Oceanside, CA
By Marie-Elizabeth MaliBalancing on crutches in the shallows
near her mother, a girl missing her right lower leg
swings her body and falls, laughing.
Search Results
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
Anxiety Attack at 27,000 Feet
By Nicholas SamarasWhat is that red throbbing over the sound of engines?
Why is a distant war still being talked about in the media?
I can't see my home or Iraq or the Middle East
outside this bowed rectangle of blue altitude.
Single Twin Band Crush
By celeste doaksAaron and Anita, the first real twins I ever personally knew,
drum majored our ragged band in high school called--
the Marching LaSalle Lions. Anita was the outgoing,
Cowgirl Filibuster
By Lisa L. MooreWord got out about the bad bill.
College students packed up their bikinis,
went back to Austin to tell those men why
‘N’em
By Jericho BrownThey said to say goodnight
And not goodbye, unplugged
The TV when it rained. They hid
poppies are not (Enough
By Daniela ElzaI drink a blood sunset down Cardinal Avenue.
my shoes soaked poppies my mind quiet as
a book with a bomb in its mouth.
American Herstory
By celeste doaksTell them it's always under attack. Tell them there's no cure
for the disease, or answer to the riddle. Tell them you asked many
before you, some who won, some who lost.
Special Effects
By Merna HechtThis morning I am remembering you, how as honored guest
you talked with my students who had recently arrived in America
from refugee camps where borders are stacked with blood and bullets.
Stewing
By DaMaris B. HillI dream of hounds. Their teeth loose in my veins.
Their howls consume me. They growl and feast.
She whispers not to run. I can't refrain.