Rust & Moth

December | Rust & Moth —the mint green birthday cake we passed in slo-mo on the lap of a man on a park bench under the shade of a Jacaranda tree in full purple bloom. It must have been winter, the window pane cold against …...

“… I remember reaching only in time for the sky
skipping with house swifts, the sun setting.”

and thirty six yellow moons, sleeping

@vismai.bsky.social in @rustandmoth.bsky.social rustandmoth.com/work/december/

A fun look back on the year hits different when it’s paired with propaganda for Trump’s deportation machine.

Fortunately, it’s easy to share your favorite music without doing free promotion for a corporation that recruits for ICE. What songs, albums, or artists helped you keep going in 2025?

(below an image of a car that’s covered in “I VOTED TODAY” stickers) NEED A RIDE TO THE POLLS IN TN-07? Indivisible Tennessee can help! Email TN7Support@indivisibletn.org with your address, phone number, and preferred pickup time and they'll match you with a driver. POLLS ARE OPEN UNTIL 7PM! EVERY VOTE MATTERS!

We were fortunate enough to print one of the poems in this collection two winters ago. Congratulations Carolyn!

rustandmoth.com/work/history...

TODAY IS THE DAY!

GET OUT AND VOTE. Polls are open 7 AM - 7 PM

WE GOT THIS!!!!!!

"Still, he’d have loved me at my most disgusting."

This work reads like a deeply personal recounting, ripe with details demanding to be taken as history. Fascinatingly sincere imagery.

As somebody who has struggled with suicidal thoughts, this tender presentation of that vulnerability hits deep.

snapshot of the poem https://rustandmoth.com/work/december/

A bit late sharing this poem published in @rustandmoth.bsky.social 's autumn issue. (was I waiting for December?🤔)
Grateful it’s out in the world. Big thanks to the editors 💙
rustandmoth.com/work/december/

One of my very favorite publications to read. Absolutely worth your time to read some back issues and consider submitting.

Submissions – Rust & Moth A Journal Of Poetry And The Arts

Rust & Moth is now accepting poems for our Spring 2026 issue! We read until the solstice hits (Dec 21st).

rustandmoth.com/submissions/

The Love of Someone Who Wants to Die | Rust & Moth I’ve been thinking about scent and memory and my second love, a wisp of boy, rail-thin, sinewy with muscle, veins strung under milk-pale skin and not much taller than me, who left rooms thick with amber...

New #poetry from Cora Schipa: "The Love of Someone Who Wants to Die".

Why she makes bread | Rust & Moth The ease and openness in measuring teaspoons and half cups, the science of sugar in yeast, taupe milk water, rising into foam, stirring hard with hand carved red wooden spoons that fold and push. The...

New #poetry from Courtney Ruttenbur Bulsiewicz: "Why she makes bread".

Blood Work | Rust & Moth She tries distracting me, the nurse, Don’t look, And flicks the vein inside my elbow crease. The needle slides in, mostly without pain, And blood that coils in a plastic chain Is like the fears I’m...

New #poetry from Mary Grace Mangano: "Blood Work".

Round Valley | Rust & Moth Round Valley Reservoir Hunterdon County, New Jersey 1960. Garden State. Two dams and then a flood. Fears the water would run out. “Go west or go without.” Sixteen houses. Fifty farms, demolished,...

New #poetry from Mary Grace Mangano: "Round Valley".

at work, the new guy asks | Rust & Moth you prefer she, right? i want to say that it is not really a preference, it just is. my life is not made up of preferences but if it was, i would simply prefer to not be here. i would … Read More

New #poetry from Edith Krone: "at work, the new guy asks".

The Tennessee race that suddenly has Trump world nervous Democrat Aftyn Behn is putting up a fight.

Election Day is a week away and @aftynbehn.bsky.social has all the momentum. No matter where you live, you can help us flip a deep-red district and shrink Mike Johnson’s tiny majority: www.mobilize.us/indivisible/...

cradle this robin (close to your chest) | Rust & Moth it’s mid-March and the clouds have just begun to divorce so arduously you’d swear the purpling sky was bruised by the split. the sun is a needle through chiffon air—catching on your corpse, stiff...

New #poetry from Belinda Liao: "cradle this robin (close to your chest)".

