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The Rail

Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers

5/15/2022 0 Comments

Giraffe, This is a Love Story, & Through The Motions, by Nicolette Reim

Dear Readers,

After a brief hiatus to release
Late Stage, gather our thoughts, and do some spring cleaning, The Rail is back this week to bring you three beautiful poems by New York writer Nicolette Reim. 

Thank you for sticking with us, readers and writers! We couldn't do it without you.

-The Derailleur Press team

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GIRAFFE

The giraffe
never met D. H. Lawrence
but knew instinctively
no form of love is wrong
as long as it is love and 
you yourself honor what 
you have to do.

Love has an extraordinary 
variety of forms
and that is all there is in life 
it seemed to me

nibbling leaves
gently above a tree.

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4/1/2022 0 Comments

Daylight Savings & Entomophagy at San Francisco’s Pier 39 by Abby Caplin

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for your patience while we dealt with some difficulties (both technical and personal). 


The Rail is back this week with two poems that use all five senses to discuss bodies, longing, and motherhood.

We have two announcements coming down the pipe, so please stay tuned! Plus, our brand new fiction chapbook is out in the world and available for order here. 

Happy reading and have a great weekend!

The Derailleur Press Team
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Daylight Savings

Am I free? I dreamt I’d lost weight, the black leggings loose.
Before surgery, I almost threw them in the trash
can. Now they feel snug at the waist as I rise and muscle
down the hall with a scooter, right foot plastered. I want to 
explain that I’ve weathered this surgery with Tuscan pizza— 

fresh basil and tomato, mozzarella melted and stretched over 
gluten. Lemon cupcakes from the corner bakery also 
helped, tasting of Mother’s long-ago cake batter stuck to the
insides of her yellow Pyrex bowl and clinging to the mixer’s
joined blades, me perched over the table on my 

knees to reach the silver curves with my tongue. Now I 
languish in a dark room with hints of a Western movie set,
miscellaneous furniture collected from estate sales of
neighbors—red velvet rocking chair with curved armrests,
oak end table with a bad drawer and cracked 

patina, and my lovely tasseled rose lampshade inspired by
Queen Victoria. I’ve tied the window sheers back with brown
ribbons, like doll hair pulled into long ponytails. On my desk 
sits a papier-mâché frog prince, pillowy arms set forward to
tripod with his extended legs, keeping him propped

up. He is my talisman, my muse and sometimes
voyeur with his intense eyes. But mostly he is a bit of
whimsy, dressed in purple Elizabethan ruff and green breeches, his
expectant, slightly smirking amphibian countenance—he is my
yea-sayer, leaning forward on felt hands, asking,

​Zaftig, my dear, what comes next?

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3/4/2022 1 Comment

Sweetgrass, Morse Code, & Mother Exhaled, by Ellis Elliott

Dear Readers,

Florida poet Ellis Elliott has three beautiful poems about family and the intimacies and indignities of aging. 

Please read and share with someone who needs a little beauty in their life today.

Happy reading!

The Derailleur Press Team

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Sweetgrass

She bends silvery-green sweetgrass
leaves into woven baskets in a ritual
as rote 

as a low-country Sunday school hymn.
Both held and pulled with her right hand,  

the coils must be taut with tension and strong 
enough to hold water. She sketched rooms 

to scale in her red spiral notebook, sewed 
the teal silk curtains, and died in the
house 

I moved into. In the kitchen were her copper
cooking pots, her cracked oyster plates,  

her mint-green matchbox from Paris, 
her baskets on cabinet tops, and her three  

lost boys. I search for something sturdy  to
contain their grief. And when it can’t be found,  

I become my own flawed variation. My broad 
leaves braid and curl around all of us.


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3/1/2022 0 Comments

Mountain & Wish You Were Here, by Serena Eve Richardson

Dear Readers,

As you start your week, we know your hearts are heavy with the weight of current events, from military occupations across the globe to attacks on human rights in our own country. We hope in the midst of the terror and uncertainty, you can take a moment for yourself, and heal via art.

This week we're happy to share two poems from Serena Eve Richardson which will make you sigh and smile, even as the world spins madly on.

Happy reading!

