Pause Hawk Cloud Enter
By Lauren CampThe soup cooks for an hour while vultures and buzzards pluck the market.
My father wipes his forehead with a white cloth.
Once, each day began with khubz and samoon
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my mother watches her mother’s funeral footage again
By Wo ChanShe closed the doors
and then the blinds
and then her face, midday.
English Words
By José B. Gonzálezmy mouth agape for these english words made of stone
their sharpness could split my tongue, but one by one
i’ll use them to build a wall, one by one
Shooting for the Sky
By Purvi ShahUnder sky massaged by sun, from a comfortable chair, I watch
the rain stroke a myrtle tree. Naked
rain, my father says. Naked,
Black Matters
By Keith Wilsonshall i tell you, then, that we exist?
there came a light, blue and white careening,
the police like wailing angels
to bitter me.
The Pinko Commie Dyke Returns
By Julie Enszerto the place where the idea
of being a pinko commie dyke
first entered her mind,
Do You Speak Persian?
By Kaveh AkbarSome days we can see Venus in mid-afternoon. Then at night, stars
separated by billions of miles, light travelling years
to die in the back of an eye.
YOU ARE WHO I LOVE
By Aracelis GirmayYou, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats
Ama-ar-gi*
By Dunya MikhailOur clay tablets are cracked
Scattered, like us, are the Sumerian letters
“Freedom” is inscribed this way:
Ama-ar-gi
Ode To What We Make
By Kathy EngelPraise the words and what
defies words, the mamas and
fathers, all the beloveds