Category: 18.2

by Patrycja Humienik it isn’t that the flood rids us of memory,no. it shapes memory a clay to knead like dough, cracksour knuckles. across the atlantic my aunts and uncles rise earlyfor the blessing later. anoint tired, thirsty skin with oilafter a day’s work. that’s elegance to me. drought or torrent, someone worksthe land. someone…

by Matthew Gilbert I use the word ‘tantalizing’ because I knowwhat it means now,                                    drinking sangria all dayuntil it’s again day and piecing together the hours, my memories capture the emotionof dawn but not                                    its detail, like tintedfilm in old movies where they needed night. Some guy juggled fire in our kitchen—I remember, a match                                    lighting in my…

by Ivan Amaya-Hobson is what the kidsin first grade called the gamewe played every day at recess. It was like hide-and-seekexcept the girls were alwaysthe ones who had to hide, and instead of being foundthey were captured—led by their wrists to the tetherball courtwhere they were keptunder the gaze of guards. It was Judith, a…

by Romana Iorga After Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours (I, 5) I love the dark hours of my being,these earthen jars filledwith sunflower oil. I love their darkcorridors lined with woodendoors that open toward some distantglimmer, a green-fleckedjoy one can only find in a farawayclearing, surrounded by treesthat sway with or without the…

by Ruth Williams When the magnolia’srich white budsunclench,the bees fly wildly,hit the window. All daythese smacks of desiremeasure time. A siftof pollen yellows the sillas if to anoint me, a blazed crossbetween the eyes.When I was a child, I knewa girl named Heatherwho’d been hit by a car.Leaning forward, she showedthe dent in her foreheadand…

by Donna Vorreyer I splinter the green with my animalsmell. My body a sack of handgrenades and shattered glass.I candy this drought with my brittledesire. My body a crossingof cobwebs and sugared floss.I docile each crack with foundationand adhesive. My bodya curled currency that buys nothing.My dormancy devours comfort,my curves a ceremonial sacrifice.Yet my ducts…

by Brendon Booth-Jones —For J. IWill I ever earn enoughto not have the recurring dreamevery night for a weekbefore paydayof the rat-eaten piggy bank,the wolf with his bacon breathsitting on my chest,heavy as a lead-bellied Buddhaprotecting the chiin Bezos’ lush baobab menagerie?Can’t they see I’m trying?How deep must I swim to recoverthe black box from…

by Devanshi Khetarpal this city / with knees /folded back / sees me /feed my lightless head / to the fire / dancing /where it knows / memory /becomes exposed & skin / light enough / to bury /someone within / me waters /all of my bones / keeps dead fish /on my pyre Reykjavík,…

by Kaitlyn Von Behren a length of ashesfalling from a cigarette, but slowly.Rosemary, whisper of eyelash, virginity found. Another quiet woman drowned. Norings of salt, please. Rings of sugar.You’ll need the tiniest orchid’s petal, onyx kept in pockets, secretsinked in creamy public bathrooms.Anoint with lavender, endless cryings. Oh, the girls we’ve lost. Kaitlyn Von Behren…

by Margaret Zhang We hopped from bar to bar until we traveledthrough time, until we were on your roofwith a bottle of wine that I kicked offbut at least nobody got hurt, until under the coversof darkness you murmured sweetly each timeI took your hand. In the morning, skin ripeningwith twelve new mosquito bites, I…