The Derailleur Press Team
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MOUNTAINS

My parents are mountains, and if I try hard,
I can be a mountain too. I drink Taj Mali,
one of my uncles knows where the good
tea grows, he fed my mother Shakespeare 
back when they were starving

I eat biscuits and gravy, salt and pepper
only or I might spoil myself, you blink and life 
becomes hard. My father loves the blank taste
and hated his mother, says fingers and toes
are the only things you can count on

WISH YOU WERE HERE

Dear,
Have you noticed we don’t 
talk much anymore?
Have you noticed that days
only last a short while,
that children are young for
only a short while, animals
live only a short while?
Love,
Serena Eve Richardson is a New Jersey poet, essayist, and singer/songwriter. Her poetry is most recently published in The Round, Good Works Review, Straight Forward Poetry, Pennsylvania English, and Rubbertop Review. In 2019 she released her debut EP Some Imaginings as Cat Cameo, which features poetry that has been transitioned into song. Serena is a fan of live storytelling and performed at the 2019 Philadelphia Podcast Festival with the podcast RISK! She enjoys motorsports and Siljun Dobup, a samurai sword martial art in which she holds a second-degree black belt. Serena is currently completing her poetry book Ectoplasm and working to reinstate the office of New Jersey Poet Laureate
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2/22/2022 0 Comments

She's Called Gillian & I Am Winter, by Natascha Graham

Dear Readers,

We're so excited to feature past Rail contributor Natascha Graham with two more stunning poems. 

Natascha's work covers the uncertainty of queer love, lust, and everything in between. You won't want to sleep on this week's post!

We hope you're taking care of yourselves, whatever that may mean to you.

Happy reading!

The Derailleur Press team

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SHE’S CALLED GILLIAN

She’s got brown hair and eyes the colour of a bleached winter sky. 
She’s about 5’5, but she’s tough.
I met her just after I met my girlfriend.
My girlfriend was a narcissist.
She didn’t like me having friends, or seeing family.
So, I didn’t really.
Gillian stuck around, though.
In fact, that’s when I first met her
A few months in
She was standing in a driveway nudging gravel with the toe of her Converse.
I asked her if she’d lost something.
Her wedding ring, she said. Not that it mattered.
He was a cheating bastard.
We walked to school together. 
She wore dark jeans and a plaid shirt over a long-sleeved top with four buttons at the neckline.
She was self-destructive.
I liked that about her.
She’d help me put the shopping away when the Tesco delivery arrived. 
It wasn’t my house, 
but I did everything in it.
She expected that of me.
My girlfriend,
The narcissist.
Once when my girlfriend went away, 
we used her land to have a bonfire in the old metal drum that was full of weeds and earth and crap.
Gillian joked we should get all of her clothes and stick them on the fire, 
but burning her clothes wouldn’t do any good, we decided. 
She had enough trouble keeping her clothes on, 
having less of them would only add to the problem.
We cooked our lunch on the bonfire. 
Potatoes baked in tin foil. 
Their skins were black but we ate them anyway, 
and inside they were smoky and white and good.
Gillian would be there in the evenings, too. 
I’d make my excuses and slip to the garage for another bottle of wine, 
and Gillian was there,
back against the wall, picking at the fraying edge of her sleeve.
She’d tell me about her day, the sheep, the farm. 
She’d hug me, properly, hold me until I’d stopped shaking, 
or near enough.

Once, on fireworks night,
She had a party. 
My girlfriend, 
the narcissist.
Everyone was there. All of her friends, family, neighbours.
Her dad made the bonfire bigger than was safe. 
She poured everyone drinks and looked for me to give me something to do.
I stood in the shadows with Gillian. 
She was all nervy, jittery, bristling with energy, possibility, magic....
She was wearing wellington boots. 
Green ones, but they weren’t Hunter boots, and I was glad of that. 
They were bog-standard boots from a garden centre.
She had one hand in her pocket, I could hear the clink of the keys to her Land Rover.
You need to get shot of her.
She said, looking at the bonfire, into the flames. 
Her face was warm, golden, fire-lit and beautiful.
She’s going to kill you if you don’t.
She looked at me then, Gillian did.
One way or another you’ll end up dead.
She was right. I knew she was right.


But Gillian only existed in my head.

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2/18/2022 0 Comments

Polar Bears in Love (Valentine), by Joseph Hope

Dear Readers,

​With Valentine's Day behind us, and Spring right around the corner, we're happy to share a meditation on love from West African poet Joseph Hope. 

