Poetry
Black Bile
by Chinedu Gospel in Issue Seventeen, September 2024
the women |
they raise their voices the way
fire raises smoke & the rain answers
with a flood
the first rule |
the first rule is to stay
afloat until you become something like
a boat but
the men |
they ran
& the water gave them new homes &
new gods & new languages etched on
their tongues & a ...
You must wear your rue with a difference
by Marisca Pichette in Issue Sixteen, July 2024
she makes a pond
in petals pluck’d (forget-me-)
planted in the upturn’d dirt
of graves.
her arms all dark,
disinterred bone dust (dancing girls)
her lungs weigh’d down
with growing things.
she donates her breath to butterflies
& in her throat she bears (swaddled)
chrysalises fit to burst
in colors ...
Ever Noir
by Mari Ness in Issue Sixteen, July 2024
They slink in, hats drawn
low against their faces.
I hear
you find things out. I hear
you're willing to do things
for cold hard cash. I hear
you know something of poisons.
Of death.
You got cash?
Sometimes they spill a golden coin or two,
or seven tarnished silver coins. Or a shirt
woven ...
Biophos
by Eva Papasoulioti in Issue Sixteen, July 2024
We mooned our heart in orbit,
illuminated our paths with orchids
blooming in the dark, fertilized
with the fate of our star. If the sun
were the source of all life, our moon is
its soul, a new world curled around the old,
words of protection, a silver shine
of direction.
We tided our breath ...
Continue →Apiary
by H.B. Asari in Issue Sixteen, July 2024
We start first with the honeycombs
as babies, slipping whole past
our gummy mouths and tiny throats.
The sepsis is our insides preparing us
for the life ahead.
When our tiny bodies spasm & still,
we are weaned on ichor & ambrosia.
Six drops on our swollen tongues,
so we teeter always on the ...
the rage of the old river
by Sofia Ezdina in Issue Fifteen, May 2024
She uncovered her voice from her bed,
loaded the verbs,
stirred up the interjections’ beehive;
she gathered the air in her lungs
she called —
with the cold howl of the subways,
with the hum of hunchbacked streets.
and it came. From the seaside.
Demolished walls and towers,
temples and mall ...
They Named Me Diana
by Emmie Christie in Issue Fifteen, May 2024
They named me Diana,
they vilify me on their news reports,
they say that I’m insane, a category five
of wind and spinning rain, and they’re right
to run away from my madness if that’s
truly what it is, yeah, I’m a crazy bitch,
if bitch means a slow accumulation,
a fossilization of frustration,
a ...
The Saint of Nothing at All
by Jess Gofton in Issue Fifteen, May 2024
I am a vertebra crowning
Sevilla’s ghoulish horde.
Ribs on a chandelier
in Prague. Ten fingers
twitching in ten churches.
Yet I once received
feverish promises,
into ears the fish later ate,
from a carpenter’s apprentice
who showed me how
skilfully he could mould
a bead when his hand
sli...
Brushstrokes
by Elizabeth Shack in Issue Fifteen, May 2024
The swirling colors of space and time
float by the windows of the generation ship,
a whole city—planet—galaxy unto itself
soaring past aeons of stars
Colors?
Space is vast, black, and featureless,
the ship a gray pinprick, pockmarked with cosmic dust,
scarred with once-a-decade repairs,
the b...
no one can kiss you wrong if you're dead
by Temidayo Okun in Issue Fourteen, March 2024
i drew a smiley face on a blank page & gave it legs / there is no wind strong enough to destroy something that only exists on paper / there is no hurt powerful enough to tear
apart this cage I call a body / i have made this shell for you with my hands / & maybe death only comes when our souls outgro...
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