Homegoing
By Sarah AudsleyYou will return to the temple, swept clean,
tea sprouting in rows, clappers of bells ringing out
as incense burn at the foot of the golden Buddha.
Search Results
What Fell, and Other Ways of Seeing August 15th
By Sahar MuradiK says what fell?
R says prices have shot up
I says our people did not fall
M says we have so much more to lose if we leave
R says the gardens are still awash in green
N says he was arrested
S says he is still dubbing films, just quietly
R says a mother sits in the road shrieking at every passing car
Dear Hermano
By Moncho AlvaradoAgain 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.
Ode to the Mulberry Tree In Our Front Drive
By Angela María SpringThough 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
A Stroll Through the Museum of My Gender Ending with a Minor Capitulation to Commodity Fetishism
By antmen pimentel mendozaThe memory palace has an all gender bathroom
and I’m not the middle figure in the half-skirt,
half-pants chimera outfit, but I do like to piss
in a single-stall situation. On the couch
is the heavy blanket that kept me Catholic. Going
up the stairs is an act of poise and in the kitchen
is a lemon, wedged and pledged. Under the bed
is the laser printed felt, the earrings I drew
onto my lobes and my cheeks flush, burning.
meat market
By Lara Atallahafter Lebanon, a country with one of the worst economic crises since the nineteenth century
the price of bread has gone up again. throngs of cars
slouch towards shuttering gas stations. the currency, a farce
with each swing of the gavel, numbers
soar. fifty thousand pounds by day’s end,
what’s another ten thousand? or a hundred thousand?
a hundred and forty thousand pounds to the dollar?
The B-Sides of the Golden Records, Track Two: “Sounds of Human Labor”
By Sumita ChakrabortyWe may try to change the shape of your body, or the color of your skin,
or the kinds of sounds that your mouths make, to match how we think you should.
Provocations 1
By mónica teresa ortizI wake up sleepless inside a room overlooking giants//mist peeling over olive trees//clouds of pleasure
Of Avocados
By Juan J. MoralesLike two hands pressed
together, they are twice as large
on the island. One feeds
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