I’ve learned to resonate
with the small and
empty space
between the brush strokes
that comprise
the wilting leaves
shadowed beneath
golden blooming petals—and
I spent so much time
trying to convince you
I was worth being
loved, that I
no longer
believe it myself.
After Sunflowers, Claude Monet
McKenna Themm graduated summa cum laude with her B.A. in Literature and Writing from CSUSM. She is currently an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry student at San Diego State University. Her poems have been published by The San Diego Union-Tribune, JMWW, Bryant Literary Review, pacificREVIEW, Luna Luna, and The Stray Branch. She is writing her first full-length ekphrastic collection of poems, based on the life and work of Vincent van Gogh. She is the managing editor at the Los Angeles Review, a Content Strategist at Archer Education, and the MFA Director’s Assistant at SDSU.
Emanuela Iorga is a filmmaker, artist, and screenwriter, who lives in Chisinau, Moldova. Art represents for her a recently rediscovered passion, following a series of world and inner changes. Her work can be found at manolcaincosmos.wordpress.com/270.