Set the Garden on Fire
By Chen ChenMy friend’s new neighbors in the suburbs
are planting a neat row of roses
between her house & theirs.
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Baby of the Month
By Maya PindyckMy friend tells me she just saw October Baby,
a movie about a woman who finds out she was
almost aborted—“abortion survivor,” she calls herself.
I ask my friend if she’s seen the newest flick,
Oceanside, CA
By Marie-Elizabeth MaliBalancing on crutches in the shallows
near her mother, a girl missing her right lower leg
swings her body and falls, laughing.
Anxiety Attack at 27,000 Feet
By Nicholas SamarasWhat is that red throbbing over the sound of engines?
Why is a distant war still being talked about in the media?
I can't see my home or Iraq or the Middle East
outside this bowed rectangle of blue altitude.
The Dogs and I Walked Our Woods,
By Gretchen Primackand there was a dog, precisely the colors of autumn,
asleep between two trunks by the trail.
But it was a coyote, paws pink
Dressing Down
By Kamilah Aisha MoonWhen you're gay in Dixie,
you're a clown of a desperate circus.
Sometimes the only way to be like daddy
All the Trees of the Field Shall Clap Their Hands
By Eduardo C. CorralAre the knees & elbows
the first knots
the dead untie?
Why I Don’t Mention Flowers When Conversations with My Brother Reach Uncomfortable Silences
By Natalie DiazIn the Kashmir mountains,
my brother shot many men,
blew skulls from brown skins,
Thanks
By Yusef KomunyakaaThanks for the tree
between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
Infinite Regress of War
By Myra SklarewIn the mirror of infinite regress
go back. Go back to Vietnam. To a man
who can spot a trip wire fine as a hair,