AUGUST REID (they/she) is a writer and artist from Rio Rancho, New Mexico. They received a BA and MA in English Literature from Arizona State University and an MFA from Northern Michigan University. Their work appears in Hunger Mountain, Moon City Review, and Cream City Review, among others. August loves constellations, a good queer romcom, Doc Martens, and their cats. They teach high school English.
scorpion suckers strawberry-flavored insect statued calm until licked by some sticky child dust storms dry heat deserted teepee taco bell somewhere on interstate forty weird as playdough smell the piñon trees shrug off their shoulders or echoes scraped from the throat and slathered onto cavern walls like butter bread crust cut by your grandma and fed to starving coyotes cloud shapes something I can’t hold like my first kiss with a girl at church camp the taste of salt sour grape juice shame tongued into her mouth koolaid-pinked sunsets bleeding across the sandias black witch moth making home in pa’s shed near the front yard nativity scene perched on baby jesus's grimy flickering forehead an omen or a promise the strange longing for dust to collect faster for people to wink light like pennies at the bottom of a sewer grate atomic bomb daddy long legs hatch valley the fact that a place for perfect growth exists ufo magnets ufo t-shirts ufo bumper stickers alien like hollowed yucca stalk and tourist turquoise and hot air balloons how to find rebirth in land worked to the bone why my mom’s cooking always tastes like honesty and the stretch of ocotillo plants tall blooming with fire reaching for the sun like it’s on the way home.
Volume 16.1, winter 26
August Reid
