by Garrett Gomez

crawled into a shell
this afternoon xcept

it was a cocoon…

by Lucy E Allan

There are two types of water in the sea, and there are two sadnesses in the body.

The first sadness lives in the muscles between your ribs…

by Suzanne S. Rancourt

This wind shoulder bumps stacked droplets. They tumble down branches / fall off cliff tips shining green with wet….

by Suzanne S. Rancourt

The bull waggled his rack tips while feeding on submerged water lilies and pondweed….

by Brenna Wuillamey

by Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani

Hannah and I, listening / to the cacophony of noon / while cocooned in this stillness / as the rest of the world / cycles on what is their norm….

by Brenna Wuillamey

by Jen Schneider

Locks turn right. Keys clank.
Huddled whispers. Spilled secrets….

by Brenna Wuillamey

by David Estingel

Thumbing through The Borderlands, I can’t help but feel not “brown” enough. I’m Mexican Lite. Got a case of the “coconuts”. There are no rageful battle-cries inflaming this breast. …

by mary hope|whitehead|lee

by Stephanie Powell

They chew with soft-jawed mouths open; molars loose in the gums.
It may be post-war steak, grey under kitchen lights…

Poetry and photography by Stephanie Powell

This room as a picture, the Musician stands up, his lower groin occupies the space with the possessive masculinity of a Mapplethorpe. …

by Megha Nayar

Wife (Fully functional human being, veritable force of nature)

Me (Her troubled husband, hereafter referred to in third person)…

by Brenna Wuillamey

by Ken Tomaro

it has been awhile since I’ve been home
the cat barely recognizes me
but it didn’t take long for him to warm up
before he went back to licking himself…

Poem by Silvia El Helo, photograph by Terrence Sykes

Ten slow sips…

by Jemelia Moseley

I am watching TV as the TV watches me
I see movement but I hear no sound
In my own head space, my own maze…

by Jemelia Moseley

As a black child growing up in the 90’s they said I was lucky because my hair was long,
when I cut it they said my beauty was gone…

by Red Sagalow

Story by Mark Blickley, Photography by Beatrice Georgalidis

It was time for Ralph’s first real haircut. Ralph’s mother said it was time, as did the next-door parents of his best friend, Emmitt. The only person who did not think it was time for a real haircut was Ralph. He did not want to go to the barbershop. …

by Mary Ledvina

by Timothy Tarkelly

God!!!!!! sloped shoulders, and the flat stomachs
of 1966…

by Hibah Shabkhez

I am a boiling pot of Englishes, bubbling frantically as they collide. …

by Dmitry Blizniuk, translated by Sergey Gerasimov

Sailing boats with bright sails —
lemony, orange, striped, —
flock by the shore,
dawdling at the water edge like burning giraffes…

by Mernine Ameris

my aunt’s 2nd wedding.
an august festival for some.
an all day marathon for those who know her.
a common cocktail for a haitian wedding.

by Perla Kantarjian

there is a bag of worn out peaches sitting
on my kitchen floor
that i cannot bear to devour nor to dispose of….

by Helen Bowie

Your beautiful stories of life in Kiev, when you were only / a child…

by Tamara Al-Qaisi-Coleman

Can you see how the river shimmers? Connecting states
I pledge allegiance to
the farm to market roads
Connecting rivaling towns

by Rudolf Alexander

A new bridge is being built over the river in Carpentersville
that will connect Longmeadow Parkway on the west bank…

by Jacob Nantz

Stand at the south end of the square and face the courthouse. DANMAR FAMILY PHARMACY casts a shadow over the white-bricked building to its left.

by Jacob Nantz

I grew up riding trains from the suburbs to the city, / then around the city, hovering on the EL…

by Jacob Nantz

…Middle and working classes fill in from the edges and meet downtown in an uncommon harmony: filthy taverns, charming Irish Pubs, an aging casino, an old roundhouse-turned brewery…

by Ronald Tobey

we bought an old used manure spreader
small holding 80 bushels
enough for one pass of 500 feet
faded red planks bolted to its steel frame
rust on metal…

by Howie Good

The relationship among spatially dislocated but simultaneous events is difficult for a lay person like me to fathom….

by Howie Good

You unbutton the top few buttons of your blouse. The doctor places a cold stethoscope against your chest….

by Howie Good

Because the horizon for humanity is so cold and sharp, the edge of an executioner’s axe, I try my best to stay up on the news, but today…

by KG Newman

The lunatic let his pet mosquito out of a matchbox outside our quiet house / as freezing eventide strolled over to see what’s up.

