Intervention
By ChrysanthemumI hate the question: What would you say to your younger self? Too inexact. With what means? Through which technologies? Landline? Lie detector? Telepathy? Is it automatic? Call dispatch? Concierge? What’s the cost?
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By ChrysanthemumI hate the question: What would you say to your younger self? Too inexact. With what means? Through which technologies? Landline? Lie detector? Telepathy? Is it automatic? Call dispatch? Concierge? What’s the cost?
By Zuggie TateWhen the sun greets well-slept eyelids
when the nail doesn’t break
when the voice doesn’t crack,
when the bus grandmother says hello sweetness
when she pulls a honeycomb smile from this hive of a mouth
when the door is held
when her favorite flowers bloom
By YanyiThe teacup with the broken
handle: no longer missing.
Arriving in my mother’s hand
as she sets it down for service.
Then the dish in the air touches
down at its place on red carpet
and the Fisher Price karaoke mic
rights and repairs itself.
By Jzl JmzI CROSS MY LEGS - I BRUSH
MY CLAVICLE / I PITCH MY
LAUGH - I LAUGH - I LOOK
AWAY / I SMILE
By Lehua M. TaitanoHere are the ones I think will come: Wren, chestnut backed chickadee, hairy woodpecker, scrub jay. Words of a dream retold dissolve into pulp, into seed glue. Into chips of memory. This morning, I’ve a soft waxwing in hand. We are both stunned. His eye is cast beyond currents or cadence.
By Mia S. Williswhen the state murdered a poet
none of us slept none of us deserved to
the way we stood by with pens and phones and helpless guilt
By Jalynn HarrisAt the entrance, six copper pillars stand tall as a wave
as once did six-fingered Lucille. She lived here, too–
The light alone enough to fill the lake. I walk the park
because I’m weak. All flesh and fur needing
to get out my bark. My rough squeeze of please please
A red bird. Another mile. My feet eat the concrete.
By Ana Portnoy BrimmerThere’s so much to be learned from that which floats A patience
from the Gulf of Mexico to a sea of its name sargassum
drifts hand in hand with itself
By José Angel AraguzI knew nothing about poems
when I was introduced to
the woman selling seashells by
the seashore. Placed in a
remedial speech class, told
my S’s served no one,
I felt set aside in
the silence of clear hallways
where I walked slow, savoring
not being where I belonged.
By Jasmine Reidi spread at my touch & clit
contemplating my beauty this Monday i live
the pleasure of my fingers
how i am in-the-making by hand
by pill by needle i am the perfect girl
professor, in fact, Chemical X is my love
in gradients of acidity i am
milkless except by oats, by meal made of itself