Ode to My Older Sister, Letty, for Being the First in the Family to Go to College

By Jose Hernandez Diaz I’m not sure if you knew it at the time, but you showed us, your younger siblings,
A great example. Maybe you were just happy going away to college,

Away from the responsibilities of watching over younger siblings all the time,
But I always remembered having pride when I’d tell people my sister

Is an English major and even more so when you became a teacher.

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After Hours at the Garment Factory

By Amatan Noor Let’s inhale some fresh air
Its botanical river wafting into our nostrils
Alas, the sky has been seething crimson
for half a century

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Alias

By Chrysanthemum Scheduling a follow-up with my PCP, I prepare
for disaster. Inevitable as flood, I hush a moniker
kept in confidence, wager my informed consent

for a Hancock granting passage. Gates are flimsy
metaphors. It’s more of a worn-down levee, dike
ready to burst without notice.

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Dear Hermano

By Moncho Alvarado Again people are being taken away,
I read the news of kids
like your daughter & son,
like our family, our neighbors,

they wake in a state of temporary,
that lasts longer & longer &
longer than we can remember.

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Sometimes Oral History Comes Off Recorder as Poem or, Birth Story

By River 瑩瑩 Dandelion my mother mimics her body
stick bug straight
arms plastered to side

[i was in labor for three days
in a hospital bed in Brooklyn
the lighting was harsh for your eyes]

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Ode to the Mulberry Tree In Our Front Drive

By Angela María Spring Though the jam did not set, great chunks of purple-black in jars
placed as offerings behind the kitchen counter butcher block

homemade experiment by my Central American-born mamá, who warned
us to keep a stern eye out, said you invade, take over swiftly

and she was right as our desert—so unlike the humid, temperate climes from which
you first emerged—urges you grow fast to claim any water to be found,

yet as a tree you are migrant/immigrant like us so of course Tucson
banned your presence as Arizona pulled Latinx books from schools

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have you eaten yet

By Chen Chen the mystery of your lungs
the spaceship of your yes

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WALKING ON WATER

By emet ezell i bought her a shitty ass chicken sandwich.
$18.59 and dripping with oil—
my grandmother. she blessed
the meal for ten minutes before
taking a bite. poured out devotion like
gasoline. like pepsi cola. we knew then
that she was dying, but i lived
in the first paragraph, unprepared.

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