Cognoscenti In a Room Hung with Pictures by Benjamin K. Rice
The cruelty of an image is that it excites us toward an anticipation that it can’t fulfill. It gives by taking away. Though, when Cotán gives me an image of fruit, he does not take away from me any particular instance of pear or pomegranate—instead, he takes away the whole idea of fruit... Read More
Excerpt from Coil by Lou Pam Dick
If to start one step ahead, wrong step, the nix is a beginning. I wore my stairs around my neck, therefore I choke. Please be legible. What time is it? The door keeps opening. My protector gets all wet. I shout, I am my bodyguard! I whisper it inside me. Bare the neck of the... Read More
Five Poems by Ted Dodson
I would look away / Into the room’s silent reception / But as my character recedes I tire of looking at all. / The world has ended. Your resurrection eyes / Come across this second to last line—you / Can be assured I have read this already...
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Five Poems by Lindsay Remee Ahl
what seemed solid, the brick building we lived in, / the street corner I waited on to hold my child’s hand— / vanished in a breath / night all around, rain falling, I hear a crack— / a tree plummets to the road right before me / but I’m still standing as though / all... Read More
A Frenzy to the End by Erin Fleming
I walked down the street as it spiraled, ever tighter, ever darker, never reaching its center, until I was in complete black and traced my hand on the wall that lined my path. I felt that I was walking into the center of an enormous shell. Experience—biting; earth—taught me that something waited at the center... Read More
EEG by Engram Wilkinson
Procedures exhausted / before hands emulsify / that last grief into effective / managerial utterances. / Constant monitoring, / lines of electrodes / extending into each / lengthening present / itching every universe / with the newest ideation... Read More
Two Poems by Vi Khi Nao
The eloquent lungs of us twins are piled / upon one another. Mother, your / concealed nipples are the tents that the / feet of our existence step on. / I hope our breathing doesn’t temporarily / upset your evening inside the tumescent / hide. This oblivion. This sublime maternal / gesture. Coming from you... Read More
Excerpts from My Heart Laid Bare by Charles Baudelaire, trans. from French by Rainer J. Hanshe
Love can be derived from a generous feeling: the taste for prostitution; but it is soon corrupted by the taste for property. Love wants to abandon itself, to confound itself with its victim, as the conqueror with the vanquished, & yet preserve the privileges of the conqueror...
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The Cave Solution by Janalyn Guo
I was told I would fight back at the greenhouse; I would struggle with letting go. At night, I can’t sleep, and even the mantras don’t help. My body burns, the same way it feels when I forget something important and it’s too late to go back. I am full of regrets... Read More
Porn by Fortunato Salazar
But now, in retrospect, ten looked like an infant garment. By noon, at this rate, I would close the last page on the book. I slowed myself down. The afternoon loomed with its frantic taxidermy errands... Read More