excerpt from “Cajas/Boxes of Zero Tolerance”
By Emmy PérezThey are the ones who were told their children
were taken to bathe—and not returned. They
are the ones whose nursing babies and toddlers
were forced to wean and left in wet diapers.
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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.
What the Bees Taught Me
By Nickole BrownWhen I press my face to the painted box,
the sound is
not buzzing, is not
a mob of wings.
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.
nextdoor app
By Shabnam Piryaeia young man desperately buries himself under damp leaves while helicopters hunt him police laugh as he tries to hide in the foliage a neighbor with a device to eavesdrop on scanners catches this tidbit
The River Wanderer
By Yona HarveyThere was a river turned to Goddess. Was kin to river turned to Flame.
As a child I dreamt that river. None could keep me from that vision.
They lowered me in the Mighty Waters. Lowered me in the Creek of Shame.
Talking in Tongues
By Frank X WalkerWe knew to tiptoe quietly
if mama was on the land line
using her full lips to parse out
each syllable, carefully measuring
her words as if they were being
eye-balled and weighed
on the other end.
impermanence
By sam saxsometimes i wonder what happens to people’s hands when they disappear
in their pockets. of course, my rational brain knows they go on being hands
but there’s still the question. i wonder if object permanence isn’t the biggest
trick of them all, a scam, a way to ground the brain in its thin bath of liquid
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Six
By Ely ShipleyThe neck of the guitar stretches
out, every other fret painted with a sharp
dot or dash, flash after flash
of reflected light, marble or pearl, the shape
of a fingerprint, ...