I try my first Strawberry Refresher with Leona at the mall. It’s her first too. Her brother and dad are away for a couple days and we’re having a “girls’ weekend.” Leona gets to choose what we do. So, here we are on a Saturday afternoon in a crowded Starbucks in a pretentious consumer hellscape and I’m moody and broody from long lines and packed parking lots. But here’s my girl, delighted with her cake pop and the fact that we’re actually at the mall, drinking the wonder-woma

Garth Robinson lives and teaches in Annapolis, Maryland. He holds an MFA from Hollins University. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in DIAGRAM, Oyster River Pages, Iron Horse Literary Review, Kestrel, Variant Literature, and elsewhere.

Joanne Esser is the author of the poetry collections "All We Can Do Is Name Them," (Fernwood Press, October 2024), "Humming At The Dinner Table," and the chapbook "I Have Always Wanted Lightning." Her new book of poems, "Nothing Is Stationary," will be released by Holy Cow! Press in June 2026. Recent work appears in Great Lakes Review, Humana Obscura, I-70 Review, Dunes Review, The Main Street Rag, and Orca, among other journals. She earned an MFA from Hamline University.

Fred Shaw is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh and was recently named to the Advisory Board for the International Poetry Forum. His first collection, Scraping Away was published by CavanKerry Press in 2020. A second book is in the works.