The Colorado Equinox

Callie Crouch

is keeping us from a
run in, a
tick of monstrosities
combining, a
“meeting of the minds”
as they say in contract law
when two people
enter an agreement, even
if their intentions 
are different.
And maybe it’s not like this
for you, but my sun 
is a fried egg on blue
construction paper, setting
later than it normally should,
runny as it slides
westward. So
leave your clothes
on the rock bed and
float to me, it
doesn’t matter
that we never really understood
one another perfectly
because all mountain water
is bitter
until you’re in it,
until you stand up and
step out again, until you carry on
across the country
and finally

the sky burns just a tad
differently. 

Callie Crouch is a Southern poet and fiction writer; she has a master’s degree in writing studies from Saint Joseph’s University and is currently in law school at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her flash fiction and poetry appears or is upcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including Quarter Press, Barbar, Coffin Bell, Orca, Volney Road Review, Pinky Thinker Press, River and South Review, and Barely South Review. Callie is from Florida, but lives and writes in Colorado with her cat, Idgie.

Art: Yongxi (Vivian) Lin is an illustrator and printmaker based in New York. She completed her undergraduate studies in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts and is currently pursuing Printmaking at Pratt Institute. Her work often blends illustration and printmaking, exploring themes of personal narrative, emotional storytelling, and cultural hybridity. Through her art, she reflects both visible joys and hidden struggles, creating imagery that is playful yet thoughtful.