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The Note
The science fiction author William Gibson has a pair of recent novels, The Peripheral and Agency. A third novel in this trilogy, titled Jackpot, is said to be on its way. Gibson is known for having been strikingly prophetic. For example, he coined the term “cyberspace” to describe a worldwide, interconnected digital network—in 1982.
The Jackpot trilogy, as fans call it, is set in a post-apocalyptic, not very distant future. Of course, there are more post-apocalyptic books, films, and stories than anyone can count. But Gibson takes a different approach in describing what the apocalypse is in these novels. It is not a nuclear war, not a deadly pandemic, not a climate catastrophe—or, better, not any one of those alone. Gibson’s apocalypse, which he ironically calls “the Jackpot,” refers to a slow collapse unfolding across the 21st century: not a single apocalyptic event but a convergence of disasters—pandemics, climate change, economic inequality, ecosystem collapse, political instability, and mass extinction. (A note for fellow language geeks: Gibson is only the second person I’ve heard use the usually cheerful term “jackpot” to refer to a very bad situation. The other was Cormac McCarthy.)
I don’t need to explain to the people reading this why I’m starting to think that William Gibson may be showing his prophetic ability again. Looking at that list of disasters and comparing it with the present news should do the job.
I’m writing this the day after I took Easter Monday off to watch, among other things, the coverage of Artemis II’s loop around the moon, during which the highly articulate crew ran out of superlatives to describe what they were seeing out their window. You may have heard about one particular moment. Keying up the radio to speak to Houston, one of the crew members, Jeremy Hansen, proposed on behalf of the crew that an unnamed lunar crater be named “Carroll,” after the wife of fellow crew member Reid Wiseman. Carroll, the mother of his two daughters and a pediatric nurse practitioner, died of cancer not long ago. As Hansen spoke about his colleague’s late wife, something rare for astronauts happened: his voice broke with emotion. Wiseman reached out and squeezed Hansen’s shoulder; the gesture then yielded to a microgravity embrace, and then a floating four-way hug among the crew.
All the terrible tragedy and awful foreboding in the world coexists, as it always has, with moments of almost unbearable beauty: the beauty that falls upon human eyes when four people gaze at the moon up close, made possible by the collective genius of scientists, engineers, and technicians; the beauty we witness when people hold one another, weep together, and love one another.
It is central to our lives to live within these dualities: genius and bottomless stupidity, evil and good, love and hate, gravity and weightlessness, Earth and moon.
-//-
We send our love and thanks to editor Annie Stenzel, who has retired from the staff of Right Hand Pointing. What a lovely and gifted person. We welcome Ken Chau to the team, who many of you know from his able leadership as chief editor over at Unbroken and co-editor at Unlost. Ken anchors Ambidextrous Bloodhound's Australian bureau and does so cheerfuly, despite the fact that I cut that office down to 68 interns. The good news is that Ken's additional responsibilities earns him an upgrade of his Ambidextrous Bloodhound dental to include some molars.
My thanks, as always, to our editorial team, to all who submitted to Right Hand Pointing this round, and to all the contributors whose work appears in this issue.
Love,
Dale
Wendy Taylor Carlisle
March
This morning I can almost see
the first grasses on the hillside,
Spring seemed early this year
winter, everyone must have noticed,
was almost invisible. Still, I am
uneasy gossiping about the weather
to my neighbors who don’t believe
the earth is warmer.
There used to be snow every November.
Once it snowed in March. I swear.
Jeff Mock
Parting Words
The journey of a thousand miles also
Ends with one step. The bed
Is made. The last dish is washed,
Dried, and put away. The daughters
Grow up, make their own mistakes,
And learn to fix what they can.
The laundry is folded. The floor is swept.
The sun shines whether it’s cloudy
Or not. Later, in sleep, let
The hands unclench. Whatever
Is broken is fixed, finally, even if
It must be broken all the more.
If Everything Is Connected, No Two Asteroids Remain Unacquainted
Halfway between us lies
A point where we will
Never meet. A straight
Line is the greatest boredom
Between two points.
