her delusion. If you just… Read more →
Rough. This carpet isn’t mine and I know it through my palms. There’s nothing subtle about my ankles popping. I love so many. I can feel my oily, red heart. My clammy, cold skin roughing up an organ’s edge. Sometimes it’s not that I’m too weak to hold. It’s the holding itself that’s questionable. Reposition. It doesn’t make sense. Why… Read more →
Tieton, WA Gunshots pitter in the distance.The cows sing along to their loved ones being put down.Along the service road, the highway, any undomesticated piece of land,the sage puffs up and out, reaching — who can make a little tree of themselvesbefore we’re all burned down? I rely on the wind. It’s blowing the valley’sinsects at my body. Not an… Read more →