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black as: portal
by Kemi Alabi and even their pitch was a fever became essential shouts we can live on a bill the bodyowes for our magic all living would fall apart without our Black greasing the way between home and home grief our thickwater spirit vision double shifts Black motherblue back home Kemi…
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black as: wound
by Kemi Alabi Not all of us survived. Grief came home, back to our throats, our lungs. Grief been Black—blue Black. Tires-bald-between-work-and-home Black. Monday-through-Sunday-double-shifts Black. Asked about those visions—if spirits still slicked my mother’s sleep—and she said she’s too tired to dream. Too-tired-to-see-nothing-but Black. Grief came home, to our lead-thick water, our Big-Mac-breakfast-greasing-the-way-between-work-and-home-and-work-and-home Black. Begged…
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On Seeing My Favorite Instagram Lesbian Couple Has Broken Up, I Begin to Question Love & Thereafter Unravel
by Gabrielle Hogan i’m a man of romance.give me a bear,i will split it in two & give you the better half, the half with the teeth & the heart with all its ventricles & coils. that’s how much i like you.look at you.upturned car in the desert, smoke- leaked, tarmac-hot. engine neutered, tires fattened by heat. let’s make fat wrecks of each…
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ART CAMP
by Fred Muratori Forced awakenings at noon and never enough espresso. Throughplow-and-pickax autumn we scratch phases of the moon onfrosted panes, make friends with last week’s cafeteria foe, tradepocket-furred sweets for metaphors and gesso. Some of us burnout within days, others thrive despite indifferent critiques,theorizing in pajamas while our fellowships run out and Wall Streetprospers.…
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i’ll build a dresser in my chest
by Paula Ethans i’ll build a dresser in my chestbend back each rib boneshove all the syllablesinto the cavernous drawerscage the question markswith a death wishgrow heavywith audacious thoughts so i’ll compensatescrape myself hollowwith a grapefruit spoonits tiny serrated lipgood for excavating my edgesall but evaporatehear myself echofrom my yiayia’s bosoma lack of body experience…
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This Is Not a Eulogy
by Liz Clift Sometimes I hear your laughter in those moments betweenwaking and sleep, when the binds that tie what is and could beare like putty stretched thin, rainbowing and breaking. Of coursethat’s how we all are, moving through space, sometimes stretchingtoo thin, sometimes breaking, twisting together to make some newwhole when we think we’ve…
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Daughter of an Atlanta Stripper
by Katie Marya My mom on that stage rehearsingto Madonna’s Material Girl—she wears champagne pink tights, her legs ethereal and the light hitsher chest so gold dust surroundsher face. A mirror unfolds behind her, making it hard to choose which sideof her to admire. Three women followher 8-counts while I eat chicken nuggets. They move…
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Miniskirt Season
by Jessica Tyson First spring sun lilts through—a summons, a siren song. Releasethe craving ankles & let calves streak free from seersucker.Get out in the street. Let the red mouth of May open heel backs, edge upward to legs (any higher & you’ll highlight the thigh). Oh, the thighs— thighs a sign: not an entrance, no admittance,thighs a road map, a river, a rectory, orchardwhose blooms touch the sky &…
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Appetizer Augury
by Jessica Tyson Tonight, I clear a plate of calamari fritti from table 53 where alonethere remains a tiny fried cephalopod: upright, intact, ready to skitterinto a vanishing marinara pool. “Can you put him back?” they ask & the tentacled sea witchwithin laughs, poor, unfortunate souls—we know that chance was battered and bubbled away in oil,an odd mercy denied…
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Learning Welsh
by Bethan Tyler Rain I know, and the creep of fogover hills. Each morning I watch itadvance, curly-haired and confident,eating up the land, eating shale andthick grass. The flocks turn, thengo about their business. Here there were five tribes that we canremember: Silures, Ordovices, Deceangli,Gangani, Demetae. I was born withthe throat for their real names.…