Let us meet instead
In one of the universe’s distant
Accidents, which seem
Always so random
that they must be planned,
As if to challenge gravity
And wake us to astonishment.
Eleanor Carpenter
The swifts
The swifts are back, he said to me.
They always come on a light blue evening,
when next-door’s lilac is leaning over the fence
and the candyfloss of the elder at the back is still unpicked.
An aerial shriek, taking our eyes up from the border
to see the first curved arrow, wheeling,
always followed by the other.
He said it to me every year.
This year I say it to him
but he cannot hear.
Michael J. Kolb
All Our Striving
I speak of next year,
the small repairs I keep postponing.
Below me, one wave
fails perfectly on the rocks.
The wind shifts.
A gull draws one crooked line
and refuses
to correct it.
David Harrison Horton
A Song of Sabotage
A gazelle nears a clearing,
unaware
of the predator
that will soon eat it.
In one theory, life
is the boringest video game
ever,
more boring than Kant.
The yogi stretches into a position
that does not require a name.
A polluted river runs
into a polluted lake,
where fishermen trawl
for an answer to starvation.
Colin Golden
Nescius
You wipe your spill from the table in the café,
smile and nod to taxi drivers’ eyes in the mirror,
tidy the house before the cleaner comes.
Still,
crumbs
in the sheets.
Joshua Michael Stewart
Ballad of an Orphan-Child
This orphan-child was born the hour the east winds sounded the evening drums. If your heart were like mine, what other companion would I need? We expect the moon to go on shining, drunk with breath. Whatever has died between us can endure the moon’s brightness. I’m accompanied by chrysanthemums. The pine sings my medicine. A raven leaves no trace in snow. The hills cool beautiful against the backdrop of the heavens. I’m adrift in a rowboat on a star-freckled lake. Oarlocks and wood creak. Oar-blades dipping in and out of sleep.
through mist
in a field
a skylark caroling
Joel Bush
Scrap
We dug out battered cans
from dusty ditches,
tossed them in black trash bags.
The Bud and Coors Light tallboys
still housed droplets
of stale, reeking brew.
The aluminum leeched
the summer sun’s warmth,
singeing our fingertips.
We trudged up the hills
with our oversized burdens,
saying words kids weren’t
supposed to say.
But for us, it was okay.
We knew no one important
was listening to us anyway.
Nancy Kay Peterson
Q and Mc
Damn. I was going to title this poem damn, but that would defeat the purpose of having at least one poem in the Q and Mc dividers in my binder. I should have at least one poem in each section. Since Mc is really an abbreviation used for people’s last names, I could pretend it doesn’t matter, maybe even remove that section. So one poem starting with Q would fulfil my poetic destiny. Quaint. Quite. Quiet, the sound after tonight’s phone call telling me my last living aunt had died.
Laura Hannett
While you wait at the red light,
see that reclining cloud-queen?
Her ankles drape the brick bank,
rumply thighs and bright-white tush,
rising high above the gas pumps.
Through your windshield, she spots you,
and seems to ask a question:
Why not stretch your fretful mind
languorously
on the chaise longue of the world
and see what happens?
Seductive, no?
Her body changes slowly:
Becoming a map? A dragon?
Green light: Go.
Nude Over Bridge Street
Natalie Wolf
Sun Grazer
No goodbye, just
a beginning. The promise
but no follow-through, a dance
off into the sunset. Off into
the fire. The amber flames
flickering off his skin, the heat
reaching his heart. Eyes, limbs,
the spidering capillaries.
Calcifying the body, dissolving
the mind. Leaving only
the image. Outlined, shadow
boxed. An eternal silhouette
against the holy star.
Brad Rose
Shock of Spring
Outside my window, the indifferent trees nap
as the daffodils,
their green arms thrown up to the sky,
shriek, terror-stricken
by the spring sunlight.
Last year, crop circles,
now, this.
Paul Bavister
Whaler
Whenever he thought I wasn’t tough enough,
he told the tale of when he took a ship
to the Antarctic whaling station,
then on his hundredth trip, chasing bowheads,
the ship beached and they were stuck
on a gravel bank. I never questioned the facts
when he said they were menaced
by polar bears until the rescue ship
could pick them up; I took it all as truth
when he said he ate the last great auk.
