Origin Calling
By Meg DayIn the dangerous years
everyone took lovers
but us.
Search Results
Say-So
By Cherryl T. Cooley=POET, I believe you [stop] Mean well [stop] Do well [stop] Bring teeth’s teeth for your bite [stop] Make your ditties and dirges hum [stop]
Radium Dream
By Sheila BlackWe come at the wrong time of year by a hair
or a week, and the brown birds flying onward,
out of reach. My son tilts his head.
My Dead
By Arisa WhiteEverybody she died another is dead everybody
dead and AIDS of AIDS my dead she is
there are more I know with the same story hiding
lips stitched hesitant to speak of someone you knew
Walls and Mirrors, Fall 1982
By Deborah ParedezThe English translation of my surname is walls
misspelled, the original s turned to its mirrored
twin, the z the beginning of the sound for sleep.
_139_134_c1_smart_scale.jpg)
In a Thicket of Body-Bent Grass
By Jessica JacobsArkansas is aspic with last-gasp summer, making running
like tunneling: the trail’s air a gelatin
of trapped trajectories.
water
By Lauren Mayme and all of my selves
we run like we’ve been here before
like we know what’s waiting here
and it's nothing
nothing for us
anyway
Picking up Rocks
By Rasha Abdulhadidaughter of a palestinian that i am,
when i see a bloc of young people holding the street
it seems i was born with a rock in my hand
against a line of police in battle gear—
and i’ve found the world expects that’s who i am.
Hard Winter
By Matt DalyEverywhere I go, people are shouting
at one another, people are shaking
their fists at one another. Everywhere
I go, I see someone knapping
an edge to a stone.
At the Medicaid Office
By Kit YanThey are giving out Turkeys at the Public Assistance office,
Wrapped in plastic,
The legs folded in, balled for convenience,
You must have had to write your name on a raffle ticket,
I came too late to see the process.