Roy Zhu / 朱若忆 this far West, you forget sometimes, when the guidebook jokes to you like a familiar, that you’re the strange face who mars the perfect picture. you long for the postcard road trip, the fantasia of open roads and freedom, but do you still believe it? three weeks sleeping in motels &… Read More Self-Portrait at the Grand Canyon, North Rim, 2011

Kate Stumpf When the man and the woman walked in the doors whooshed open one time as if they were arriving together. Then the woman, or maybe still a girl, with forgotten foods tattooed on her hand in quickly scrawled pen marks strode toward the tower of baskets and picked one out for herself. And… Read More A Single Whoosh of the Grocery Store Doors

Claire O’Shaughnessy Purpled picante, nectar bested Pulp sticky-ing my tongue Drink like it’s nothing, tapioca for tap water Juice raindrops on shirt-fronts Swell me in your basin chest Bite me up and chew me out Like a seed Fruit freak caught in your teeth Kitchen sink, thumbprint press Pray me to sudden summer Open elbows… Read More Fruit Stone Sister

Laura Ferrucci I fell for you all late summer steam and dark humid rain, +++++electrically charged fingertips and cursive smiles. I didn’t even open my eyes in the deep to +++++see and mourn what I had lost … The moment you balanced your feet next to mine on the curb and +++++bowed your head +++++to… Read More six flags

Anna Xiao Do you remember how I was dropped into your waiting arms seventeen years ago? Was I heavy, a bundle of meaty fists and flailing limbs? Did I cry? Did you cry with me? I hope they were happy tears. Were your wishes of becoming grandparents fulfilled? Did I look like my father when… Read More do you remember

Kate Stumpf Alone in the morning my thoughts are the only voices accompanied by the tree branch’s tapping. A splash of milk and spoon of sugar and I set the mug to rest on a little knitted square because I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard my parents say: Use a coaster Wipe… Read More A Table’s Rings

Anahita Kaman Sunlight streams in on the space That lies gaping by my side. Fingers skim the heavy warmth and I Taste sweet mango seeping down my throat So cold it makes my teeth ache. His scent still lingers on the pillowcase. Once comforting and strong in its embrace, It greets me with the sort… Read More mango trees

Kennedy Birtcher you toss me, after I intentionally pull down my scarf letting the cold inflame my lips and draw a well of flush to my cheeks proving to you I have all the attributes that a living, breathing, moonlight-catching, blood-rushing-to-my-head-and-my-heart-and-everywhere-else girl should. I have been working to hear that You look like you belong… Read More You look like you belong in the snow

Anahita Kaman I have never slain a beast. Laid waiting, Watching, for the moment The wind dances in my Favour, the light of the moon highlights The flesh where I can make a mark. The pity in my heart falls Away to brute desire And all is right. The prey is ripe tonight. It has… Read More She-Beast

Julianna Feit Ophelia lay atop the river bed, a broken willow branch in her pale palm. So beautiful and cold, she moved no more. Her story of a timeless struggle had been said to be a preaching parable, a grieving psalm of Mad Ophelia sunk atop the river bed. Decades since Ophelia and her woe… Read More Ophelia Siddal