I tried my hardest to be like him,
but never quite lived the life
he never lived.
Anna Anderson
Jamey
Picture me and her in the sun: lemon juice streaks in our hair 'cuz she wishes she was blond, her bikini bottoms pulled to one side to show off the bruises purpling. They're from barbell hip thrusts at the gym; the boys all like a juicy ass, and anyway she doesn't mind. She calls them 'proof of life' but she's wrong. Even a corpse will bruise.
That was the summer of me behind the bleachers, letting Tommy Higgins put his mouth on my throat because later she'd lean in close, all suntan lotion and bony fingers, wanting a look at the hickey. That was the summer of her black-eyed and broken-cheeked from one ex-boyfriend or another. Always it was me that cried.
Picture me and her, picking up her baby brother from preschool: swinging him by his hands between us, drawing squares on steaming concrete with a thick pink stub of chalk. She could hopscotch like no one else - backwards, one foot, with her eyes shut; it didn't matter. She never touched a single line.
Tallulah Howarth
Simple Epiphany
The sky was terracotta-plated
as you rode the rented bicycle
through the sunset
Your skirt, carefree,
rode up towards your thigh
and for once you didn’t pull it down
It is good to move your body,
good to think,
make friends from different countries
Each night you bolt
out the sound of cicada,
symphony of dogs…
Sonnet Mondal
The Weight of Rain
The sky carries what we bury.
So many unshed sorrows
hang heavy in the sky.
Today, grief distilled into water
falls softly
as if the clouds couldn’t hold us anymore.
Ben Sloan
This Neck of the Woods
While an army of lighthouse keepers
runs up and down a narrow staircase,
while a bellows sucks in then disgorges
half a liter of air 17,000+ times a day,
and a squeezy tube
moves chewed food downstream
to a remote location
where blood is cobbled together,
we release into the sky a swoop
of starlings sharing a single purpose,
each its own distinct black star
in a far-flung, billowing flag.
David Anson Lee
After the Power Outage
When the lights return
everything feels rehearsed:
the refrigerator beginning again,
the clock blinking 12:00
as if nothing before counted.
We move through the house
turning things on
that were already ours.
Outside, windows light
one by one:
small squares agreeing
we are still here,
though for a while
we weren’t sure
what that meant.
In the kitchen,
I reset the microwave
and hesitate
before pressing start,
as if time
might notice.
Polly Conway
Golden Hour
Big day: Fred Astaire’s granddaughter
came into the frozen yogurt shop,
her smile a candelabra.
I spoke in bad
Spanish to the drunk
man, who wanted a beer but
got a sundae. There was nothing
else to give him. Lo siento.
At five o’ clock,
the sun lit us all. The peach
fuzz on my face made me
sparkle.
Mark LaMonda
In the End He was More Like Cats Than Expected
Heaven was nothing like he expected.
Dogs everywhere --
and not to sound cliché, but lions were lying down with lambs,
and there were a lot of them,
and it stank,
and the dogs and other creatures loved the stink.
He crouched close to the ground
surrounded by orange tabby cats
that licked themselves incessantly,
looking askance at this world
that was nothing like the Heaven they expected either.
Matthew Caretti
When the cane toads sing
it’s too late to take it back.
Love is like that; once it’s out
there, there’s nothing to be done
but let nature run its course.
Here that means chorus practice
until well after midnight. Until
that first thought of touching
dawn.
Contributors 164
Anna Anderson is an English literature graduate student and aspiring writer currently living in rural Minnesota.
Paul Bavister has published three collections of poetry with Two Rivers Press. His work has appeared in Oxford Poetry, The Rialto and Dream Catcher.
Joel Bush reads things. He also writes things. Well, sometimes he reads the things he writes. That tends to help. His work has been featured in The Spotlong Review, Meniscus, and Muleskinner Journal.
