Tag: poetry

by Kathryn Petruccelli Self Portrait with Invented House of Worship Imagine a house. There should definitely be walls,boundaries, how else to hold this story? A house.Longing for home. Nesting. Maybe rent to own.Discount for long-term lease. All that. A houseof worship. Except I get to choose what goes inthe windows. Forget the guy with the […]

by Kathryn Petruccelli R: All You Need The letter R, trilled in Latin, was referenced as littera canina (“the dog’s letter”) because its sound was believed to resemble a dog’s growl. Nurse: Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?Romeo: Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.Nurse: Ah, mocker! that’s the […]

by Kathryn Petruccelli N: Cheating Evolution Like many letters of the Roman alphabet, N has evolved over 4,000 years such that one might not recognize some of its earlier shapes. It derives from the Phoenicians’ letter nun, meaning fish. …Humans may also extend their bodies into non-anthropomorphic structures such as wings…During the twilight years of […]

by Porsha Monique Allen Health Conditions after Nicole Sealey’s “Medical History” Negative said the pregnancy test for the third timewith the third man. None of whom I lovedor loved me. My great-grandmother died ofnatural causes. My Aunt died of breast cancer,my uncle of prostate. My maternal grandmotherwent blind from diabetes then died from it.I have […]

by Javeria Hasnain Self-Portrait as a Witness Is that how you have seen me all your life—unmirrored as I am. I wish I too had looked at myself longer as a child. Once, N fascinatedthe whole class by turning her fingers into a claw. I’m a vulture, she said, as if it was something to […]

by Javeria Hasnain Those that announce their departure as a probable return My family is full of these kinds of people. Baba,going for his evening walks, says, I’m coming back. We all linger at the doorway a little longerthan is customary—unyielding, convinced that, somehow, we will snatch our dead back from God.The next day after […]

by A.M. Kennedy Prescribed Burn Year of Fire: everything is matchstick fingers,touch the skin of any man and he smolders,the books you love crisp to ash,and what remains is coal and gristle and eulogy. Year of Flood: salt tears fill up the cup, up the bath,press acorns into the mud, sinking even as youtry to […]

by A.M. Kennedy When we lived on the gulf The ten-mile bridge slumps with blistered pavement,dripping ozone and fishbelly-cream into the sea,held up by the memories of afternoons beneath the pier,ice cream sliding off stiff sugar cone. Static and storm, we built myths there together—sticking lightning quills into each other’s spines andpretending we were gods […]

by Amanda Dettmann Amanda Dettmann is a queer poet and teacher whose work can be found in her book Untranslatable Honeyed Bruises. She earned her MFA from New York University and has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Emerson Review, The Adroit Journal, The […]

by Amanda Dettmann Elizabeth Holmes Is My Cellmate We don’t share lipstick. We dropblood like acid, smear the left-over pricked purple under our eyesfor prison homecoming. Even herethere are favorites. She collectsmeaty green bananas. A vote for me,potassium for you! She teaches whitewomen to blink twicein a minute. Bends expiredmilk cartons into flower crowns.Passes out […]