Stone

By Aideed Medina De piedra, sangre.

I make my own heaven. I drag it out of the streets, and inhospitable terrains. I mixed "tabique", brick, mortar with my hands, kneading,
I need, to make my own heaven

keep reading

The Seeds for Distinction*

By Jessica (Tyner) Mehta Conductor drives us, the cow-
catcher barreling straight into the teeth
of Memory’s harshest winter.

keep reading

Remembrance

By Kateema Lee She grew up hearing about girls
who never made it to womanhood, girls
whose names wore away with each decade

keep reading

the day i died, my therapist asked me how my week was going, and i told him i am reading stone butch

By Lip Manegio the trees were dying again. i had been spending
more time on the porch than usual, letting
the early november freeze get the better

keep reading

Blindness Locked Me Out

By Emily K. Michael The speed reading class for seventh graders
slumped over tight columns of text spread flat
on tables in the library where in her half-glasses

keep reading

Of Avocados

By Juan J. Morales Like two hands pressed
together, they are twice as large
on the island. One feeds

keep reading

Clarification Card: The Spiral (“The cigarette is pretext: smoke rises from within”)

By Hari Alluri Unless you’re practiced as a lola’s wrinkles,
do not flip the lit side of the yosi in your mouth.
They developed this skill in war and carried it

keep reading

Ode to Jacob Blinder

By Janlori Goldman His face stared out into the living room
of my grandparents’ walk-up on E. 13th.
After they died my father hung him

keep reading

We

By Deborah A. Miranda The people you cannot treat as people

Whose backs bent over your fields, your kitchens, your cattle, your children

We whose hands harvested the food we planted and cultivated for your mouth, your belly.

keep reading

From “Shadow Poems”

By Jennifer Foerster The war appeared to be coming to an end.

The no-name people not yet taken
left their crops for summer’s drought.

keep reading