Blessed Be
By Niki Herdthe black body found
next door near the house where
the blind girl lived
Search Results
Where the Body Rests
By Elmaz AbinaderOur skin has turned to parchment
Our skin has turned to parchment
Our skin are the scrolls upon which
This history will be written
Gunpowder Lives
By Venus ThrashEver since my next-door neighbor stopped
in front of the stoop, unfolded The Post
to her son's smiling face, I've been obsessed
with the Obits page.
So, that you are always sir, dear sir
By Kenji LiuAsk me again why I am here
with this pine, this wild oyamel,
their great succulence of reason
You, machine lyric
and State, every state,
A Small Needful Fact
By Ross GayIs that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
We, stones, were branded by hot iron
By Rosa ChávezRi oj ab'aj xkoj qetal ruk'a k'atanalaj ch'ich'
Xk'at ri qab'aq'wach //
Las piedras fuimos marcadas con hierro candente
quemados nuestros ojos //
We, stones, were branded by hot iron
our eyes scorched
Manitogiizans/December
By Lois BeardsleeWhen I asked my mother
If she could remember
What her mother's mother called December
Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh in the Asylum at Arles
By Roger ReevesThe moths in the orchard squeal
with each pass of the mistral wind.
Yet the reapers and their scythes,
out beyond the pear trees, slay wheat
Theodicy
By Joshua BennettWhen yet another one of your kin falls,
you question God’s wingspan, the architecture
of mercy.
Elegy
By Rachel Eliza GriffithsI remember the boys & their open hands. High fives
of farewell. I remember that the birches waved too,
the white jagged limbs turning away from incessant wildfires