In a time where Berndnaut Smilde can make clouds inside, ephemeral art in cathedrals and coal mines,
like the heavens reclined I’m reminded of how clouds are made sky-high. Clouds are made with the sighs of birds,
their response to sunrise and sunsets and the power to forget the land below them, even if only for a little while.
Clouds are made when nearby plateaus are leveled by the wind blown from another time, not yesterday
or tomorrow. Clouds are made by the braiding of tears shed by a forgotten bride
and the first laughter she makes at her new lover’s smile. Clouds are made during the silence that comes after
we’ve passed into the eye of depression’s storm. Clouds are made when we drive too fast
over dirt roads in our excitement to return home. Clouds are made in that tome online
full of old photographs and notes to self.
Clouds are made from the fist-fulls of ash
we scatter in our late loved one’s honor. Clouds are made by grey matter,
forming nimbuses of rumination that shade our heads like awnings.
Clouds are made when fog yawns and retreats back up to bed.
Clouds are made as the moon waves away stars like horse flies.
Clouds are sent, special-made by the sun for our protection.
Clouds repent for their lightning spent with a performance of iridescence
the color like soap bubbles washing away thunder’s echoing refrain.
Clouds are shaped by the cookie cutters of angels, baked at temperatures of repeating numbers.
Clouds are made to mislead each other: it’s just a few miles up ahead, trust me!
Clouds are made to house the castles
we’ll retreat to after this.
Clouds are made as stepping-stones for the gods and goddesses.
Clouds are made by Mother Nature to use as pillows and for the Nephologist’s bliss.
Isabel Grey holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Western Colorado University. She is an assistant editor at Terrain.org. Her work can be found at Twenty Bellows, new words {press}, and elsewhere.
I am asked to write about clouds and all I can do is think of the bombs that missed our home that by the grace of prayers we survived the plane rides through continents that we arrived here safely where now I see students who are scared of masked strangers tearing families apart.
But in this place they are protected or at least that’s what we tell them here, we have cloud wall papers that post job opportunities so these students can help already over-worked and under-slept parents these students who are expected to be guardians of siblings and translator for uncles and aunts, are just children, caught up in high school gossip and sweetheart dances.
I am asked to write about clouds and all I can do is think of Katie who earned her wings too soon, sitting on the fluffiest cloud, with mis-matched socks, reading a book while I am here among students letting them know their rights—that their body means their choice, that No is a complete sentence. That one day we will all be free.
Karineh Mahdessian loves hard, reads books and eats tacos!
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during September of 2025.Four of our committed members heard about an opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments. Thank you and happy submitting!
Kudos to Elizabeth Galoozis who published the poems “I keep falling asleep in the motherland” and “they made us” in Santa Fe Literary Review. See excerpt of the former below:
I came into this world landlocked. They pulled me out by the same ankles the sea now circles, pushes my feet to the edge of the land I came from. The waves tug at my blood,
lulling me, slowing me, whispering why would you ever leave.
I don’t like guided tours I’m not a joiner or a follower I’m not good with large groups I’m not a regular person I want to pause, linger, drift, where others march in lockstep and I want to keep going, where others want to stay
Kudos to Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin whose poem “As Mexican as a Nopal” was announced as a short list finalist for the 2025 Four Feathers Press Chapbook Prize. Her poem “Mother and Child From Gaza” also appeared in the 2025 Southern California Haiku Study Group Anthology.
is he coming or going slamming of a screen door angry or rushed in or out her or him idling in front of a fridge hunger or thirst boredom or pleasure is it the beginning or the end I tell her I can’t remember a time before
Kudos to Carla Rachel Sameth for her publication of the poems “Everything Here Is Broken,” “A Magpie Soars Across the Sky,” “The Darkest Water,” “Like My Skater Son” and “Ghazal of the 3 PM Wall,” in Cholla Needles 105. Excerpt of the latter available below:
They asked me, What do you do when you hit the 3 PM wall? I don’t know but I can’t even remember the age of my baby.
It was after a faux rave, a celebration for a movie about a rave. A 2 AM breakfast, the question came at me, I was a sage with a baby.
I’ll be up by 5 AM, I said, uncertain if I’d be nursing or playing. All I knew is that I had six never-born, a raging ex-husband, and one baby.
What do you do when you hit the wall? they laughed the question again. Strangely awake, what happens after being up all night, I was a rampage, a baby.
Shoutout to Michelle Otero who poem “Birthright” was featured in American Poetry Review. She also published the memoir piece “Stepson, I have been writing to you in my head since we met…” in Letters to Our Children: an Anthology.
