Witnesses
By Ellen BassToday is gray, drizzling,
but not enough for drops to pool
on the tips of the silver needles
or soak the bark of the pines at Ponary—
Search Results
Aubade with Gravel and Gold
By Sally Wen MaoI’m sick of speaking for women who’ve died
Their stories and their disappearances
bludgeon me in my sleep
Requiem
By Melissa TuckeyUnable to sleep,
the blankets wrapped in waves, waves
as tall as dreams,
the dream world trying to make sense
Water & Salt
By Lena Khalaf TuffahaBehind the walls of your jails we wait
heartbeats audible now, muffled thuds
above the current of blood running thin
In This Place (An American Lyric)
By Amanda GormanThere’s a poem in this place—
in the footfalls in the halls
in the quiet beat of the seats.
It is here, at the curtain of day,
Loving the Enemy
By Caits Meissnerof course there were gaps I kept my eyes
shuddered up my curiosities strapped
amnesia on as a mask but only the dead do not dream.
To the Black Virgin Mary on a Steeple in Greensburg, PA
By Destiny O. BirdsongOr maybe you weren’t. Whenever I’m frightened,
anything can become a black woman in a granite dress:
scaffold for what’s to come: blue lights exploding
like an aurora at the base of the bridge;
Dominion
By Claire HermannGod separated the light from the darkness,
but I have a light switch.
Once there was morning and evening,
but now someone has torn the heart out of a mountain,
This is a Love Song
By Zahara HeckscherThis is a love song
to the invisible waves
that travel through the air
finding the antenna
