THE ORACLE’S ALMANAC, JULY 2026:

On Feathers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

“Shadow boxing,” Tania Jaramillo
“Small Talk with a Sphinx,” Johanna E. Hall
“Short Essay on Poetry #13,” Justin Carter

“Firework,” Iz Schrader

Shadow boxing

TANIA JARAMILLO

.˚ * ꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.

Tania is a writer and poet who has published with Hobart, Dreck, Dodo Eraser, and Parcel Magazine, with work forthcoming in Plague Circus Press and The Bulb Region. You can follow more of their work on their Substack @taniasworld, on Twitter @boywaif and on their personal website taniaswebsite.neocities.org. Recently, they have been listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen.

Small Talk with a Sphinx

JOHANNA E. HALL

I heard the thing with feathers

is—yes, okay, in a coal mine heart,

okay, caught up with Icarus & associates,

unwaxed legs and beating arms,

perhaps density for waterproofing,

purportedly coasting pockets of air

and this, too, how in the story I'm editing

they kept being morning doves

and how much louder can you cry

before they stop mistaking you for the dawn

and does doing what you do get you lion's feet

and do you give birth to live young, or—

and now, as I cut angels out

of magazines, it strikes me that

we can't make people that are not people

but oh, how easily we give a person

wings! like the tacky memoriam

Facebook posts—with halos, too,

so God knows we mean it. God,

how we mean it. Photoshop St. Peter

in, may as well, keys and everything.

Swing wide the gates.

I imagine God as chicken coop,

no riddle here.

Not so much flying.

I imagine eggs.

.˚ * ꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.

Johanna E. Hall is a Pushcart-nominated poet from Charlottesville, VA whose writing generally features lesbianism, God, disability, and/or various troubled pasts. Find more at johannapoet.com or on Instagram @johannahallwrites.

Short Essay on Poetry #13

JUSTIN CARTER

Drinking a boysenberry sour, which makes me think of IHOP, which makes me think of high school, but because everything makes me think of high school I’ll instead try to think of going there drunk after Rickochets (not misspelled, the owner’s name was Rick), ordering the baked potato soup because it was cheap & Ryan would also bring me the large size when I ordered the small.

I like getting more than what I wanted: a free beer at the end of the night, an extra side of ranch.

I remember, years ago, at the Westheimer Block Party, Buxton played in the back lot of this coffee shop. (You wouldn’t know who Buxton is, which is fine.) They had this song that a lot of us in Houston loved. “Feathers.” It had this long wind-up, which I usually hate in a song, but for this one, I loved it. I felt it in my body, the whole city (or at least our sliver) felt it in our bodies as it built to that first line: There are feathers, all drawled out. 

That night, they handed out sparklers—we were supposed to light them when the song began. I didn’t take one.

.˚ * ꒰ঌ✦໒꒱ * ˚.

Justin Carter is the author of Brazos and Laterals, and the editor of Some Words. He's from Texas, lives in Iowa, and works as a sports writer and editor.