Ode to Jacob Blinder
By Janlori GoldmanHis face stared out into the living room
of my grandparents’ walk-up on E. 13th.
After they died my father hung him
Search Results
Hope is a Bruise
By Dasha Kelly HamiltonPaintball pellets batter shoulders
and thighs at 190 miles per hour
I count the purplish bruises and
smile at the post vision of us toasting
Equinox
By Tamiko BeyerDear child of the near future,
here is what I know—hawks
soar on the updraft and sparrows always
return to the seed source until they spot
Breaking & Entering
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesOnly beasts are supposed to hibernate.
But this brother has been lying there
for years. Truth isn’t a news headline.
Brecksville, Ohio
By Margo TamezThe weather in Brecksville was in transition.
He was wearing a light jacket. The seasonal
change of weather variations,
I Was Wrong Running Doesn’t Save Us
By Yesenia Montillaonce at eight years old I nearly gave myself a concussion running
my mother would braid my hair and wrap the ends in the heaviest
hair ties with the biggest colorful glass balls; they were lethal; as
This is the city that I love
By Rosemary FerreiraHabichuelas bubbling on the stovetop. The kitchen door opens to our backyard. My father cuts out a piece of the campo and plants it here in Brooklyn. There are neighbors who knock on the door with a broom to let us know they’re selling pasteles. The train rumbles into a screech in the background, “This is Gates Avenue, the next stop is...”
Poem on Disappearance
By Kimberly BlaeserBeginning with our continent, draw 1491:
each mountain, compass point Indigenous;
trace trade routes, languages, seasonal migrations—
don’t become attached.
Bill Pay
By Janice Lobo Sapigaowe don’t know how to pay the bills on time
and we don’t know the password to your bank account
& in all of our languages I understand why you stacked
linens and face towels and rubber bands and plastic bags
in drawers and hallway closets
everything filled to the brim
Poem Resisting Arrest
By Kyle DarganThis poem is guilty. It assumed it retained
the right to ask its question after the page
came up flush against its face.