My Dead
By Arisa WhiteEverybody she died another is dead everybody
dead and AIDS of AIDS my dead she is
there are more I know with the same story hiding
lips stitched hesitant to speak of someone you knew
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Walls and Mirrors, Fall 1982
By Deborah ParedezThe English translation of my surname is walls
misspelled, the original s turned to its mirrored
twin, the z the beginning of the sound for sleep.
Epistle: Disobedience Operates Across Time & Space
By Leslie McIntoshImal, direct action protest visible from satellite is time travel, is binge-watching the future. Your optic nerves can reach where no lung has emptied, and speak back with authority, so what is the meaning of witness? Imal, when I see your lover’s face, I am seeing what it has become, in spite of you, and everyone. And what does he see?
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In a Thicket of Body-Bent Grass
By Jessica JacobsArkansas is aspic with last-gasp summer, making running
like tunneling: the trail’s air a gelatin
of trapped trajectories.
water
By Lauren Mayme and all of my selves
we run like we’ve been here before
like we know what’s waiting here
and it's nothing
nothing for us
anyway
how to make her stay
By Shauna M. Morgantell her the new fragrance is nice but she doesn’t have to bathe in it
assert that sarcasm is a talent
tell her that her salwar or lappa is weird and take her to the mall for khakis
do so until she stops wearing that colorful garb
impermanence
By sam saxsometimes i wonder what happens to people’s hands when they disappear
in their pockets. of course, my rational brain knows they go on being hands
but there’s still the question. i wonder if object permanence isn’t the biggest
trick of them all, a scam, a way to ground the brain in its thin bath of liquid
Aunties love it when seafood is on sale
By Kay Ulanday BarrettIn summertime, the women
in my family spin sagoo
like planets, make
even saturn blush.
desahucio / eviction
By Raquel Salas Riveralos blancos en sus casas lloran
porque han tenido que desahuciar a sus huéspedes.
los apellidos y las propiedades lloran
porque han quemado los títulos de propiedad
de los gusanos.
***
the whites cry in their houses
because they’ve had to evict the guests.
the last names and the properties cry
because they’ve burned
the worms’ deeds.
ARS POLITICA: HOW TO MAKE ART
By Laurie Ann GuerreroYou must start small as our mothers were small,
our fathers, too, small.
In a pillowcase whip-stitched with roses
or in an old coffee can, collect your abuelos’
teeth; assure them you will not bury them
near the bones of the dog that froze