Gulf Stream Magazineby Marissa Ahmadkhani Time Passes and the cypress trees sway as gray cloudsrise to an overcast sky. I sip my coffeeas it steams into the morning mist,remembering the row of dark green treesnext to my childhood home,their feathered tips movingwith the wind—how I’d lay in the grass,eyes squinting defiance at the sunas my father trimmed […]
by Marissa Ahmadkhani Dysthymia, or For Persephone I buy plants on days when I waketo a numbness in my chest—as if the smallness of the budswill shoulder some of that dull weight before sending it into the soil.When Persephone was stolen by Hades,she was out picking flowers—stopping for a narcissus bloom, she reached out and […]
by Marissa Ahmadkhani Mythology Orpheus plays his lyre and, like Cerberus, I am tricked to sleep, left on the cold ground with a false sense of security. In dreams, I relive that night again and again: you in front of the window, warm candlelight bouncing off bare walls, the glasses of wine neither of us […]
by a. adenike phillips sunday school lesson easter morning on dania beach,gulls fly over the waveswaiting for grace to showits shadow, then swoop & thieve it from the tumultuous cumof the sea. here i see endlessversions of myself crestingatop the spumes, revolving over the same wounds, each more treacherousthan the first. how this ocean church […]
by Bree Bailey OK, I’m Finally Ready to Admit My Faults double golden shovel with Hanif Abdurraqib How hard it is to hear the hymn that isn’tsmall, gather spit up – throat, hitch into it.We’ve crossed paths and are no longer funny.Become new dollars. Brownstone broken. Howbecause of pride I keep uneven bucktooth silenceof generational […]
by Maggie Yang Exocarps You stare at your faceon the green card, more wrinkledthan your veins, name sheddedinto frames. Speckled with stars &picket fences. The window blursyour eyes as you sit on the plasticseat, more warmth outside thanin your hands, as you fumble overa coin, unaccepted currency.The map on the wall of the busis turned […]
by Maya McOmie I am not a mother of a god; I am notreligious entity. I am not illusion: not water,not the damp, scented earth under feet.I am no good mother, nor the goddessof spring; I’m not a people, populatingregions of land. Not one of the eldest,not a Pleiades. Never was enlightened. I’mnot mine, or […]
by Allison Jiang The Cormorant In Chinese, the verbs for “swallow” (violent)and “drown” are homonyms.They are two fates separated onlyby a twitch in the throat.One like taking a bitter pill,the othertaking it all in.I go down like sludgeI 咽 every last crumb, choke it downwith ease, esophagus wideninglike I’ve done it beforebecause I have.Watching the […]
by Carlos Egaña guerra [buscando visa para naufragar] in seas of red, white, and bluethat leak from cumulus clouds, Ibecome a pillar of salt and sulfur. my head is a tendonless specter – as my body goes furiouslyinto nights of shame, it rocks and rolls and relishesin a stampede of memories. [buscando visa, carne de […]
by Jeddie Sophronius Cina ci·na /ˈʧɪnə / offensive 1. He said he would protect me should the mob come: // “hundreds of incensed demonstrators / ran from the scene yelling / ‘kill cina’ and brandishing weapons.” 2. Those who try to pass as the people they’re not: // grandmother was pregnant when the police escorted […]
by Molly Zhu Tales About Women They say a rabbit lives on the face of the moon,with a beautiful girl and a wizened willow tree, too.They are ensconced from the darkened earth,as much as they are trapped in a spell…these are the myths my grandmother would whisper to mein almost musical speech, a tiny smile […]
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