Window She came to live with us when I was 12. She would sit at the window with a toothless smile, wrapped in white with breasts that needed no cover or holding up, eyes layered with years, looking at the road outside, longing for home. Perhaps. Big mother. Old mother. Grand mother. She left me […]
Poetry
MIDDEN NO. 7 AND EXCAVATION by Mark McKain
Mother, they say that each man has three souls. One is the little pupil of the eye. Mullet circle in opposite directions—silvery, non-Euclidian geometers taking the measure of oyster beds. Sea grape leaves are orbicular; the flowers very small and borne in racemes that reach into the open blue where happiness thinks about nothing. Mother, what a […]
COVENT GARDEN (CENTRAL LONDON) by Marcus Slease
we’re freakin growin old so why bother with the promises oh my brother oh sis fluffing our chariots for the masses our ears good & torn & what is broken say to heat & torment say we have not found the rock have not left the garden, oh Return to table of contents for Issue […]
IN SOMNIA by Alyssa Pelish
i. When she turns in at night without a pill, when she does not cap her sleep with a benzodiazepine or a barbiturate, the submission seems rudderless, prone to derail and crash into consciousness at any moment. ii. Anxiety formulates undiscovered planets, or circulating solar systems, or even whole galaxies that she cannot know or […]
AN INTRODUCTION by Nitoo Das
I contributed this poem to a blog, where I was asked to select one of my poems that I “consider feminist or woman-centric,” and I dithered for months because I could not come to a conclusion about two issues: 1) Which facet of my feminism should I display? and 2) Why should I privilege that […]
LETTER FROM RAMABAI TO HER HUSBAND by Nitoo Das
Beloved, I’m tired and this drying body remembers the crane- white of your nails tonight. The widows come in limp droves everyday and my ears scorch with their words. Today, Shanta told me “They gave me powders to choke my daughter.” Her hands kept fluttering to her head as if to touch dream hair. Sometimes […]
FOR BINAYAK SEN by T. P. Sabitha
by T. P. Sabitha translated from the Malayalam by T. P. Sabitha and K. Satchidanandan first published in Mathrubhoomi (May 31- June 6, 2009) Oblivious fields, which mother’s milk does the penury’s sun boiling in your brimming lap turn into vapour? Village, dancing like an oracle in the festival of green, which parched infant’s cure-forsaken fever makes […]
RED by T. P. Sabitha
by T. P. Sabitha translated from the Malayalam by the poet first published in Mathrubhoomi (Sept. 14-20, 2008) To Omana and Gopalakrishnan – translators extraordinaire from Russian into Malayalam – for the gift of a Soviet childhood All of a sudden a pelican landed on our verandah. The river Volga rushed along circling the deity in […]
MARCEL ADDRESSES KATE (AS HE WOULD IF HE COULD) by Jillian Weise
When the call came for me to join Bitto behind the damn Falls, did I not challenge the appointment, did I not appeal to the High Courts & wait in the dark offices of tree holes & check the box to describe myself as too bird-brained? Did I not beg to stay in the Arbolis […]
SUNDAY MORNING by Sean Karns
After his first heart attack, I play with a bullet, thumb the buffed casing and pick at the lead. A week’s worth of beer cans, pop cans, and burnt-out light bulbs clatter in the back seat with the .22 and 9mm. The truck rattles down the gravel road and we stop by our Sunday field. […]
