delicate emissions poetry zine
volume iv, issue 4
december 2025
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a note from dusti
Dear Friends,
The world continues to attack truth and beauty. The tapestry in our title field above, from centuries ago, is proof that this is nothing new. The attackers are dressed in colorful finery; there are many. Yet the unicorn bucks -- not just resisting but fighting back. We -- the artists of the world, whatever our canvas may be -- are the unicorns of today's world, if we consider the world as the context of this tapestry. My brain is a bit in the weeds after a very eventful semester and holidays. But we, as unicorns, must continue to buck, to write, paint, speak, sing, dance, and play.
Our December issue features poems by Sammy Bellin, Allison P. Brown, Audrey Howitt, Aaron Manahan, Hannah Page, John Sweet, and Sean Wang. We had a record number of submissions for this issue thanks to increasing use of ChillSubs, a great site that connects publications and writers (and does a lot more than that!). Still, we decided to keep this issue a little smaller than the last few. We hope you'll find meaning in the selections here, that they'll illuminate your heart as a new year begins, maybe even inspire you to start your own writing practice -- or your own publication.
Submissions for the first issue of Volume V will open sometime in February.
Wishing you all the best as we move into 2026. And now...the poetry.
Your friend,
dusti rw levy
founder & editor
Remedy for Hitting Snooze
by Allison P. Brown
The quiet is outside time and scorns
even a gentle ring, arpeggio, newscaster
voicing present tragedies. It is wrapped
serpentine on your neck and wrists;
it can puppet you, inexpertly, but even so
manages to flop your hand to stop stop stop
time, greedily. No logic or muscles help here.
Use timelessness to your advantage. You
are already boiling water. You are already
testing the water while you shiver
naked by the shower. But, mind,
it is not an excuse to stay, you must become
a leggy plant reaching for the sun—
growth and movement without any concept
of effort or gravity or falling short.
One in a Million
by Aaron Manahan
Hedges snake down the sides of the front walkway
A forced path from door to street
Their green skin is now covered with the warmth of twinkling white lights
My eyes dart as they begin their yearly search
I muster patience now slowly scanning the crest, spying only chaotic monotony
Untidy and identical
Seven, eight, nine minutes pass as my dad stands to my right smiling
Found it. I walk three quarters up the path and point it out
The pale blue bulb
Pthalo Blue
by Hannah Page
Bob presses happy little trees
into his flat wet alchemy. Next
to me you layer. You are
prepping your canvas, slicking
it naked white – a glinting
reserve planting, a reserve of muddled
promises and the vacancy of perpetual loss.
Highlights glint with potential,
memory disturbing like undertow.
The difference between sowing
and burying is the end.
Flower bulbs in utero
by Sammy Bellin
The bulbs hawk and bawl all
winter, onion-skin mouths
jerking at copperhead grass and clods
of coarse-corrupt turf. My little god
you will be the envy of us all
come this riotous spring,
dapper and dappled in pastel youth.
Ikigai in a Fascist World
by Audrey Howitt
I write about small things because that is what I have—
morning tea, the news, walking the dog.
My morning flips over one scene at a time—
like those old books you flip through to see a dog chase a squirrel.
I am the grandma next door, that’s all.
But I take my sign and march again
join other grandmas who marched in the 70’s
against another injustice.
We are the arrestable ones.
The ones who don’t have to worry
about background checks anymore. The ones
who can still hold a sign, still square shoulders
and stand together.
It is a small thing. That is what I have.
Utility Bill with Ants
by Sean Wang
In our small flat the sockets hum along the floor and ants
patrol plaster seams toward the crumbs where we argue
in undertones. I am afraid he will pour more of us
into your phone, screenshots and side comments, so I stack
your expensive books into a wall, as if paper could cool
the wiring. The rice cooker waits on warm, steam
pressing its face to the lid, while the bills shine on the table,
columns of water and light beside your trading app,
its glow a small furnace fed by other people's fear.
You call it survival and scroll. I live inside that murmur,
taps and screens and the slow black thread of ants in the grout
until a heavy nothing steps in from the air, leans
between my ribs and lays me down on the hardwood.
confession, too late
by john sweet
found a god more than
willing to number me among
the wicked, but no priest
to offer forgiveness
found no reason to stop
loving you,
and so i never did
This Issue's Poets
Sammy Bellin lives in Lewisburg, PA. His poetry is forthcoming in Rust and Moth and wildscape.literary journal. In his free time he enjoys hanging out with cats and wandering. Find him on Instagram: @sammyabellin.
Allison P. Brown, MFA, is a western New York-based poet and editor. She works with student publications and faculty authors across New York state. Her micro-chapbook Small Remedies was recently published by The Engine(Idling, and other work has appeared in Lines + Stars, and Epistemic Literary, among others.
Audrey Howitt has been published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Washington Square Review, Panoply, Hecate Magazine, Spillwords Press, Nymphs Poetry Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, and other poetry venues. Find Audrey at @audreyhowitt.bsky.social.
Aaron Manahan is a sipper of soda and enjoyer of new experiences. He’s @thesodajerk.net on BlueSky.
Hannah Page's poetry has been featured in New Feathers Anthology, Tupelo Quarterly, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, StreetLit, Merion West, Pink Disco Magazine, and elsewhere. She serves as Production Assistant for Tupelo Quarterly and is polishing her debut collection, To Unravel is Not Always to Fall Apart. Hannah holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives and works in NYC. Find Hannah on Instagram: @blank_space47 and Bluesky: @blank-page47.bsky.social.
John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. His published collections include NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (Cyberwit, 2023). John is on BlueSky: @theonlyjohnsweet.bsky.social.
Sean Wang is a PhD student with work in West Trade Review, Wild Roof Journal, ONE ART, and Broadside Series. He’s on Instagram at @sean_wang1997.
About the Editor
Dusti RW Levy is a queer disabled poet, essayist, performer, dramaturg, and playwright, as well as a 2025 National Dramaturgy Fellow at the American College Theatre Festival. Dusti is a creative nonfiction reader at McNeese Review, an assistant editor for poetry at Thirteen Bridges Review, and has been the editor and publisher of delicate emissions poetry zine since 2021. They have a set of four poems forthcoming in February 2026 at Blood + Honey Lit. You can read their poetry in Granules (at Mouthful of Salt); Boudin; FUCKUS Literary Journal; boats against the current; and the tide rises, the tide falls, among others. Their essay "Posthuman Illumination" was recently published in Issue 8 of Windmill: The Art & Literature Journal of Hofstra University. They've served at Contemporary American Theatre Festival as a manager and accessibility specialist, as an artist panel reader for the Jewish Plays Project, and a judge for Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Dusti is an MFA/MA student in creative writing and literature at McNeese State University. Raised mostly in the desert Southwest and having spent many years on the High Plains and in Cascadia, Dusti now splits their time between the Louisiana Prairie and the coastal plain of Alabama.
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