Cold Open
By Olatunde OsinaikeThree stories below,
you’d mosey in, depart
in the same way:
short of our buzz or us
letting you in.
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There Is Only One World, This One
By S. J. GhausNearby a spring lamb wobbles
like a song on its first feet, while
somewhere in the same field a lamb dies
in its mother’s womb. This season is all
one choir, the geese on the roof, the ticks
in the grass, the shadowy black
of sunflower seeds oversleeping
in my pocket.
New Exile Poems
By Tuhin Das1.
I am a writer,
the light burns late
into the night in my room.
Body Under Another’s Tradition
By Aliah Lavonne TighEveryone in Anatomy pairs up,
receives a small baby pig.
The scalpel shines like water or a mirror—if you look, you see
yourself: gloved hand pushing a blade to open
the other animal’s chest. Someone drops
a knife, shouts,
Clean it up. This is how we learn to
dissect a body.
Exile’s Terrarium
By Edward SalemI’d planned a sculpture called
Getting Home, built from
my land in Palestine—
soil, shrubbery, stones,
an entire olive tree
chopped and dissected
into shippable parts
and air mailed in boxes
to my home in Detroit.
Shahrazad, circa 2024
By Aiya SakrOn the day of the first flour massacre,
nothing I have ever said has been untrue.
Fourteen thousand and three hundred white
PVC flags flutter in the early spring morning.
By the time I cross the lawn, the IDF have killed
another child, and another flag springs up
Like a poppy.
This simile is too easy.
After Hours at the Garment Factory
By Amatan NoorLet’s inhale some fresh air
Its botanical river wafting into our nostrils
Alas, the sky has been seething crimson
for half a century
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
How to make salabat
By Kay Ulanday BarrettHoy! Listen, This is how to cut ginger, it’s a root, she said from
Chicago basement on first snow of the year. It’s the 90’s. Snow is
a big deal. Tear salt missing ocean salt, she cleared her throat.
Based on where we’re from, nothing can prepare us for frozen.
Fast forward: college friend asks How do you make that tea again?
The one you used to drink when it started to snow.
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.