Renée Ashley
[So you try to remake a life] after what you’ve been told:
Not one word signified. A word is a sound is a sign
denoting nothing. Would you want more of that same?
You’d say lonely if it had meaning. You’d say done.
Poetry
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Target Practice
Larry D. Thacker
Can I shoot a round
into the sky high enough
for it to fall
back to earth and burn
Inclusion
Larry D. Thacker
Do they feel you hinting around
as they gather up for photos.
At the wedding reception.
The family reunion. After cleaning
the graves on Memorial Day.
Hanging
Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou
Translated by Siavash Saadlou
I am the last seeping of the rain,
hanging from a dried leave,
from the bare woman of the tree,
rolling on the floor.
Wild Swan
Zachary Schomburg
Like a wild swan with a blue shadow, I know not where I’ve swum. I bow down my head deep in the dark ripple. I honk there deep into the darkness.
Land of the Free
Zachary Schomburg
I was busy eating a butterscotch candy next to my pony when my tote bag was found. “Your tote bag!” shouted someone named Land of the Free. “I found it.”
Little By Little We Stop Thinking
Zachary Schomburg
My father was on top of my brother, his knees on my brother’s arms. He looked like a toppling house on top of another house just starting to topple.
The Move
Karla Marrufo
Translated by Allison A. deFreese
we arrived at midday,
with our luggage in hand
the sun a cement square
stretching out beneath our feet,
the sky a sharp blow to the face—
Planetarium
Amy Forstadt
The day before Christmas I take my son/ to the planetarium. “It’ll be fun,” I say./ Really, I want to escape/ my new in-laws, their holiday
Last Will and Testament
Bijan Najdi
Translated by Parisa Saranj
Half the rocks, cliffs and the mountains/ with their canyons and cups of milk/ I leave to my son. For the other half, / make a donation to a charity/ in the name of rain.
triptych
Carl-Christian Elze
Translated by Caroline Wilcox Reul
pull the key from/
the switch just/
after ignition/
the key to your/
mind and travel on without/
São Luís, 1611
Talal Alyan
in us always the monorail circling a dark skyline,/an old synth/ rings in rings in rings aloud more/
siren than song in each and in us all the quiet/hours too/ letting the elevator lift us with strangers/ to apartments we will never share.
Bad Weather Over O’Hare
Talal Alyan
the miracle is there are/ none. sixty feet and rising/ over a Dakota that has/ gone to bed, she likes to tell/ herself the miracle is
The candle that I am, the vessel
Kathleen Hellen
in lesser light
in pews in back
I sit outside
When She Came Down from Sea to Earth…
Stella Díaz Varín
Translated by Rebecca Levi
Ah, winter inverts into noon!
Almost— as if from primal waters.
Onslaught of clover,
four leaves bent to the wind,
Brief History of My Life
Stella Díaz Varín
Translated by Rebecca Levi
I command soldiers.
And I’ve told them about the danger
of hiding weapons
in the bags under their eyes.
They don’t agree.
And since they spend all their time arguing,
the battle’s already lost.
An Act Could Perpetuate
Thomas Griffin
That this could perpetuate
anything matters least to
what follows
all out there
each act, moving
toward misery or perfection
Love me more than anything.
Jared Pearce
Just when it’s getting good, the rain
stops: barely slicking the road,
hardly cooling the concrete.
manuel, about something he had seen
Nadija Rebronja
Translated by Ivana Maksić
he was having his dinner.
three poached eggs and some salad.
she was having a shower.
he sank, completely.
she watched him sinking
paolo and marcos, on the terrace, on modern history
Nadija Rebronja
Translated by Ivana Maksić
they were walking
towards one another
across the long wall
two men
or perhaps two women
the wall was
from MOTHERSALT: A Lyric
Mia Ayumi Malhotra
X days
I’ve come unmoored from the hours. I crawl into pockets of time where there is none, lose a string of days without noticing. The weeks disappear like a dropped stitch.
life of i
Elizabeth Spires
i.
i left the capital hurrying away i carried nothing
a dark night before me a dark dark night
but when morning came i stood free & alone
casting a seven-league shadow west
I
Elizabeth Spires
You stand so straight and tall
and from afar you could be
a column, but up close I can’t tell
how tall you are. I run my hands
Specific Plants
Adam Clay
Nothing much to speak of: they grow
Away from each other, not like this action
Should be seen as less of an existence.
Order in everything,
Storm Watch
Adam Clay
A touch of madness mixed
With the news
& this moment feels like the new
Normal, the new slice
Great Aunt Mary Agnes’ Eye
Thomas March
Mary Agnes would watch
my uncle and my dad
while their parents were down
at the tavern, drinking.
Unburial
Thomas March
Because she never went
outside, and no one knew
whether she’d had her shots;
because the officers
Beyond Temples
Martina Reisz Newberry
Once, when I owned my years,
I walked with my friend up a dirt road
that ended at a falling-down house where
two children sat on a slivered porch step.
On Friendship
July Westhale
You left the door agape as a mouth, met me
in the middle of the road. Car red
as a throat, your hair on my tongue, your breasts
on my breasts—I hardly cry, but your body
Teresa of Avila: Patron Saint of Via Negativa
July Westhale
We all feel like magical realism.
As if we may ascend, like Remedios Moscote.
Maybe we haven’t fathers to show us something pedestrian,
like ice. Nor the trajectory of a firing squad. We at least