Nathan Omprasadham Blood drips down cold books with cracked spines and vice grips with stories of heroes and heartthrobs with light skin and these books they take hold and hold fast and won’t go and they ask no questions of those things they don’t know but we know our stories less spoken less forefront yes… Read More Anansi

Adaeze Ogbonna to sleep on  White sheets, stained Brown like my skin Brown like dirt and wonder as the time passes and I buy another set of pure White sheet  and another and another and another  how my stained sins so perfectly surround me in their dirty crude graffiti how bleach only hides the dirt,… Read More A Black Girl’s Lullaby

Nathan Omprasadham A peach is only a part (apart?) a piece (apiece?) oh please (oh please!) a piece just waiting (waiting for taking) for taking a piece apart (a part?) apart! (apart!) The same is true of a heart (a heart?) a heart! (a heart) a piece, a part of your heart (my heart?) your… Read More A Peach, a Pair, and a Heart

Chloe Chow a corpse bubbles up from the hardwood and pushes its palms against the floor to look me in the face you don’t remember me? you strangled the breath from my chest, cut your finger on the shovel as you tried to shove a planet between us.              … Read More a death in the family

Ginny Ip Translated from Cantonese Mami (媽咪) told me when I was young that I was special, cos I had three tongues – most people only had one. do be careful though she’d warned, one could nip the other when it wasn’t looking and that would be Bad (壞). the first one was Love (愛)… Read More Three Tongues (三蛇)

Evan Neiden somewhere there is a house,                              and it is filled with laughing.               the small things that make a history               make the fireplace glow brighter,    … Read More House

April Li oxen are the hard workers in the background, intelligent and reliable, but never demanding praise. this is how the traditions go: make zào táng for the kitchen god ahead of time brew the malt candy on the stove cook the mixture so it’s sticky so it sweetens the words, so it seals the… Read More year of the ox

Devony Hof I watch human hands unearth my bone, Then my tusks, delicate, side by side As they once painted us, marked and dried Running, running, running into stone. Once moving us by the sun’s bright breath Tugged by their hands from very old earth. A frightening, strangely bloodless birth  I think I remember a… Read More A Mammoth Lullaby

Zoë Huettl He can’t be gaining on me, I was all-state last year— My hair sweat-slicked, A salt ring along the underside of my sports bra. Barefoot, I barely feel the sidewalk’s sting. My hand clutching My stilettos By their straps.  I’m out of time. Solid wall of man, a few streetlights Behind. I’m not… Read More Daphne

Chloe Chow i. come with me to the place where blood orange drips from your lips and i wipe it away with two fingers and three white teeth. where i may feel your scalp burn beneath my palm. where i can see you in the roaring light of day and it is nice. are you… Read More three dreams i had last week