Matthew Caretti’s collections include Harvesting Stones (2017, Snapshot Press eChapbook Award) and three with Red Moon Press: Africa, Buddha (2022), Ukulele Drift (2023) and Slow Boat to Samoa (2025). He is the recipient of a 2024 Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun and lives a simple life in Pago Pago, American Samoa.
Eleanor Carpenter is from London, England. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Neologism Poetry Journal Thimble Literary Magazine, Carmina Magazine and Pictura Journal.
Polly Conway is a writer based in Alameda, CA. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in One Art, Wildscape, MEMEZINE, Pictura, Ellie, Jelly Squid, and more. She is the Poetry Editor at Nulla, a multimedia journal. She holds an MFA in Poetry from California College of the Arts.
Colin Golden is a writer and coach, amongst other things, from Dublin, Ireland. His work explores attention, inheritance, and the hidden patterns shaping how we live and relate to one another.
Laura Hannett's poems appear in such journals as Willows Wept Review, Belladonna's Garden, Sheila-Na-Gig, Abandoned Mine and Amethyst Review. Her work is included in several anthologies, among them The Color Wheel: Poems (Terrapin Books) and Into the Deep, Dark Woods (WordFire Press). She lives in Central New York.
David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of Necessary (Downingfield, 2025) and Maze Poems (Arteidolia, 2022). His work has recently appeared in The Belfast Review, Roi Fainéant, Modern Literature and Yolk, among others. He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW. davidharrisonhorton.com
Tallulah Howarth is a multidisciplinary creative and co-ordinator of the Writing Squad. They are particularly passionate about foraging and archives. Her debut, An Alternative Xanadu, came out this April with Ossa Prints - in which the ft² of each room in her house dictates the word count for each poem.
Michael J. Kolb is a poet, teacher, and scholar whose work explores body, memory, place, and survival. He teaches anthropology and history at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His poems have appeared in journals including Speckled Trout Review, Eunoia Review, Sky Island Journal, Bramble Literary Review, The Shore, and Third Wednesday.
Mark LaMonda is an artist and writer who lives in Santa Clarita California. His work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Lullwater Review, January House and is forthcoming in Tough Poets Review, Shadow and Sax, and South Florida Poetry Journal.
David Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet whose work appears in Eunoia Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Orchards, and Braided Way. His writing explores memory, medicine, and the quiet tensions of ordinary life. He lives and works in Texas.
Jeff Mock is the author of Ruthless. His poems appear in The American Poetry Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, New England Review, The North American Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He directs the MFA program at Southern Connecticut State University.
Sonnet Mondal writes from Kolkata and is the director of Chair Poetry Evenings – Kolkata’s International Poetry Festival. His ten books of poetry include Clamour for a Handful of Rice (Copper Coin), An Afternoon in My Mind (Copper Coin), and Lautati Dopaharein (Rajkamal Prakashan).
Nancy Kay Peterson: Bellevue Literary Review, Bluebird Word, Dash Literary Journal, Earth’s Daughters, Naugatuck River Review, RavensPerch, Spank the Carp, Steam Ticket, and Tipton Poetry Journal. She co-published Main Channel Voices: A Dam Fine Literary Magazine (2004-2009). Her chapbooks are: Belated Remembrance (2010) and Selling the Family (2021). (www.nancykaypeterson.com)
Brad Rose is the author of eight collections of poetry and flash fiction: Or Words to that Effect, I Wouldn’t Say That, Exactly, WordInEdgeWise, Lucky Animals, No. Wait. I Can Explain, Pink X-Ray, de/tonations, and Momentary Turbulence. His website is www.bradrosepoetry.com
Joshua Michael Stewart has appeared in Massachusetts Review, Brilliant Corners, New Flash Fiction Review, and Best Small Fictions 2025. https://joshuamichaelstewartauthor.com
Ben Sloan has a chapbook entitled Who and What We Are due to be published by Seven Kitchens Press in August 2026. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Natalie Wolf is an MFA student in creative writing at the University of Kansas. Her work has appeared in Short Story, Long; The Hooghly Review; I-70 Review, and more. Natalie is an editor at One Sentence Poems. You can find her on her website (https://nwolfmeep.wixsite.com/nmwolf) and on Instagram @nwolfcats.