by KG Newman

I tried brewing a placebo/antidote in the garage over bottomless beers and drifting solitude, / while you read the first chapter of every self-help book from the library.

by KG Newman

The morning Stan Lee died I put my son in his Spiderman shirt for day care, wondering / when he’d comprehend each late-night kitchen argument…

by Cole W. Williams

I draw tik marks on the page—
wanting to see what hundreds of thousands looks like…

by Maia Joy

Marble bust goes to the emergency room
complaining of chest pain, loss of sensation…

by Alyssa Jordan

He goes where you can’t follow, like all
the dead do. You wonder…

by Alyssa Jordan

You buy flowers
wondering where
she has gone. …

by Jennifer Shneiderman

Bees riot in swaying lush lavender rendering jealous wild pink bougainvillea undulating dancing…

by Ahmad Al-khatat

We constantly question the things we do.
Living has become a harder question than death. …

by Tina Anton

by Shoshana Olidort

after Paul Celan [UNLESBARKEIT]

Unreadable this, unreadability of this, illegibility of this, illegible this
world, world, world, world. …

by Alvaro Enciso and Elizabeth Salper

by Rebekah Cheresnick

Remember the dirt
fragile in the sun so warm
on your back
and your shoulders
and your scalp.

by Irina Moga
Art by Tatiana Arsénie

On some days the hazy, milk-white light draws me into a strange fluidity: it’s the wisdom of a wing-like, deceitful surface.

by Galina Itskovich
Translations by Valentin Emelin

The road is sad, saturated with poison,
And pricking with flat notes on my bare feet.
Impasto on canvas.

by Jack e Lorts

Color the
soft voices

a violet or
maybe a shade

not yet discovered,
a nuance…

by Cheryl Heineman
They are raven-like, dark-winged
moving toward a tangled nest
or like crows circling
seeking their own kind
against a fog-ivory sky the outline

by Kim Baker

Charley pours their coffee,
tells them they look good.
But they know they are just a couple of stiffs…

by Lisa Periale Martin

Wing man speaking
now he’s singing
layering images
coats curried
borrowed brush tips

by Mark Blickley
Photography by Keith Goldstein

I’ve had this recurring Bridge Dream for nearly fifteen years. It first appeared one night after being exhausted by cram studying for my Bar Mitzvah. In this initial fantasy I was a swaddled infant left on the very beginning of a long and twisting walkway through a vibrant yet desolate forest.

by Greta Pullen

Those drop earrings (doubtless pre-Colombian). Jade certainly. In any case a green stone Standard issue metal alarm clock, two bells on top. Hairstyle parted in the middle.

by Maroula Blades

On the 10th August 2020, I saw the totem pole out of the corner of my eye. I was travelling on the “Road to Sacrow” in Krampnitz. Krampnitz is a district of the state capital Potsdam (Brandenburg) in Germany. I asked the driver to halt the car. I had to take a photograph of this interesting object. There wasn’t a bronze plaque nailed on the painted bark. This artwork has no recorded history.

by Jorge Oyarzún Sardi and
Océano and Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta

Siempre soñó con el océano. Lo que se llama soñar, despierto y dormido.

He always dreamed of the ocean. You could say constantly dreamed, daydreaming or asleep.

by Cole W. Williams

He has found our child,

the boy–in flannel, TIED SHOES, and jeans, was not in the water for a swim. We know the boy is misplaced, we know the boy was head under, wet hair, too long.

by Pilar Rodríguez Aranda

What is it about a wall? About the action of marking or writing on it? What kind of power does it exert on the writer/painter/activist/transgressor, and on the viewer/reader/witness/accomplice?

by mary hope|whitehead|lee

7 june 1908: cristina hermanita mi alma mi corazón
(portrait of cristina, my sister 1928)

for sweet talk and useless coin
you will slay me

by Kayla Rodney

Over two-hundred years ago black feet
In shackles shuffled to shores they were unsure of.
The jingle of chains a precursor to the jingle of change in coin purses
Used to purchase us.
But still we sang into blue skies…

by Guna Moran
translated from Assamese by Sadiqul Islam

I can see at night,
not in daytime.

