Poetry

First Kiss

by Alice White : Lips I crushed on a boy named Drew in sixth grade,wrote a thirty-page letter to Anji,my best friend, composed mostly of lyricsto every love song I knew, except thatI swapped his name for each you. Poor Anji.For I can’t help falling in love with Drew…At last, the summer before seventh grade,IContinue reading “First Kiss”

Meditation on Need

Winner of the Writer’s Foundry Prize in Poetry by Despy Boutris Any I want you makes me want to run& hide. I never know what to dowhen my body turns feral. If lustis a kingdom, how kingly I become—large as the mustard blooms smearingthe hillside, all that yellow impossibleto break through. All wild& inhuman, noContinue reading “Meditation on Need”

The Book of Ash

all that remains of Joshua by Katie Manning long agoyour peoplecame to the sea theycriedfordarknessandhe brought the sea over them you saw with your own eyesthen you lived in the wilderness for a long time then youfought against you your handsdestroyedyouput a curse on youblessed you again and againanddelivered you after these thingsyour goddied youburiedContinue reading “The Book of Ash”

The favorite

by Grace Li When the last of the wintercoats are boxed away and carriedup to the attic, it is almost time,according to my father,to buy Chinese pears. Once, around this time, he enlisted mein joining him to the Asian Food on Oak TreeRoad, where the aisles of fruitnow were replaced with cardboard barrelspedestaled on woodenContinue reading “The favorite”

Recycling

by Edison Angelbello There is a joke I tell (with varied reactions) when asked about home. I’ll now reshape it as a poem. The highest peak in South Florida is a landfill they’ve repurposed as a park. And I’m not sure what they fed the land to make it smell of itself again— like goosegrassContinue reading “Recycling”

on the headlands, across the harbor

by Deborah Pless the bonfire must have reached sixty feetover the roofs of Bearskin Neck and the wharfbefore the lobster boats idling in the harborwere put back to use by men with sleepy eyesand pounding skulls we saw it, cracked and spitting, fit to consumeand from the rocks you asked me: why go to allContinue reading “on the headlands, across the harbor”

Summer for Peaches

by Seth Amos I like summer for peaches, not for humid, breezeless days. July 28, 2019, 11:10 a.m.,Brooklyn, I ate one.Eating a peach requires planningor rogue carelessness.I ate this one over the sink,shirtless, waitingfor the coffee to percolate.My teeth pierced its cropped fuzzand perfumed flesh. Juice camelike a watering mouth, drippingdown my arm and plunkingintoContinue reading “Summer for Peaches”

Evening bike ride to San Antonio Juanacaxtle

by Lisa López Smith There are the last whispers of the jacarandas’ pale purple glow,fields faded, the soil freshly turned.There are the houses half eaten alive—naked, brooding & dark,and the gusty roarblinking back tearson the downhill.Past the Cataluña gas station where the white stone colossus,Christ the Redeemer-style, has outstretched arms to embracethe Pemex gas pumpsContinue reading “Evening bike ride to San Antonio Juanacaxtle”

Rehabitation

by Grace Li Every year the ladybug migrationwould pass through my father’s housewhere hundreds would trapthemselves in the cozyof our sunstreamed attic,tucked away with thewinter coats and pressed intopages of report cards.Every year my father would takethe phonebookfrom the kitchen cabinetwhere he kept all the billsand call a white manwho, every year, would leave ourContinue reading “Rehabitation”

The Book of Ear

all that remains of Ezra by Katie Manning Author’s Note: I am tired of people taking language from the Bible out of context and using it as a weapon against other people, so I started taking language from the Bible out of context and using it to create art. My process was to use the lastContinue reading “The Book of Ear”