What Happens When the Matriarch Dies
By MT VallartaWe braid her hair, every strand a thread
of flesh. We caress her from mouth
to root, feeling every tale—every tree,
every cliff—nestled in her folds.
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Summer Figs
By Ina Cariñowhen I turn seventy & you are gone,
will my muscles still heft with ease
a crate of summer figs---one
bruised fig for every year of my life---
from the tree in your backyard?
Of Beauty
By Tala KhanmalekOn a table in the corner of Lollipop Shoppe, I face the crowd and dance. I look toward a circle of new friends by the bar. Most of us just met six days ago yet we share, I think, the sole familiar between strangers: brutality. I listen with my hands. Arms overhead, conjuring.
Cutting my dad’s fingernails
By Adrian Gaston GarciaHe says that he’s too embarrassed to ask me for this favor
But in his Spanish it sounds sweeter, more innocent, almost childlike
He sets up his station at the dining room table:
A paper towel and two different set of nail clippers
He folds the paper towel in half
before placing his withered and wrinkled hands on top
He lets me hold them
I cannot remember the last time we held hands
Cedar Waxwing, Pyracantha II
By Lehua M. TaitanoHere are the ones I think will come: Wren, chestnut backed chickadee, hairy woodpecker, scrub jay. Words of a dream retold dissolve into pulp, into seed glue. Into chips of memory. This morning, I’ve a soft waxwing in hand. We are both stunned. His eye is cast beyond currents or cadence.
I AM IN THE WEATHER
By Quenton Bakerevery cloud that rolls off the ocean
pours my dead on me
the mad
the sick
the brave
the faceted
who chose the wave over their making
Not Equal to Family (Reduced Down to Me)
By Ryan Jafar ArtesIf
Mother + Father = Me
But
Mother + Father + Me ≠ Family
Then
Mother + Father - Me = Family
On Reverence
By Cass GarisonI adore the carnations & I adore
the trains, specifically the boxcars
with endings & beginnings I can’t
keep track of, who drag their stretched
torsos like absolute creatures around
what seems like earth’s clearest curve.
for imam khaliifah ibn rayford daniels.
By Mia S. Williswhen the state murdered a poet
none of us slept none of us deserved to
the way we stood by with pens and phones and helpless guilt
milk river
By Taylor Alyson Lewisthere once was an island love or magic resurrected
where they could go to rest and look at
each other plainly and hold one another’s
hands and play music in their cars so that
the bass reverberated through the mountains
and down into the ocean and live.