Category: Poetry

by Wong Chun Ying I think it’s in this 200-square-foot roomwith a bed, a desk and a chair, a portable stove tuckedaway under the sink, that you fixed the blinkinglights, looked around the room, and said to me,“We only need one more chair,” instead of arack for my vinyls of mediocre Taiwanese post-punkbands, instead of…

by Matthew Valades Outside, an eager breezeshakes the tree branchesto pieces. This window isa way to count the colorsof passing moments like carsfilled with people I don’t knowand may never sit witharound their kitchen tablewhile dinner steams before us.Those cars must be goingsomewhere important fastor somewhere they’d rather notbut go anyway, whalewatching maybe, where a…

by Sarah Carey they know, that comes to them like airor the name of their first dog or the children: oldest, middle, babythough I am all my siblings now the therapist says it’s not unusualfor my mother to call her medicine the virus as everything we’ve breathed this past yearis pandemic, normal for her to…

by Cindy King You asked me to deliver the eulogyat Dad’s memorial serviceto spare the survivors of our familythe mortifying prospect of public speaking.For five hours, I have flown above earth,wordlessly, over Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.Under a moon of reading light, I have learnedwhy no one ever calls it a light by which to…

by Dylan Taylor Surf and sunshinepressed deep intosalted lipsA flutter kick takes form Kisses and fingersthat smooth onarms who willalways do the tucking Tears, silencesthe silver strippedmoments of languorloss and longing A handshake thatturns into a careerSunglasses thatturn into a scavenger hunt Seventy-thousandbobby pinsSeventy-thousandexpectations not her own The rise and fallof dermis and detritusThe changing…

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     …