by Josephine Defaye Strange Wives (Editor’s Note: from the book of Ezra, Nehemiah, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; “trans” truncates the words “transgressed,” “transgresseth,” “transgression,” and “transformed”) He that covereth a trans seeketh love;He loveth trans. The words of the trans. Trans on his lips. Trans by wine, enlargeth hisdesire as hell. The wicked is […]
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by Lee Peterson Grounds I cannot not bear him,love him, claim him.Can you? Call me claimant, citizen,supplicant, friend. He is mine yours, oursto love and cover. His limbsbelong to me.His death a fault of all our sins.Meant—unmeant.Does it matter? Argument. Argument. Air. Author Lee Peterson is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Rooms and Fields: Dramatic […]
by Chloe Cook To Satiate the Living I Skid-mark clouds driftedwith undetectable urgency.Ofrendas of marigolds and alfeñiquesornamented most headstones. Pan dulce crumbs induced sugar-rabiesin the squirrels; horchata spillageobscured family photographs.Despite temptation, the spirits did not return. A mariachi of widowers sang beneatha hunched yew tree—its branches hunglow enough to invade a makeshift altarand pluck a […]
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Lunch
by Sophia Khan Lunch 0. Tarry slivers of opium, sucked from beneath your nanny’s fingernails You have heard you were a horror: cried all night; failed to thrive. You want something ineffable. Nothing you are given ever satisfies. What is the poor woman to do? One evening when you are nine months old, you will […]
by Lauren Sharon Retreat My name is Sara Jane Felt. I am childless. Synonyms please – barren, incomplete, loser. Through a series of biological failures: miscarriages, fizzled fertility treatments, A stillbirth. Today, like every day, my husband, Danny tries to join me in my loss and grief. “I’m childless too,” he says. Maybe. He takes […]
by Gary Fincke After the Locks are Changed Home After the locks are changed, after he stops cursing and pounding on both doors, he hurls his key against the kitchen window while McCartney, her German Shepherd, yips and whines. Still, he calls several times each week, always after midnight with slurs of pleading punctuated by […]
by Jonathan Everitt Self-portrait from Unnamable Year How often do we not know whatto call a thing until the aftermath?Once, I melted in someone’s mirror,heart a hot rock, heavy in my throat.Presence flipped to absence flapjack-fast.Sheets thunder-rumpled suddenlyby July’s overblown unstable air.Of course there was a downpour.We need reasons to stay alone. To playthe saddest […]
by Alex Braslavsky BRINK I’m talking about the size of my grilledcheese on Valentine’s Day in 2022.I’m bleeding every month. Mencan wear as many goose puffers as they want.In a single day, I have wasted so many darts.A pom-pom appears on the ottoman. In a trice, after orbiting the womb,I was begging for never. I […]
by Maslen Bode Ward 11:53pm sometimes I watch pornwhere the woman isan object andthe man looksmad there isusually a womanand a manI am surprisednot to have morematches on hingearen’t I in New York Cityin the porn I watch the woman moansthe man seemslike he’s losing his virginitya man on hinge asksmy favorite three albumsand I’m […]
after Denise Duhamel’s “MY STRIP CLUB” by Aaron DeLee MY GRINDR after Denise Duhamel’s “MY STRIP CLUB“ In my Grindrthe guys show upbaring grinsand hard-boundbooks they nimbly fingeropen as bottles of roséand buttons on cardigans.When the conversation’s litthey lick their thumbsand flurry a fan of pages to favorite passages––they’re so poignant.They excitedly exclaimhow close they […]
by Meriden Vitale While sitting at the temple I’m reading a stirring obituary that ends with a warning. Jane isolated herself from her friends and eventually hung herself from the bookshelf in her apartment. The sister she hated got everything. Write a legally binding will to prevent this. Overheard: she was sharing her vulnerability. She […]
by JaLeah Hedrick Wife of Cain Oh motherless thing, first of us to beerased. Not even Eve with her cloutcould keep your name in the Book.You wandered (an animal) into that exurbof Eden. How did they make you human first?Wash you in the water of heaven, rinse awaythe scent of earth, that you could be […]
by Esther Ra self-portrait without a mirror tears form small, glossy patches on the poolof my skirt remind me how small is my sorrow after long stillness my body hums its tuneless& squeaking refrain kiln-dried spruce pianoin need of touch to make music your mouthteaches me the shape of my own measuresthe size of my yearn & the library […]
