Category: 16.2

by Dylon Jones after Doug Paul Case They were blue, patternedwith little white ships, the waist wrinkled loose in the back where one of his brosyanked them down after the game. Everyone laughed. Him, too. Even me.I sculpted a grin & picked sand from my teeth. What else can you do when you’re a boy & a boypinches…

by Alfredo Aguilar                                                       against the dirt. i feel its plumage,                                                      panic as it struggles to get out                                                       of my grasp. he yells at me                                                      con ganas! como si tienes huevos!                                                                   & lightning flashes                                                      through me. i want to shove him,                                                       but i do nothing, say nothing—                                                      just clench the bird’s wings tighter                                                       as he brings a knife down on its neck.                                                                  once, my father…

by Danielle Weeks Personal Statement: Foraminifera I am from the kingdom of what I am not,shout and lung, a shell that stays hiddenin the body. I am not the girl who stoppedbreathing when she climbed the cemeterywall. I am the way you draw the invisible:Here is a thin dotted outline. Here is lightwithout sugar. All…

by Alec Prevett I was born inthe same hospitalas my father Does that             make me eligible            to be a father            Can the gender            less father I can                         crush the bulb                        of a flower                        until prematurely                        its petals shoot forthlike a hundredviolet limbs I saygenderless but mean             genderful like how            white is the whole            spectrum at once I have            asked my body what it                         wants, offered                        to plant a garden                        in its…

by Erin O’Malley My sister’s body isn’t where she left            it—gunfire      shredding the belly      of the city,            the streets bayoneted red.      The scent of meat stalingon her breath. Men bornthe year of every wildanimal, which is to say: menwho are men but half-            starved. Her legs locked      in fear            like ammunition     …

by Triin Paja Another earth there were no birds, even if the treescreaked like the birds, even if the dawn implied the perpetuity of a sensualsky, as I saw a bird-shadow on a walland awoke to an earth that seemediridescent, unbeautiful as a seabirdwhich tarred oil turns fromgull to crow. I buried a small birdand climbed…

by Rebecca Schumejda Plea Bargain A blue jay flew into our front windowanother watches from a tree branchas a shadowy figure looms overits stunned mate.  How often do you think you knowwhere you are going swear the reflection is sky not glass? On My Brother’s Third Birthday in Prison I will never tell him howthe further I get…

by Brad Trumpheller Spectacular, Spectacular In any kind of two-way glass daffodil there’s the nightI put on my lover’s dress & it fit me like a renaissance. Snap the shoulder straps in time with the streetlights.Click click goes the clock I disregard on principle. My, what a wick you have. What an ankle-length shadowI’m faking. My loud…