THE ORACLE’S ALMANAC, AUGUST 2026:
On Dog Days
TABLE OF CONTENTS
“Propitiation” Thom C. Addington
“Glovebox Sun Tans,” Liyah Kinsler
“Occlusions,” Nora Rawn
“Dachshund 2016,” Paige Love
Propitiation
THOM C. ADDINGTON
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Thom C. Addington (he/him) is a queer, Catholic, rural Southern writer with Appalachian roots raised on Rappahannock land in King & Queen County, Virginia. He is an MFA student in Poetry at Virginia Commonwealth University and currently serves as Associate Dean of Business, Humanities, & Social Sciences at Reynolds Community College.
Glovebox Sun Tans
LIYAH KINSLER
Even now, the telephone,
the telephone shaped like a pair of lips
rose-washed and finger-faded,
polka dotted with sores.
It’s open, poised to say something,
anything, maybe
about the silver patina,
the last vestige of summer callers—
motel stationery, glovebox sun tans.
She's got Mi Angelita
feathering on her instep. I’ve seen her
tracing it by the Mountaindale,
chain linked in. For five dollars
I’ll give you an afternoon,
she says. The sun worries
the bottle-glass paint, peeling
from the face, the mouth.
There's only the smell
of hot concrete, a little white slip
working loose from the stand now,
and her flip-flops—flat as they are,
candy-colored as they are—
flap like wings across the parking lot.
A tube of cherry bomb
lip gloss swings from her fingers.
I almost want to take it, just to see.
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Liyah Kinsler is a poet from rural Virginia and a recent graduate from Virginia Tech. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in One Shot Magazine, Pedestal Magazine, Yin Literary, among others. Her dream is to see a tornado in real life one day.
Occlusions
NORA RAWN
What can be seen not to be seen,
Felt not to be felt—gnomic foretellings,
As the cloud passes before the sun,
As the sun dips behind the mountain,
As the moon passes before the sun,
And the cows are heard by their bells
Before appearing in their line—their patties
Dried in stages that can be read for
Signs and portents on the sere, silent grass.
This then is August, planets aligning,
Perseids unseen; this and the sound of crickets.
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Nora Rawn works in publishing and lives in Brooklyn.