Poetry
On disappointment
Erika Barrios As I stretch the bowstring back, I hear a warm whisper brush against my ear. The wind beckons me to aim higher. I know what I am doing when a burst of air makes my knees buckle, Check your posture, it seems to say, jabbing at my false assurance. Again I steady my… Read More On disappointment
Market
Sofia Bening “Come, come! This one just arrive,so so fresh!This one snakehead, you skin and boil with cabbage.Soft chewy meat,good for brain,your sons and daughters for sure for sure get 100 pointson all their exams!” “Just caught and live!Red snapper!Smiling sea cucumber!The Leaping Buddha Turtle!Bring wealth and prosperity into your homeand into your stomachsfor only… Read More Market
El Bronx, Barrio Voto Nacional, Los Mártires, Bogotá D.C.
Laurisa Sastoque May 28, 2016. 5:20 A.M.2500 members of the public forces entered the area.What they found:130 underage sexual workers, 508 homeless people,56 slot machines, 1000 “bazuco” doses,1 kidnapped victim behind a false wall. Two alleys in between a police command,a military garrison and a church, L-shaped:to the right, a clandestine market of stolenobjects, to… Read More El Bronx, Barrio Voto Nacional, Los Mártires, Bogotá D.C.
Letter to Wild Girl
Eleanor Colligan What’s a girl to do when she is sculpted from mud,and not at all from another’s figure?Instead the finest silt was used, mixed with ruby blood…all the same, no set of eyes feel familiar.Midwinter’s hollow winds lap at her foot,whispering to forage and scatter in an instant,pleading against the growing of rough, chapped… Read More Letter to Wild Girl
Argo Lake
Emily Jahn They say the clarity in the waterapproximates heaven. When we arrived I buried myselfin that cold grace, stroking my heart with its clean shock and makingmy red bones shiver. I think eternity is a firmnudge asking I open my mouth to breathe insome kind of answer. I will lift myself to the dappledsurface,… Read More Argo Lake
Aspens
Emily Jahn Half buried under footthat misty evening, incandescent in flickeringwhite eyes –the night’s slow blink. Theyare the colorof my father’s hair, their barkfeels like the skinunder his eyes, all the delicatebeauty in the crosshatch beneath the clarity I run my thumbs over. I wish they could pull me upwith their darkgrooves to where the… Read More Aspens
Black Sutra, of the Psychiatric Ward
Nick Corvino It’s hard for you to knowabout the black nights of the Psychiatric Wardwhere that woman screamed as we tried to sleep, asking “Where is my home!? Where is my home!?What have you done to my home!?”and of the silent nurses—like the black crow carrying hidden messages—that would check on usevery fifteen minutes as… Read More Black Sutra, of the Psychiatric Ward
Prologue | The Same Sight Each Night
Drey Bautista “well, this place is by no means anywhere near five starsbut my son and his pimpled, gross friends can mention its greasy pizza in one of their school memoirs”not the first casual insult and definitely not the last“don’t think i don’t know you’re standing there for a tip. do you even have any… Read More Prologue | The Same Sight Each Night
Reading Kleinzahler at the Rock & Roll McDonald’s
Christian Thorsberg I.The ruckus begins like a jazz scat set Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club(some yuppie pub on Clark _________________________ vigorous and dumb) From stools lampooning this that and our tab, now leaving, We trudge like broken-bodied rockstars, all cocaine and vocal chords,Towards yet another sweating golden corona,Turning over… Read More Reading Kleinzahler at the Rock & Roll McDonald’s
