“Wake up and ache for your life.” — Natalie Diaz I do not assure you the ligament protruding from your rib cageis an act of kindness. say, you were born a leakage of skin &rotten suspense,with no ache to salve the blood. a sacrilege of meat—fiddlingyour bone marrow. growing up, I fed slowly on damnation,& …
after the flood we grew carnivore pumpkins,fed on flood fish—silver fish, too small for species,unlucky—they had died in the mud of the road,where the brook had leapt up,had its loud tantrum,and then sucked away,exhausted,a little ashamed after the summer we harvested pumpkins,child-sized, glossy-skinned pumpkins,apricot-gold.were they exceptional?were they sweeter, or fatter?shouldn’t they have been?how else would …
in the beginning, everything shape-shifts into grace, into harmony. all the prayers made on my bodybecame roses sprouting on my fingertips, on my palms. you see, my twin told this story first. before everythingtransformed into doom—but in this poem, there is no grief at all, just an illusion of grievances. sometimes, i wonder what …
After the killing of cows and herdsman in Enugu Prelude: [In the storm / the brief branches of lightning / stretch like the jagged edges / of a torn map / over a country / the storm thickens into night / the night fizzles into day / the day blossoms into tomorrow.] Somewhere, sprawled on …
In the Storm, a Country, by Omodero David Oghenekaro Keep Reading »
In the bitter of November, the inside of the house waited.A knock: a visitor, leather jacket hung with motor oil and amber. —how’s my favorite brother —you just missed him An embrace, tears. A huge bag swallows the father, its zipper like his brother’s leather jacket,if the track were drawn out for seven feet, plus …
Eight Synonyms for Shroud, by Laura McPherson Keep Reading »
the same way I hold wounded things,the bird with the clipped wing,the dazed moth,scalded in search of light—I run my hands on fraying walls,curled fingers like a handle to clasp;ghosts, I findare always feeling through the darkthey fold into embraces,all deadweight and dragging,like they’ve forgotten how to be held. Catheryne Gagnon lives in Tiohtià ke/Montreal …
I Hold Ghosts in My Hands, by Catheryne Gagnon Keep Reading »
In fields corn is blooming, embers burning, gilded sea of spun glass. My father points out the car windowto rattle off a folktale or maybe urban legend about haunted crops, vengeful farmers, and our own relativeswho came over to find nothing after leaving nothing. The radio cuts out. The Midwest sits between transmission zones,memory and …
Driving in Lake County, Illinois, by Morgan L. Ventura Keep Reading »
I’m standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, with the deer.The darkness and the silence and their bodiesare fragile. I know that none of these things are meant to withstand shock—of light, noise, impact—and I thinkthat maybe I am not, either. This is no accident. I’m praying for eyes …
In the middle of the night, with the deer, by Christine Barkley Keep Reading »
I rained my grandfather’s ashes onto the dark lapping Yamuna,and in a breath they filled the space between spume and wave. A man kills a man in the absence of god. Disease kills the cellsin the absence of a knife. Time kills the body in the absence of fever. What will kill the lifeflow of …
No one thought she’d go the way she did, miredin car smoke, no death note. She lived a badlife, died a good death—as decently sadan end as any. I stretch my leg skywardwith my head to the dirt. Listen, I’m wired—a cup phone to hell. Loose string runs bone-cladthrough me. Press your ear to the arch …