The children are taught they are demons. A scourge that’s inciting the wreckage of paradise. The holy men claim that, through torture, some salvation awaits them. By no longer being the children that they are: through the pulling of fangs, clipping wings. Through the turn of their bones in marble. The holy men spend years […]
Featured Poetry
Testdemonial
Map, in Parts
by Christina Hennemann
after Olga Tokarczuk In a workshop I draft my poetic map of home & find Agatha of Sicily: virgin, whore, captive, saint. The Etna’s lava fell asleep in the girl’s veil. Her breasts sit in a bakery for sale. She would not love a man for the price of a lie. Rebel- girl admonished saint. […]
Hallucinations De L’ouie, Etorisme, and Appel
by Emelia Kamadulski
Hallucinations I recognize you know something I don’t. Best I can do, raise my finger to my cheek. Gesture my knowing for an ignorant lens. In this vision you are the canary in the coalmine. You bellow and teal but no one will listen. Drop dead demands the doctor, you’re just hormonal. Grant me your […]
In a Postwar Therapy Session with an Amnesiac, He Said
by Gospel Chinedu
A pilgrim seeks acceptance, the way a gun / seeks a voice. I welcome grief / into the village of my body.
Yield
by Tamara Barnett-Herrin
You’ve got a hard rule that the gruesome is a counterpoise to the sentimental. I used to say that’s how sadists are— getting teary over Italian operas, and then afterwards, strangling someone small. I look out your window to see fresh pavement markings painted over roadkill fox. The triangle means Yield. I want to say— […]
call and response
by Chiagoziem Jideofor
call and response every time you bring me to the point of questioning, i bend o immaculate queen of streetlamps and audit benches leafing through layers of what is presumed and claimed i do not like feeling this naked or looked over with strange eyes there is hesitation on my part. […]
Reprint
by Stacy Boe Miller
Reprint When I saw his wife’s milk-pond skin I scrubbed my face until it bled. Wrinkles hold my mouth in parenthesis. I’d like to be less rusted barbed wire and more fresh spring pond. You are the strongest person I know Sam said but when I […]
Judith and Her Maidservant
by Virginia Laurie
Judith and Her Maidservant I’m scared that my hair is falling out because I’m a gossip; scared hissing follicles loose with loose cruel lips; I believe in punishment as much as forgiveness; I believe bound fingers form blades; Artemisia paints Lucretia with the dagger pointed up and away; I see myself gripping liquored stringy hair; […]
MAMA WANTS HER BABY BACK: DUPLEX and If/Then/Ophidian
by Dominic Anthony
MAMA WANTS HER BABY BACK: DUPLEX Mama wants her baby back. Baby does not know how to be wanted. Baby knows how to want. Mama does not know how to have. Mama does know how to be wanted. Men want Mama and Baby. Men want Mama and Baby in the same way. Baby does […]
for my ill brown daughter
by Ela Kini
for my ill brown daughter thap. thap. thap. hey there fever girl. hey there ’s water running down your chest, wind slapping your window, hey there fever girl, I hear you keep your eyes in a brown paper […]