Please read, share, and submit something of your own!

We're going to be making some changes (all good things!) at The Rail, so keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming announcement!

Happy Reading--

The Derailleur Press team
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Love can be served cold, 
sitting across the table, 

music in the background 
as she throws her hair back, 

and ask what you want the babies 
to look like, knowing well 

you're not God you still go ahead 
to answer the wrong questions the right way. 

It's valentine day
and the day is 

younger than 
the both of you 

pretending to be 
in love. At least. 

The train is miles away 
but the vibration reaches you

like the cold breeze 
and you both hold hands and 

walk in and out 
of the movie theatre.

If you can eat cold love 
and survive for years 

you can survive 
better or worse. 

Love can be served like ice cream 
on a cold day, and you both

 hold hands and dine 
like polar bears in love.
Joseph Hope writes from Nigeria, West Africa. He believes he's a metaphor for what can be, what is possible. And a synonym for a wonder the world don't have a word for. The King of weirdos who tries every night to find the confluence point between river Earth and river Heaven with his eyes close. Hahaha. Udo.

His works are forthcoming or already published in
Reckoning Press, Timber Ghost Press, Evening Street Press, Zoetic Press, New Verse News, Praxis Magazine, Ubu, AfroPoetry, Gemini Spice Magazine, Spillwords, SprinNG, Writers Space Africa, Nthanda Magazine, 5th & 6th Chinua Achebe Anthology, Ariel Chart, Best "New" African Poets 2019 Anthology, and more. He's a reader for Reckoning Press.

He was a fellow in the 2021 SprinNG Writing Fellowship.

He tweets @ItzJoe9 & IG: _hope_joseph

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2/14/2022 0 Comments

The Summon, by Moses John Agbaeze

Dear Readers,

Start your week off right with this brilliant work by Igbo poet Moses John Agbaeze.

We feel truly blessed with the amount of incredible submissions we're receiving, especially from emerging writers! 

Please read, share, and consider writing something yourself.

Take care,

Cassandra

P.S. Haven't ordered our 2022 fiction chapbook yet? We're going to print at the end of the month and you'll definitely want a copy.

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Here’s proof that my lips parted nicely.
Metal testimony: 
I stand before the judge, swelled, yet, I chopped in bits, like
dementia—like slipping a duster over a white marker board.
He further tries to push testimonies into his log.
I pull a knot, the essence being warped and swamped: 
where bliss soured and a glass of juice, like the motive, numbed
a body.

​A glass is the serpent of Eden. 
Lady— a consensus adjutant carrying in her hands the summation
of a night where lady plus man is a spasm of emotion.
Here, behind a shut-door, a haven for decent, yet, revolting spats
of emotion. 
A glass, its distance to the mouth, several gulps after, and it’s 
an ulterior scheme of forced satisfaction, an implosion.

​I don't know how to read the judge an expressive face. Say, I’m a
shameless man. Aren’t these ones here to spit into the wind?
Wind, a wide traveler? I birth a life: didn’t I do it and liked it?
I didn't order the night. I stayed respectful to fits of emotion,
laid a glass, and used the restroom.

​So, I carry my body, a swinging pendulum gently to the enclave just
below the judge’s odd stare. Ruffled, I’m easing towards
hibernation. Slippery, I’m not writing my body to a fall. I hope
he understands this reluctance.

​For rightsake, I hope she leaps for truth and at once, tell that night the
night’s way— fits of emotion,
a glass of juice,
rest in a room,
room, her kingdom!
she'll stand here and say that night in black 
and white, a tipsy night. I answered to the tips of her fingers,
the loops in her palms driving me on a free ride. 
This day was born that night.

​Think of her testimony as a body in rest, palming her jutted belly 
to bliss if motion was constant. 
A beautiful thing lives inside of her, blooming like tendrils, but
I shrink at duty when duty becomes undue, forced, apt denial of
some sort. They'll grow up asking the wrong kind of questions.