Alone On The ISS | Rust & Moth From orbit, the sunset is an egg breaking into a black pan. I count countries, pockmarked in the dark by city lights. Pick out familiar coastlines like profiles of relatives. My eyes meet the mediterranean,...

New #poetry from Helen Nancy Meneilly: "Alone On The ISS".

The creators of this project used an LLM to convert the House Oversight files into Gmail-like structured text. I don’t know if it’s worth draining a small lake but it’s certainly a good example of data journalism.

Ghost Birds | Rust & Moth —Einojuhani Rautavaara, Cantus arcticus, Op. 61 (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) Humans calling like birds. Humans in black gowns or tails with white shirts who channel their breath through flutes...

New #poetry from Susanna Lang: "Ghost Birds".

Israeli airstrikes kill 25 Palestinians in Gaza, rattling fragile ceasefire, medics say Israel and Hamas have traded blame for what both call violations of the U.S.-brokered truce, the first stage of President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for a post-war Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 25 in Gaza, reports of IDF ground operations going beyond the "yellow line" and expanding in Gaza City, so I must ask again: What constitutes no ceasefire, rather than a "fragile" or "tested" ceasefire?

Ghost Birds | Rust & Moth —Einojuhani Rautavaara, Cantus arcticus, Op. 61 (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) Humans calling like birds. Humans in black gowns or tails with white shirts who channel their breath through flutes a...

Thanks to @rustandmoth.bsky.social for publishing this poem! I found the concerto so evocative that I needed to write in response to it. It's available online, and I encourage you to listen to it. rustandmoth.com/work/ghost-b...

Flight Log: Hell’s Waiting Room | Rust & Moth People move like a giant centipede gnawing off its own legs. They fold into origami figures, psychedelic paper planes with wings already broken. Astute zombies wait in line, serenaded by safety instructions...

New #poetry from Gabrielle Munslow: "Flight Log: Hell’s Waiting Room".

Homemade Snow Globe | Rust & Moth Crepuscular light will not reach this mini tree, pre- fab and birthed from a plastic bag. And the absence of fox or skunk, fawn or thrush or the lapidary wind or blade of river means a sedentary hush...

New #poetry from Sunni Brown Wilkinson: "Homemade Snow Globe".

Elegy as a Letter to My Dead | Rust & Moth Who is to say there isn’t a Post Office in the Afterlife where Spirits hang out, those who left things unsaid, piles of mail stacking up. Envelopes from the Living addressed to the Dead, envelopes from...

New #poetry from Kate Reider Collins: "Elegy as a Letter to My Dead".

Judge denies N.J. Rep. McIver’s request to dismiss Trump administration charges A judge said U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver failed to show her prosecution was selective and vindictive.

The regime targeted Rep. McIver for conducting legislative oversight at an ICE facility in her district (or doing her job).

We hoped the courts would recognize this for the political persecution it is and dismiss the charges. Unfortunately, a federal judge ruled that the case could go to trial.

Democrats inject "Epstein files" into special election that's scaring GOP "The Epstein files are locked away. Matt Van Epps will keep them that way," a new ad says.

Republicans are getting worried about the upcoming special election in #TN07, where @aftynbehn.bsky.social has all of the momentum.

Early voting is underway, and you can help send this progressive champion (and former Indivisible organizer) to Congress: www.mobilize.us/indivisible/...

Axis | Rust & Moth They called it the Black Plague. Cheap casket wine, Pepsi Max, & forgotten distillery remnants. I remember the turning—unsure if it was I or the world that had slipped its axis (it was both). A body...

New #poetry from Kacey Martin: "Axis".

We were as real and as pale as the ash.

A real loss. Rest in power, Alice Wong.

(alongside images of Aftyn Behn, a phone, a megaphone, and the Indivisible logo) ALL IN FOR AFTYN! SPECIAL ELECTION PHONEBANK FOR TN-07 Join us as we make calls into Tennessee's 7th Congressional District to elect Aftyn Behn to Congress and put a real leader in DC who will fight for all of Tennessee! PAID FOR BY INDIVISIBLE ACTION (INDIVISIBLE.ORG). NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE COMMITTEE.

Aftyn Behn — a social worker, state representative, and former Indivisible organizer — is running in a special election to flip #TN07.

If you want to elect a Democratic leader that we can count on to fight, please make some calls to help @aftynbehn.bsky.social GOTV: www.mobilize.us/indivisible/...