POLITICS OF AN ELEGY
By Hieu Minh NguyenIf things happen
the way they are supposed to
my mother will die before me.
Search Results
When Your Word Is a Match
By Joseph RossWhen you walk past Klans-
men, smiling at you
on your way into the court
house, wondering how
Grease & Salt
By Jeanann VerleeI finish a small hot plate of grease & salt, & push the scraped-clean plate across the counter for someone else to scrub / this, I say I have paid for but it doesn't fit
Natural Causes
By Kyle DarganNaturally, the gun is purchased from a farm in Virginia—pulled from a bushel of barrels
by a tremorous hand, a young man’s. His other fist proffers sweat-wilted dollars. The
farmer, compensated, keeps his gaze down as to remember nothing of the boy’s face.
A Car, A Man, A Maraca
By Charlie BondhusAt the mirror I heft
elbows, belly, cock,
say hematocrit—44.3; hemoglobin—15.2;
neutrophils—62; monocytes—5.
Diaspora 2
By Oliver de la PazThe way is written in the dark:
it has steel in it, something metallic, a gun,
a mallet, a piece of machinery--
something cold like the sea, something,
Reclaim
By Adele HamptonI'm not afraid to say abortion. It's a word that falls lead-heavy out of the mouth like your tongue can't handle the weight society hangs from its unassuming letters.
Ways to Count the Dead
By Persis M. KarimTake their limbs strewn about the streets—
multiply by a thousand and one.
Ask everyone in Baghdad who has lost