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
One Poem 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
Three Cartoons by Kit Schluter
Walking along the Avenue of the Suicides, the cockroach takes the ant by the arm. “We’ve been spending too much time together,” she says. Leaves fall over them like circus tents. Intimacy, suddenly. “I know we have,” she says. “But it’s my birthday on Sunday, and I wanted to invite you... Read More
One Poem by Armando Jaramillo Garcia
I trust in killing / Like one of many minor gods / Or some lesser despot in the drag of his predecessor / It’s the scale that interests me / Plagues wars and their numbers / Are quite boring compared to the care with which / One can practice the precise destruction of a single... Read More
Three Poems by Sharron Hass, trans. from Hebrew by Tsipi Keller
Honestly, the tapping of feet and the clatter of silverware / will hush in me the great loss. When you leave the house / will be filled with the glory of exhaustion to mean: / Did I have the strength to withstand the severity of visions, / or is this fatigue the oblation to the... Read More