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?
Search Results
The Days On Which Trans Women (I) win
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
All My Names Are Living
By Ezra FoxThey say I killed you,
say they can pry o pen
my / your
dead / name
like a mussel finds nothing
but the ocean's black silt.
[every trans boi i know looks like his mother]
By Cai SherleyBlake Brockington committed suicide in 2015 & last week the New Yorker’s crossword puzzle said “part of some transitions, colloquially” & i thought of bridges. i told my mother i would read the bible this year & she mailed me her mother’s copy with a note – please read with/for love & slipped a green flag into Book of Ezra & Psalm 23, where god lays me down in a green pasture & restores my soul. the answer was “HRT”, each line an arrow pressed into my soft throat.
from UNDERGROUND
By GoldenAs in homonym,
humming with the cedars,
spitting spring
to claim a stasis, a season.
Self-Portrait as War Museum Captions
By Monica SokA daughter of survivors stands in the grass among tattered military tanks. She is the only one in her family who wants to visit the museum. Siem Reap, Cambodia. Nov 2016.
“Loud little weed eater.” A worker cuts the grass and the noise activates the scene of a battlefield.
Water Birth
By JoAnn BalingitThere’s no usurping her pain
now the baby’s head is crowning
mom mom mom mom mom
no panting I say
take deep breaths through your nose
APOTHEOSIS: DROUGHT
By Ashley HajimirsadeghiThese days, even spare breadcrumbs are hard to come by. My mother steals seeds
from the birds, jokes she plucks them from their beaks, claims even the ocean’s water
isn’t free anymore. We became who our ancestors feared, the kind of people who
forgot our gods & cursed at the sun, denied how it both gave & refused life.
Last Century, Last Week: Holy Will
By Ajanaé Dawkinswhat is it ‘bout the river that makes even spirits sing? we hear a laugh & don’t know if its ours or our momma’s; our sister’s or otherworld kin. what current of possibilities. we could splash, laugh, water-dance. hell, we could baptize somebody. wash the wet of us they said would stay dirty our whole lives.
Immigration
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.