Early morning sun yellows a grey mist that lifts up to the window ledge, sending shafts of weak sunlight into their kitchen as he stands at the deep sink and fills the kettle. The kettle is moved to its base, its lever gently pushed, as he walks to the cupboard. Out of the cupboard comes her most colorful jarrito, which he warms under running water, adding two teaspoons of sugar to the bottom; she prefers sweetness to bitterness. Setting a well-used single serve coffee filter on top of the mug’s mouth, he meticulously measures a level scoop of her cinnamon café de olla. When the kettle softly sings its readiness to add to the reverence of this ritual, he pours the water over the scented grounds and waits patiently for the water to trickle down and for cinnamon and sweet coffee aromas to fill the air. The light in the room silently shifts upwards while he bides seconds. Opening the refrigerator to get the glass cream bottle their milkman delivered that morning, he hums quietly. When the water from the coffee filter has emptied, he removes it and adds just enough cream to make a beautiful shade of brown, stirring so softly. He pads into another room on socked feet to place this lovingly prepared liquid in front of her. She is sitting at her desk, writing, as is her morning ritual. Wordlessly, she sips, closes her eyes, smiles wistfully as he pads away to start his day. When the light in the kitchen has shifted again, to full sunlight or rain, when the mists have disappeared or reappeared, when the sun has lowered on the other side of the house, she will take her great grandmother’s cast iron pan, hold it carefully in two hands, warm it over moderate heat, and lovingly lift from the kitchen stores a meal to nourish. The meal is served at their old oak table, set with plates and utensils, glasses and wine. He will close his eyes, breathe in the scent of cumin, garlic, chillies and family history and then smile at her as she sits across from him, with her own plate too. The sun will set, the shadows will lengthen and consume, but they will not notice.
Elisabeth Contreras-Moran is a Xicana environmental scientist turned poet. She has an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and further science degrees from CUNY. Currently living in England, she creates at night, when the world is quiet. Her poetry has been in Litro Magazine, Moss Puppy Magazine, Equinox, The Ascentos Review and the Somos Xicanas anthology from Riot of Roses Press.
I have hidden in houses with thick curtains, slept through sunrises on purpose, and called it survival.
I have dimmed myself to match the shadows in someone else’s room, forgetting that I was born a soft blaze.
But still— light finds me.
It slips through the cracks of my resistance, paints my eyelids golden before I even wake, reminding me I’m still here.
Light doesn’t ask for permission. It arrives, regardless. It shows me what I didn’t want to see— and what I’d forgotten to celebrate.
Even the body glows from the inside. Even grief throws a reflection.
And maybe that’s the lesson:
Some part of us always remembers how to shine back.
Melba Morel is an author and poet based in South Florida. Her work explores grief, identity, and healing through the lens of nature, memory, and personal transformation. She is the author of Unplanted Yet Flourishing: A Poetic Journey Through Infertility, Loss & Healing and founder of Poetic Nectar Collective.
I walk to the end of the butte just as Grandmother Moon begins to rise over the mountains. She is a glorious orb cresting the horizon. As she rises, the barren desert landscape comes alive around me, like another realm illuminated by her phosphorescence. Long eared jackrabbits scatter wildly amongst the glowing sagebrush, searching for shadows in which to hide. Raising my arms skyward, I draw her down, rejoicing in her tenderness and grace. In a short time she will fade into eclipse, but for now she fills the sky with the ripeness of her belly and covers the landscape in ethereal light.
Two owls scream with haunting cries which deflect and echo off the looming cliffs, their enormous wings bearing them from one hunt to the next. They too feel the power of the moon. A third plummets upon its prey with a screech that pierces the night. There is no longer a cover of darkness under which to shield the little ones. A pack of coyotes cry and yip and sing, a mournful chorus in the otherworldly light. And as Moon rises higher in the sky, the mountains and cliffs beneath her seem to rise as well. There is great magic in her fullness; it is the magic of light.
I lower myself onto the asphalt, my back resting against my front tire, wrapped tightly in a woolen shawl. The eclipse has begun and I fall into the dreamy space of in-between, surrendering to a feeling of timelessness as the moon begins to disappear. Her shadowing mirrors my own repetitive journey into the darkness and then once again into the light.
This night is mine and I sit within the inky blackness by myself, watching, waiting, winter lying upon my shoulders, cold and crisp, until Grandmother reappears in the sky. I leave her with a prayer and a bow, holding the vision of her journey so closely in my heart.
Jennifer Germano, storyteller & poet, draws her inspiration from nature and from her own relationships and spiritual journey. Dreamer, stargazer, firewalker. Weaver of words. Believer of magick, she wanders between the deserts of southern Ca and the mountains of northern New Mexico.