by Aysha Mahmood Directions Cling to me. Now, coil and squeeze, claw out my muscles,crunch out my bones, carve your name into my femur, digyour teeth deep into my thigh, make my skin sweat, foamat the mouth, growl and howl and devour – be rabid about it –rip out my nerves and swallow me whole, […]
by Benjamin Favero our mother a landscape we stay to paint our mothera landscape her stretch marks tree trunks ash and chestnutclouds bellied over her hands creased with peaks we hopethey grow in perfect varicose vines draped from roots to ankledeep as her womb of salt brine her ribs flared to cliffs againsta crested tide […]
by Matthew Williams Suburban Murmursa grandmother lifts her hands to catch the laughing child fields of orange poppies name our naked flanks running she plucks and eats the summer from bushes in the backyard tall as a robin my father stands at the roadside holding an unlit cigarette a woman hangs a white sheet in […]
by Kenneth Chacon Eucharist I once knew a manwho met Godin a crater on the moon. He fed me the bonesof his fingers & told methe crown of the earth restedat my feet in the floor. The armies of mensharpen knives.They fasten armorto beasts, bladescurved to the exactnoose of a neighbor’s neck. I saw the […]
by Sophie Bebeau SELF-PORTRAIT AS DAYDREAM you’d like to fuck the pool boy if you hada pool or a boy to clean it you’d like to be a middle-aged suburban Rapunzel wearing nothingbut a long Pepto pink satin robe feather trim drool on your chintidal wave swoops of your Coke bottle hair surging forth to drownyour boredom you’d […]
by Tali Rose West Marlboros at Sunset I’ve started smoking again. Not a whole lot—I’m not a chain smoker or anything—but I like to have a reason to stand on my balcony overlooking the apartment pool and watch the sky. There’s this moment each day when the sun’s setting, just a second before the horrible […]
by A. Molotkov Transfusion 1. Sarah The smell of rot is so pervasive it adheres to the inside of my nose and mouth. I force myself to ignore it. Impossible. The horizon is interrupted by the red glow of forest fires. The other woman’s face, too, is tinted red. She’s walked with me for a […]
by Christa Rohrbach The Other Side of a Fourth-Place Medal You are 18 months old when your first hairs sprout. Your mother is ecstatic when she sees them: three tiny, fair, and thin little hairs that were somehow able to pierce through the smooth porcelain of your scalp. She thinks maybe you will stop being […]
by Kris Norbraten They dragged the doll into the hot shower to get it back to life. Some semblance of life. It wasn’t exactly a doll or wasn’t supposed to be. It was supposed to be something more. Randi’s bare feet squeaked on the acrylic shower bottom. She’d gotten herself wedged into the stall, no […]
Categories
A Word Flows Between Us
by Vimla Sriram A Word Flows Between Us When the word Heathen barrels past the street and lands at my feet, I already know its intended for me even if it hangs unclaimed suspended like molecules of mist before the averted eyes of the regulars at the transit center. * Among the more palatable meaning of Heathen […]
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The Sun is Down
by Randy Smith The Sun is Down The nandina’s briolette-cut leaves and conical white flowering spires paste their dreamy selves against the night in a spellbound collage. Collage meaning a jumbled collection of impressions, events, and styles, from French meaning “to glue.” Night is a pastiche of memory, even when it is the […]
by Ellie Gomero Chen Chen is a writer, teacher and editor his second book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, is available from BOA Editions and Bloodaxe Books (UK). A finalist for a Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize and a best book of 2022 according to the Boston Globe, Electric Lit, NPR, and others, it has also been named […]
by Ellie Gomero Rudy Francisco is one of the most recognizable names in Spoken Word Poetry. He was born, raised and still resides in San Diego, California. At the age of 21, Rudy completed his B.A in Psychology and decided to continue his education by pursuing a M.A in Organizational Studies. As an artist, Rudy Francisco is […]
by Madison Whatley Peter Balakian is the author of several collections of poetry, including Ozone Journal (2015), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Ziggurat (2010), which wrestles with the aftermath and reverberations of 9/11. Gulf Stream Managing Editor, Madison Whatley, met with him in Miami to discuss his latest book, No Sign (2022). Their conversation has been edited for […]
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