Category: Poetry

by James Merenda The apartment’s kitchen has high ceilings,easily fitting three wedged sides of a lofted floor to become my bedroom space when I losemy job in New York and move into my long-distance partner’s homein Oakland, the fourth wall played by an opaque sheet drapedon a sliding ringed track. For the year I’ll live there, my partner’sother partner…

by Malcolm Friend             —after Willie Perdomo We gave up on happy endings.La isla became a myth—tierra del Edén and all that,a paradise many of uswould never return to.New York became our San Juanuntil it wasn’t oruntil we rememberedthe archipelago was always morethan just San Juan, that we hadPonce and Mayagüez and Humacaoor until we decided…

by Malcolm Friend What is your homeland?            A graveyard that will not swallow my bones.            The flesh and tissue refusing to dissolve around them.            The ocean’s swelling thirst.What is your homeland?            This tightness in my pulse.            A nation crowding my chest.            Throat closing around my cries            of patria.What is your homeland?            I suppose I have…

by J. David ST: One last thing, when you hear people say, “Let’s nuke ’em,” “Let’s nuke these people,”what do you think?PT: Oh, I wouldn’t hesitate if I had the choice. I’d wipe ’em out. You’re gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we’ve never fought a damn war anywhere in the world…

by Jessica Poli They could have left me theretrying clumsily to cover up the stain by myself,angling my book bag behind me until I made itto the nurse’s wood-paneled office to call my momand ask her for a change of clothes.But they didn’t blink—just shuffled me out of that roomand through the halls, parting the…

by Hollie Dugas I think I killed Mary Oliverafter a fight we had     I chose youa determined little lifeI want to make sense of us           why isn’t the path clearerthere are things appearing out of nowhereor am I only the illusionI want to understand with youwhat comes first—have I, too, already been chosen when I put your…

by Karah Kemmerly Hanne confesses her nightmare to mein the theater / first my death / & then the arrival of a new me / a woman withthe same nearly black eyes / with my sharp snake tongue / dream-Hanne knew the visitorwas an imposter / listened to it berate her for her grief / this isn’t a…

by Sheree La Puma Wings. Crowns. Throats. Bills, plunged deep into blackoil sunflower/seeds. There are a few peanut halvesthrown in for bulk but the songbirds don’t like them.I watch them bite & flick. A mourning warbler twistshis nape, calls to me in a dream/frozen like the remainsof a child found buried in a shallow grave.…

by Golden                  for Golden I command the procession as any southern Black                                                                 widow would—coal laced, fangs erect, red velvet rippling underneath my abdomen sealike.                                                                 Each bridesmaid, the kin in Kevlar suits & the poplars in patent heels, leads the hem of my gown                                                                 down the aisle in their teeth. Cam carries me on his back, on his hip, like any father                                                                 without…

by Golden             for Tilden Avery Golden boy untitled. stomach splitter. my son. I forgotmy dreams. when you were born I filled you inthe blank everyday. oxygen & ink. my back spasms from all I seed.I carry my clots home to your mom. I would live there if I couldafford our freedom. my first brother knows…