Gulf Stream Magazineby 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 Sarath Reddy Bollywood Shuffle A story of forbidden love and overbearing parentswho have forgotten the magic of sunsets, full moons, lightning.The lovestruck couple discovers the world is small, flatlike a disco dance floor, flashing colors all lit up.Stepping across borders of status and caste they frolicin the wispy fog of the inebriated Himalayas,then to […]
by Sarath Reddy Monsoon My childhood dissolved like salt into watermonsoon blending sky and earth, fallingsteadily, drenching thatched roofs,quenching the parched leaves of guava trees.I stared into a deep well where cattle grazed,uncertain if there was water at the base,tossed a pebble. Years later stillhear the splashof water steamed for my morning bath,crackle of splintered […]
by McLeod Logue Alabama Queen The red earth was God’s way of knowing who was good enoughto be dirty. In the backyard, I play house underground, lettingmy fingernails make pockets in the earth. It feels goodto be cold down to the bone. It’s bible belt territory. Redas the fire ants. Red as the blood in […]
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 […]
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 […]
by Linda Ravenswood To live at the scene of an accident To walk by a vast park where I played as a childand be oblivious to play.To drive by heavy iron gateswhere my handwas crushed in imperial hingesand not be jolted.To go on livingby the scene of a crime.To bake bread there,cut the grass,hang out […]
by Madison Jones Aubade, Anastasia Island Chest deep in the green water, I see thembalanced on their toes, current pulling the pair from where they folded rings in their shirts,waded out into the rough tide. See them stoned and smiling in the choppy surf.Buoyed on the trough, he bends out of sight beneath the water […]
by H.M. Cotton H. M. Cotton is the managing editor of Birmingham Poetry Review, contributing editor for NELLE, and production manager for both journals. Her writing appears in places such as Greensboro Review, Poetry South, and SmokeLong Quarterly. She is the founding director of the SPARK Writing Festival and teaches at the University of Alabama […]
by H.M. Cotton Line Work Because I spread the grout by hand along the tile’s corner seam, and because the seams are just an eighth the mix goes on easier than it comes away; and grit grimes under my nails, looks like dirt or, rather, ash brings back the […]
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