​I'd want it differently, I’d want un-blanking the judge, past this
cesspool of loss that’s called us rest, tinkered to a halt. 
Let’s say that night; color these witnesses into an active voice, 
a glass stained with her whorls, 
and her lustful tongue, I couldn't refuse. 
I want flowers, like a garden: pruned and chastised into a beautiful
woman. This way, they ask the right kind of questions, 
I say how blessed I am to acknowledge the night as God.
I’m liable.
Moses John Agbaeze is a writer of Igbo descent who uses writing, especially poetry, as a tool to tell the human story. When he's motivated to write, he writes poems and short stories that elicit strong behavioral traits in humans, like relationships and love, and how the environment plays a subtle role in shaping lives. He's a graduate of Geography, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, so when he's not writing about love or family, he's looking up places in a map and ranting about how he thinks Geography is the mother of all sciences. 
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2/13/2022 0 Comments

Nineteen & Driven Home, by Alison Hackett

Dear Readers,

Today we're sharing some poetry to ward off the Sunday Scaries.

Please enjoy these two gut-wrenching poems by Irish poet Alison Hackett, who with just a few verses transports you to these dark yet hopeful places. We welcome you to share, and submit your own!

Take care, and happy reading!

​-The Derailleur Press team

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Nineteen

In Paris. Aupèring. Three young boys to be minded. 
Cleaning, ironing. Her lacy pants melt and stick  

to the iron; don’t have to do it anymore. The physical  

contact is unexpected. Two huge arms engulf  
me, one hand on my mons, the other on my  
breast. Trapped. He laughs and leaves. At night,  

in the tiny apartment, he comes in, puts his hands 
under the covers, whispers nothing is going to happen, 
he only wants to get in, lie beside me. I whisper-hiss,  

non, non; think of his wife next door. Does she know? 
NON. We go to Normandy, to their holiday home. Bigger. 
Safer. Her, me and the boys. Not long till he’s back.  

A couple with him. I know I’m in trouble when his friend 
does the same thing the next day. Freeze to tiny-boned bird. 
Back in Paris dozens of messages, in English, on their answering  

machine. My father, telling me again and again that I failed 
my exams and must come home. He left me alone until I left. 
At the end they said I had the beginnings of a Parisian accent. 


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2/11/2022 0 Comments

pectus excavatum: a love story, by Desiree McCullough

Dear Readers,

We are so excited for today's piece! Writer Desiree McCullough explores the discomforts of having a body in a beautifully intimate and percussive way. Please read, share, and consider submitting your own work!

In other news, our 2022 Fiction chapbook is going to press at the end of the month! Don't forget to preorder your copy.

Happy reading!

The Derailleur Press Team

Picture

​In between my breasts, 

a dip, a small reserve.

My doctor diagnosed this 
sunken gap in my breastbone as:

“mild pectus excavatum.”

This congenital deformity never bothered me until girls in high school 
started 
wearing 
bikinis. 

​The polyester-spandex string 
stretched over this impasse 
between my developing chest. 

A formation in utero 
ignoring the capacity space for vital organs like a heart and lungs.

An overgrowth of connective tissue,
the sternum calculating this oddity as:
 “bore inward and make room.”

​****

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2/5/2022 0 Comments

Quiet Question, by Allan Lake

Dear Readers,

Happy February! We weren't paying attention on Groundhog Day, but here's hoping we only have six more days of winter instead of six weeks.

This week we have a lovely poem from Canadian poet Allan Lake. Lake's delicate words play with time and space, and we're sure you're going to love his work just as much as we did.

Happy reading, and have a wonderful weekend!

​The Derailleur Press Team

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My years back there are faded photos
so why are you here, brooding nearby 
as I tend my garden? Surely nothing left 
to say between lovers who lavished 
on each other what was primal, 
then, hemispheres apart, 
lost touch.

​Thought it just as well I was far away 
at the pain-filled conclusion of your 
abbreviated life. You weren’t alone.

​​Then, your voice/ 
                                /on my phone
planting words to keep me on the line.

Running out of days long before expected, 
one thing became clear to you, 
prompted you to call out across continents.
I thought we had both moved on, 
left it in the past, but you, on the door-
step of death, used precious minutes 
to sow seeds, stored though seasons. 
They have taken root; I taste the fruit.
Allan Lake, originally from Saskatchewan, has lived in Vancouver, Cape Breton, Ibiza, Tasmania, W. Australia & Melbourne. Poetry Collection: Sand in the Sole (Xlibris, 2014). Lake won Lost Tower Publications (UK) Comp 2017, Melbourne Spoken Word Poetry Fest 2018 and publication in New Philosopher 2020.  Latest Chapbook (Ginninderra Press 2020) My Photos of Sicily.
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