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.
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Sargassum / Sargazo
By Ana Portnoy BrimmerThere’s so much to be learned from that which floats A patience
from the Gulf of Mexico to a sea of its name sargassum
drifts hand in hand with itself
Sexualwissenschaft
By Miller ObermanPreposition, before location. An indeclinable
word or particle. Indeclinable. That which
cannot be turned aside or shunned. Inevitable,
un-deviating. I practice a kind
of time travel. Bringing beside me
ancestors I never knew existed before,
beneath, under, towards. This travel
unimpacted by time, space or death.
Anthropocene Pastoral
By Subhaga Crystal BaconThis is the anti-garden. It tends itself.
Its shine of blooms a blanket of sun.
It has its own water in hidden springs
bathing aspen, burdock and sage.
ode to the hare
By Mandy ShunnarahWe might have told them, if they’d asked,
the poppies wouldn’t make it to their melancholy
island, no matter how swift their sails snapped
across the sea. Then again, we love our land more
than they love theirs; we long to return, not flee.
That’s why you don’t see us boarding clippers
to claim to ground not ours. With our bountiful
fertile crescent, who needs more plenty?
Performativity
By Kat AbdallahMy teachers ask me
after seven months of genocide
if I’m holding up alright.
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Chasing Helicopters on the Way Home from a Bowl of Spaghetti
By Robin GowSomeone I love is turning into an asterisk
and so I am running and the vultures are
as hungry as they’ve ever been. The size of genders.
The size of fatherhoods.
Burning Haibun as Portrait: 9 months on HRT, Georgia on MS Word
By Tonee Mae MollThe font, not the nation, nor the southern state where lawmakers are folding the idea of the monster of my body into votes from folks whose homes they know are marked for flooding. I suppose I mean typeface—I’m supposed to remember the difference— like all exquisite things, we’ve got this etymology that feels apocryphal anyway. Anyway, let’s suppose I am a transitional shape.
Packing the Kitchen Utensils
By Steve Bellin-OkaHow many years since we used
the potato masher, the apple peeler,
its stainless-steel blade and crank
tucked in the back of the bottom
kitchen drawer among the balled
clot of discarded rubber bands?
Thirteen Meeting My Father For The First and Last Time
By Dare WilliamsAt the Best Western, he arrived in a Ford
with its burned-out back. We spent the day
driving while he pointed at ruins
of cars gutted on the dead lawns.