Loss is an art, traversing one world to the next

By Purvi Shah The mehndi is leaving my hands,
brown swirls dissolving into brown skin.
Somewhere you are traveling

Belly Song

By Kathleen Hellen I sit in the front row of
bleachers -- cheap seats for greater grief.
My son

By Rashida James-Saadiya we scatter
dodge words that rip into flesh
hide from clenched fist

By Patricia Monaghan After the nightly news and four martinis
he quietly begins to draw the inner workings
of the bomb, knowing the explosion needed

By Alison Roh Park If it were not so scarred from your accidental
rages—uptown, upstate—I would have rested
on the cinder block of your chest.

By Jericho Brown Not the palm, not the pear tree
Switch, not the broomstick,
Nor the closet extension
Cord, not his braided belt, but God

By Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor Bionic Feeding Woman
whips breasts out, sprays
privacy netting over him

By Cornelius Eady A warning one white friend hisses
To the one standing nearest to me
At an Upper West Side newsstand.