Alfredo Barnaby

At dusk the skirt would unfold from an inkblot.

I would follow each hem,
vase of barren soil tilting forth,
palms welled for a spare garden,

Craig Evenson

Without the thrashing snake
it is till:
a cross, i,
a pair of trainless rails
a vacant trail

Sophie Strand

def. the world as experienced by a particular organism.

All I want is a red dress. I can circumscribe the island
in a day’s walk. My forays into other worlds always involve me

Timothy Yu

Dr. Timothy lectured till
his tenure came and then
he stole a voice & lectured to the world.
They publish again & again, like war,

Timothy Yu

I am not the man who spoke & spoke.
I am not the girl better, braver but.
I am not thinged for your school.
I am not wise. I keep my selving shut.

Sandra Kolankiewicz

Instead, we bought things even though we knew
purchasing would improve nothing, would make
the days worse as the bills came in, too fraught

Ruth Madievsky

The flight was cancelled. The Ativan failed.
My grandmother got cancer.
I wore a white coat, a pharmacy badge. My patient
went into cardiac arrest

Ruth Madievsky

I mouth you into a corner.
I mouth you as if there’s a gun to my head,
a man in a ski mask
shouting, Mouth him or it’s all over—

Kirsten Hemmy

Sometimes giggles
doors slam

once your heart stops
mid-dream &

Kirsten Hemmy

How to be honest about this?—
The mind with its revisionist self,

all intention & ego. You want to say
something about your heart, the soul,

Florbela Espanca
Translated by Carlo Matos

I dream of being one of the elect, a poetess
that says and knows all,
whose inspiration is pure and perfect,
whose words gather immensities about them.

By Bhaskar Chakraborty
Translated by Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Outside, fitful moonlight

Our dream-train has halted at our courtyard –

Come, pull out from beneath the bed

By Gabrielle Lessans

1.

Dawn said how can we talk about gender without talking about race? You think how can we talk about earth where our air is easy.

By Eli Sahm

I can’t wait to smile hummus

organic, ooze carrot-like composure

and be OK with time. I’ll sketch

pictures of my future kids, intuit

By Marina Tsvetaeva
Translated by Mary Jane White

The darkest of nights’
Places: a bridge. –Lips to lips!
Really should we be lugging
Our shared cross to these nasty places,

By Marina Tsvetaeva
Translated by Mary Jane White

“I’m not leaving!—This isn’t the end!” And she clings and clings . . .

But in her breast—the swell

Of looming waters,

By Laura Post

1. Who are you and whom do you love?

I pulled my teeth out

one by

By Laura Post

I have bursts of being a body, but they never last long.

I buried a lightbulb,
thought it might hatch fire,
set those lazy fields ablaze.

By Sean Howard

i. the conquest of the river plate

pampas, horses

ford the stream… (

waves making the land

fall.) silence: conduct-

By Lillian-Yvonne Bertram & Steve Davenport

You are the woman

from the television show who would rather

be sedated than cry—my one friend

always this species of correct

By Sharon Coleman

Before radiation conjoined continents. In those windy days by the Pacific, when we went to empty our hands of grades, bills, unpaid work.

By Sharon Coleman

she shed words like her sister’s hand-me-down anger mis-sewn
dress

she folded into slow july streams, tall dry grasses over warm granite

of a coast they were moved up and down too many times she slept

By Michelle Lewis

Now trees have shaken in the wind where there is

no wind and you must clutch yourself.

You must toggle on your heelbone and become it.

By Michelle Lewis

The thing about my mother is I don’t think

you understand cramhole, I don’t think you understand back into.

The thing is take the scissors to bed.

By Michelle Lewis

Will tonight be every night?

Outside the kick-out door

saying if the dark

By Emile DeWeaver

We play

chicken where the brave

stay the course. Frames will twist,

By Gray Tolhurst

bridge to bring the language together

(Babylon)

divided the channels