Elizabeth Iannaci is awidely-published, SoCal poet whose work appeared recently in Women in A Golden State, Midwestern Miscellany, Interlitq, etc,Her latest chapbook is The Virgin Turtle Light Show: Spring, 1968 (Latitude 34 Press). Elizabeth is partially sighted, which may account for her preference for paisley over polka dots.
The Women Who Submit members included in this post published their work in amazing places during August of 2025.Four of our committed members heard about an opportunity through WWS programming and/or another member.
I’ve included an excerpt from published pieces (if available), along with a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety. Please take some time to celebrate yourself and your wonderful accomplishments this last stretch of summer. Thank you and happy submitting!
Congratulations to Tanzila Ahmed whose creative nonfiction piece “Eavesdropping as a Solidarity Tactic” was published in the imprint We Are Civic Media by Northwestern University Press.
Big kudos to Donna Spruijt-Metz whose poetry collection Wu Wei Eats an Egg was published with Ben Yehuda Press.
Shoutout to Dinah Berland whose poem “Between the Lines” was featured in Van Spuk Art Books.
I heard Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” sung in Spanish at a funeral last week, twice — Processional and Communion. Stained glass shook loose & boomeranged rose-gold sharps into tall-boned Jesus till he swayed between stone femurs like a receiver in a phone booth waiting for his last phone call from God. Your last call went to voicemail, then you hung up on yourself.
Kudos to Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin whose chapbook As Mexican as a Nopal was selected as a shortlist finalist in Four Feather Press’ Chapbook Prize.
Shoutout to Désirée Zamorano whose novel The Amado Women was republished with Lee & Low Books.
Congratulations to Lisa Eve Cheby whose poem “Witnessing” appeared in Cultural Daily.
last night I dreamt I was interrogated by I.C.E.
they knew about how I ghosted Esteban after one date, about the small, behind the scenes disputes in our non-profit writers’ group of women who refuse to submit.
I only wanted to imagine a world of liberation and joy, not how to integrate the mundane with the horrific.
on the 4th of July with the day laborers in the Home Depot parking lot we ate mango and piña cream paletas from Sal’s cart.
Kudos to Heather Pegas whose creative nonfiction piece “Family Lore: A Semi-History” was featured in The Muleskinner Journal.
Maybe Connie made her special soup at the diner, maybe she saves one bowl to bring home.
Perhaps she intends it for her father, or maybe she was keeping it for herself after shopping, vacuuming, washing, drying and folding the family laundry. My beautiful aunt, the one they only half-jokingly call “the maid,” puts her soup in the icebox, I imagine, saving it for later.
It is not to be. Her brothers come home all at once, and they encounter the soup.
I want that, says George, the eldest. I’m going to eat it.
Not so fast, says Manny, the second son, muscling in. I want it too.
And lastly, shoutout to Dilys Wyndham Thomas whose poem entitled “Titan[ic]” was published in Mslexia Magazine’s 107th Issue.
We Survive the Storm: Floods and the People of Assam
by Sreejayaa Rajguru
“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions… You have to step right into the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time.” — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
The people of Assam confront stormy weather every year.
Only this isn’t stormy weather. It’s flooding and often cold, brown, heavy flooding that swallows fields, roads, schools, and homes, creeping in quietly and slowly at first. It rises from the Brahmaputra and its many tributaries, bringing in its wake the weight of abandoned policy and broken promise. Every year floods come. And every year we live.
Not because it’s easy. Because it’s not an option.
The Water as Guest Where I come from (Assam) water isn’t always an enemy. For many parts of the year, water is life. It sustains the rice fields, energizes the ferry, fills the ponds, and children cast-off onto and fishermen rely on. Come June (ish) the very same water refuses to leave. Instead it becomes an unwanted guest, it barges through the door and plops itself down on your couch.
You can’t fight the flood. You can’t negotiate with the flood. You can’t tell the flood to give you a moment.
Instead, we make adjustments. We lift our items, we prep up our boats, we prepare food. People who live in other parts of the country probably look at us and wonder how we survive like this every year, and the answer is pretty simple; we survive it like you survive a long illness, or a bleak marriage or grief. Just a day at a time.
What the Flood Takes The flood is a slow thief. It robs us in daylight and not in the usual darkness of night. It always starts with the road. Then it takes the back yard. Then it takes the courtyard. Then it takes the house. And sometimes it takes more than land.
