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by Sara Shea

On I-26, heading into Asheville,
a flatbed rolls beside me,
stacked with husks of cars—
mud-caked, mangled, dripping.
One might’ve been a van, once,
Hard to tell.
Metal curled back on itself.
Windshields blown in
like lungs collapsed.

Seven months now since Helene.

That blaze of neon orange—
search and rescue spray-paint
tells the story, marking days
when the water rose.

This load’s likely bound
for the scrap yard
past the stump dump,
where mounds of ruin rise
like new mountain chains
of debris above the French Broad
and River Arts District.

These cars have been sunk
half a year in silt and shadow,
rivers swallowing them whole.
Recovery crawls.
Federal aid dries up.
Volunteers come with chains,
backhoes grunt through sludge.

Now, as we travel side by side,
clods of riverbed still drop
from the bellies of these frames.
Long threads of kudzu trail behind—
green pennants flapping
not quite surrender,
not quite hope.

And there, on the flatbed
snagged in a crimp
of crushed steel,
a snarl of multiflora rose—
white petals open,
trembling in the wind.

Sara Shea received her BA from Kenyon College, where she served as Student Associate Editor for The Kenyon Review. She’s pursued graduate studies through the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville and at Western Carolina University, where she studied with Ron Rash. Her work has appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Quarterly West, The Static in Our Stars Anthology, Key West Love Poetry Anthology, Amsterdam Quarterly, Gaslamp Pulp, Petigru Review, New Plains Review, The Awakenings Review and Atlanta Review. Shea is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the New Millennium Poetry Prize judged by UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.  Shea writes professionally, producing marketing materials for a fine arts gallery in Asheville, NC.

by Pell Williams

I am no good at waking.
Still, I borrow Momma’s
mud-worn shoes
and sip hot paper cup coffee
as her van fills one by one
with artists of all mediums.
I guard the van while they slip
under the Widgeon Point gate,
the night’s bruise healing with light.
I’m no good at sneaking
through the young pine forests
to peek at the easels tucked
into swathes of marsh grass.
No good at balancing on fallen
trees stretched over the pluff mud,
their bark so pale I cannot name them.
I am good at clutching close
this paper vessel and filling it
with tiny markings, at relinquishing
the song I sang when I first woke
in favor of thrumming insects,
birds reuniting after the long dark.
I’m good at holding position
on this log in the shadows
and watching orange rise up
purple palmetto trunks.
For every morning I cannot wake
I hope to God I’ll dream in sunrise.

Pell Williams received an MFA in poetry from the College of Charleston and a BA in writing seminars from Johns Hopkins University. Pell served as the creative writing editor for Surge: The Lowcountry Climate Magazine, and was the 2019 artist in residence for the Dry Tortugas National Park. She is currently a marine science writer for the State of South Carolina. Her work has been published in The Good Life Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Grim & Gilded, among others.

by Jacquelyn Markham

Japanese plums, loquats, saffron clusters
pasted on palmish evergreen leaves
in breezes swinging.
Another spring blooms.
Let’s gather them & slice the fruit.
Each one a center of smooth seed,
a sculptor could carve a tiny face from.

Loquat in saffron clusters.
Let’s gather them & slice the fruit,
concoct a yellow cocktail with ice
stirred in. Laugh & toast
to love like days past.
Another spring blooms.
Fruit once fragrant blossoms.
Now, the loquats bunch in saffron
clusters. We laugh & drink the fruit,
cheers to days past with a tangy taste of sun.

Jacquelyn Markham, author of three chapbooks, including Rainbow Warrior (2023) and a personal mythology, Peering Into the Iris: An Ancestral Journey, has published in journals and anthologies, such as Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Fall Lines, Woman and Earth, High Window Review, & others. Markham’s awards include three Georgia Council for the Arts grants, a Kentucky Women’s Foundation Award, and a SC Arts Grant. A former professor, she earned an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University and in 2014 received the Adele Mellen Prize for distinguished scholarship for her research on the poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Markham lives and writes in Beaufort where she mentors poets and writers. 

by Ann Humphries

I will arise and go to Edisto
to a shabby-chic inn with rocking chairs
on a pastel porch with beachfront views,
and morning espresso with fresh fruit and scones
and cheer on children cartwheeling on the beach,
and, at sunset, I will bathe in turquoise air

and plein-air paint the ravenous gulls
strafing the packed hulls of shrimp boats
then inhale the marsh where graceful herons glide

and redwing blackbirds boast, “Con-ca-ree,”
and evenings, engage in lively tete-a-tete
(because those are the rules) and extol
the lacy-petticoat waves with the incoming tide
and order fried oysters and local beer,
then adjourn to the shore to count the falling stars

immersed in the indigo velvet of night,
the sounds of calling owls return me to rest
and I shall sleep with windows open to surf.

Ann Humphries is a poet, hiker, birder from Columbia, SC. Her first collection, An Eclipse and A Butcher, debuted in 2020, and her second collection, My Blind Obsession, will be released November 2025 . Most recently, she has been featured in Coast Lines: A Poetry Anthology, Kaklak Anthology, and the 40th anniversary of The James Dickey Review. She is a SC Humanities Speaker/Scholar, a South Carolina Notable Woman, and her papers are archived at USC’s Special Collections. Read her work at https://annhumphriespoet.wordpress.com/.

by Kylie Harris

thick gold hangs low against cerulean blue
light spills as day lingers soft and strong
warmth teases where winter still lingers
in wind’s slow exhale

scuffed corners on the cooler red and white
cradles last summer’s sand
tucked into crannies where tide couldn’t reach
older than remembered

photograph kissed by sun
colors bleached edges softened by time
old stories drift smoke swirls above grill
laughter of summers now forgotten

steam curl slow ribbons
dirty rag damp with brine and smoke
clings to oysters fresh from the boat
cajun spice lingers thick in air

lemon butter citrus stings cuts
hand squeeze motion remembered in bone
muscle memory passed through fish fried porch talk
mothers with delicately cracked hands

shell pops open with steam unfurling
warm cluster and saltine press
against the lip
too eager to dress

oysters ripe in rippling water
seasoned by a cold current
tide’s rhythm stitched to soul
memory woven by oceanic hush

Kylie Harris is a graduate teaching assistant in the Master of Arts in Writing program at Coastal Carolina University. A native of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, her writing reflects a deep nostalgia for the coastal South, exploring how memory, family, and shoreline traditions shape one’s sense of belonging.

by Olivia Dorsey Peacock

a letter for great-grandpa

your children insist i know nothing of survival

could not imagine tilling soil with hands raw excavating
life from snow the harshness of your words
waking at dawn caressing young hands that churned
cows’ milk into butter nursing
the wounds of a beaten and aging brother

could not imagine escaping fields of brown,
falling from golden heights
in kiss’s breath death resigning
to home under boulders trading for
incessant throbs crushed arm, crushed femur.

i know

i think of you often
torso dragging limbs across your fields, plow neglected
with the hardheadedness of those
sun-dried South Carolina fathers
refined by mountains calluses scented with limestone
dusted in soda ash painted in red clay
clinging to dignity always
behind eyes always, all those tears
an offering.

Olivia Dorsey Peacock is a family historian, poet, and tea maven based in North Carolina. She has received fellowships and support from The Watering Hole, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Arts & Science Council. She is currently serving as Charlotte Lit’s 2025 GoodLit Poetry Fellow and previously served as a 2025 Goodyear Arts Artist-in-Residence. Her writing has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, poetry.onl, and Shot Glass Journal. Follow her @ohdeepeacock and find her work at oliviapeacock.com.