I wash around the wound on your back, press my fingers and rub around the cut, flat and long, like the road you needed to take home. After the accident I wanted to say, let this be a road to take you far away from California, broken elbows and promises from bad men, friends who […]
Poetry
Wound
Elegy for Irene
by Jessica Turney
I. She can’t speak, hasn’t worn her dentures for months, but her mouth moves in rotation, lips pressed, she begs with her eyes, as if she can negotiate to stay in this hospital bed, her eyes blue as fire, the fire I see flicker from her stove, where I smell cornbread pancakes, syrup turning hot […]
as above (of course) so below
by Emma Eisler
This poem was nominated for The Best of the Net. foxtail flower, cunning loveliness, leave me to eat until i’m full, fill up on bitterness. before it is our house it is – to me – one basement, a roving plane of parties where i drink to stomachache. i don’t know now if i ever […]
Magnolia tattoo—
by Emma Eisler
died May 2020. Had been withering already from my ribs; trampled petals, leaves rubbed to mush. Your hand [a hand is not a metaphor, is not creation] tugging root from marrow, apology from tongue. Once, I got very high in a room I don’t like to think about, and every object shook off its dust […]
Southern Thundering
by Gustav Hibbett
This poem was selected as a finalist for the 2021 MAYDAY Poetry Prize. I. It wasn’t until today I learned that tornadoes are born from thunderstorms. I have only ever known the kind that come on in the evenings, soft but flanked with wind, bearing shade to ease late summer heat. I only know […]
The Cousin’s Secret
by Lindsay Wilson
This poem was nominated for The Best of the Net and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 MAYDAY Poetry Prize. When her eldest son died, her youngest and I placed two fighting beta fish into the small pond by the front door. You need to understand how much they were promised. […]
Holy Dispatches: A Review of Jesus Thesis and Other Critical Fabulations by Kopano Maroga
by Robin Gow
Rightly dedicated to “Judas,” Kopano Maroga’s first collection imagines Jesus’s “lost years” as full of queer erotic bliss and newly vibrant prayers.
On the Freedom and Creativity in Messiness: A Conversation with The Cyborg Jillian Weise
by Josh Christian
Josh Christian: I wanted to start with a broader question to get us into your life and work. I think what struck me about it was that there were so many threads that are happening, and you’re introducing your reader to this whole world of disability that maybe they haven’t even begun to consider, right? […]
Tag, You’re It (Cyborg Sonnet)
by Jillian Weise
#IfYouGetThis #CripTheVote #SendMeADM #DeafTalent #WithTheNameOf #DisabledAndCute #ThePlaceWhere #ActuallyAutistic #WeSatTogether #DisabilityTooWhite #For26Days #AbleismExists #NotUsExactlyBut #AccessIsLove SEE MORE: Interview with Jillian Weise THE CYBORG JILLIAN WEISE is a poet, video artist, and disability rights activist. Cy’s first book, The Amputee’s Guide to Sex, was reissued in a tenth-anniversary edition with a new preface. The Book of Goodbyes won […]
Twasday
by Jillian Weise
The first time I slipped between Tuesday and Wednesday, into a Twasday, I saw Amy. She was wearing her tattoos again. I had not seen her in years. She asked me to help her build a casket. She had the hammer and nails. The saw was lying on the ground next to a plank of […]