It takes the crop that we waited all year to harvest. It takes the top of the hill, and the cattle that couldn’t swim. And sometimes it takes people – an old woman who didn’t move fast enough, a child who didn’t know where the ground ended, a breath away from safety. These stories never make the news anymore, they are too ordinary. They are too cruelly commonplace.
This ordinary cruelty is a different sort of violence. When suffering is predictable, it is mundane. But to us, every loss is new. Every time our bodies feel the pain anew.
We Become Builders, Not Victims The flood waters recede, leaving a lot more than mud.
I see how they leave silt–the fine, golden silt that coats our skin and the seeds. They leave behind the skeletons of cows and lost stories. But more than that, they leave behind an invitation: What will you do now?
And so, we build. Not just homes, but faith.
We hammer the weight of our sorrow into the roofs over our heads. We stitch resilience into the mosquito nets we hang around our beds. We plant new seedlings in our gardens not because they will survive but because we will.
Children splash and play in the puddles where graves once rested. The women rebuild the granaries. The men pick up where they left off fishing, not because they want to, but because they must. Life starts not in ceremony but in habit. The world pretends we are victims. We know better. Victims wait. Survivors act.
We are not waiting for the flood to stop. We are learning to dance in it.
“You’ll come out of the storm…”
Haruki Murakami writes, “And when the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.”
The message resonates deeply with many people in Assam.
When the floodwater recedes, the real work begins. Cleaning the mud, repairing the walls, rebuilding the farm, replanting the fields, seeing who returned and who didn’t. The people get quieter, they age in ways that have nothing to do with age. The children grow up quicker. They have seen too much to believe in fairy tales.
Every year leaves its scars. None of us come out of the storm without carrying some damage. We come out carrying the weight of one more thing. Some of us come out weighing less: less land returned to, less money returned to, less stuff to return to. But always we come out, that is the part we don’t forget.
The storm is never over In Murakami’s realm, the storm may leave, but it never really leaves. It continues to affect the person, and follows them around for the rest of their life.
In Assam, the flood waters recede. The water doesn’t always leave but it recedes. There are remnants to remember the storm: on the walls, the land, the eyes of those who have watched everything they have built melt away. In some cases, we look at trauma, and it screams at us. In others, it whispers. It becomes your hesitation at planting again. It is the way a little girl flinches at the rumble of thunder. It is the way an old woman cannot sleep when it rains heavily.
We have learned to live beside the flood, not under it. That’s how we survive.
Of course, perhaps that is Murakami’s point.
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.”
We are different. But we are still here.
And we are still walking.
Sreejayaa Rajguru is a law student and a writer based in Assam. Her work explores themes of justice, gender, and memory, often drawing on her lived experiences and realities in the Northeast of India. She is currently interning with legal aid organizations and documenting stories from vulnerable communities.
Weather: Water Cycle, Solid States, Stability of, see Unstable, see Apply Force, see Apply Heat, See Be Hella L.A.
By Cynthia Alessandra Briano
Collect rainwater like language—guttural. Let me tell you what my heart can do— refuse the cloud cover, dissipate the morning fog, June pushing into July.
The sun something to prepare for in a city torn apart at daylight. Raids beginning at 6 in the morning and carrying on to midnight. Respite when the poison resets. I look up the word, abduction:
Law. the illegal carrying or enticing away of a person,
especially by interfering with a relationship,
such as the taking of a child from their parent.
Acid rain falling on our gardens.
Walk around the main street as precaution. Stop your car to buy fruit.
I say to my friend: wash mosquito repellent out of your eye
the way you do tear gas. I’ve been reading articles by frontline medics: tilt your head first to the right— wash one eye, let the tears run off your face,
so as not to contaminate your other face. Then wash out your other eye. Cry until you are clean.
Tears are useful. The body needs to be useful
when all you can do is watch and record as they take away—
we will say: carry away by force,
to carry off or lead away (a person) illegally
and in secret or by force, especially to kidnap
our fathers. They are all our fathers. Say: ours.
They are all ours. And we are theirs.
The weather will cooperate. California will contend. Some sunny summer morning the gloom will melt away. It’s a dry heat. We know how
to take a handful of sand from the desert if we are desert, from the ocean, if we are ocean. From the mountain, if we are mountain. We are mountain, limestone, quartz. We are concrete heat. We are metallic lowrider hood. We are piercing gaze.
We are a heart full of earth filtering the poison and coming out clean.
Cynthia Alessandra Briano is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and grew up in Southeast Los Angeles. She is Founder of Love On Demand Global and Director of Rapp Saloon Reading Series First Fridays. She is a College Counselor and teaches English Literature, Creative Writing, and African American Arts & Literature.