After the nap
the ribs talk to the bedstead.
…

by Guna Moran
translated from Assamese by Bibekandanda Choudhury

Because they do not have a
permanent home…

Poem by Carl Scharwath
Video by Jeanette Skirvin

by Mike Knowles

by Zach Murphy

There’s a formidable stone house that sits atop Fairmount Hill. It’s been for sale as long as I can remember. …

by Raphael Luis J. Salise

I lied
when I said
“I’ll be home soon,
don’t you worry about me”
…

by Raphael Luis J. Salise

we are soldiers, right?
comrades, always there for each other

no one was watching us, right?
it was just you and me in the middle of the night…

by Thom Brucie

I did not want to watch my grandfather die
but I did
as surely as I watched him
prune his grape vines…

by Michael Buckius

When you were 12 years old you destroyed your mother’s garden. You used a miniature souvenir baseball bat that was purchased at Camden Yards two summers prior. …

by Kim Bockus

Two months into chemotherapy I begin to think about Alice and her Adventures, triggered by the toxic cocktail coursing through my veins and permeating my brain. …

by Penny Harter

Preparing the cup of coffee that leads off my day—one of just two cups, the second only half-decaf—has become a ritual. …

by Penny Harter

Recycled loss composts this garden. Loss of everything dear you’ve treasured since childhood: your tin shovel the sandbox swallowed. The mewing kitten your mother rescued from the white line. …

by Sean J. White

who knows the difference between lazurite and lamprophyre a rock is a rock is a rock is a rock
unless a rock is an answer …

by Satya Dash

Had to argue against tale of breasts
Curving to shape my narrative of breath
…

by Satya Dash

rope me by grips of mane vowels in my name
jealous in yearn feed me me
liver hearted God was I no skin or hair no wound

by F. Daniel Rzicznek

Limitless, compassionate energy between snow and tree, the fall of each, those several thralls. …

by Karen Loeb

Match the comment with the response.

Relatives/friends: Why in the world are you going to adopt a child?

by Howie Good

A Toast to the Dark

I search my sock drawer for a clean shirt to wear. On the subway, I pretend my briefcase is full of secret nuclear launch codes. …

by Roy Duffield

a reflection on the self reflection of a
self portrait of the poet as a young man as a self
…

by Ryan Greene

in the void
a whole lot of floating
old old light
…

by Yuan Changming

盲人摸象(the Blind Feels the Elephant): Another East Idiom

Here’s the elephant…

by Richard Oyama

It does not think of the boy’s bird screech and water pistol, the girl’s pas de deux and pursed lips. They batter each other’s head with flattened palms. …

by Adam Ai

Dear Orloj, My Wondering,

The last two dreams were not about her.

by Matthew Dettmer

I got home Friday night with a bag of potato chips because the woman working at the gas station a third of the way home saw me lurching down the aisle with the shelves of wine and said “no booze for sale now” …

by Jessica Dawn Zinz

full & complete
change is
by its nature
difficult.

by Marlene DeVere

She sat alone in a corner of the café, toying with her pearlescent necklace that for fifty years held a special place in her jewelry box. …

by Amanda McGuire

Three eyes in the back of the head but it’s impossible to see the reign beyond & above…

by Amanda McGuire

Leaves scratch the sidewalk again, and the air here is electric with possibility, according to the meteorologist. ….

by Michelle Villegas Threadgould

No hay reggaaeton sin ti

Tennessee is a black tree blur
…

by Michelle Villegas Threadgould

Not film / Not guns / Not you

But I could

and I did

when I outran you

by Robbie Curry

awaken your
body to your ancient future
celebrate

by Sandra L. Faulkner

Dear Mom,
I made your cake today
since I can’t see your face
…

by Sandra L. Faulkner

July 8, 2020 / Dear Alice, / Today would be your 112th birthday. They tell me that / I look like you…

by Jill Carpenter

Quilting develops an internal ruler—I know an inch, or six inches, or 36 inches when I see it.
…

by Yi Jung Chen

A ring, quietly stays
on mom’s little finger, passing down
a tale of frugal living…

by Joy Alexander

I had to laugh.
I just had to laugh,
my thoughts, a manic violin.
…

by Joy Alexander

It was late evening and the Jamaican downpour of rain made it seem even darker in the bus in which my mother and I were traveling. It did not matter that I could not see outside from the rain beating on the side of the window or glimpse the shadows of trees sprinting by the window. ….

by Christopher Atamian

Growing up in Yorkville in the late 1970’s, nothing thrilled me more than visiting my dear old Tante Angele in Morningside Heights. Manhattan had not been completely gentrified yet, so Yorkville still retained its mostly Hungarian and German flavor, and Morningside Heights might as well have been Tokyo, it seemed so far away…

by Siobhán Scarry

How do the thoughts move?

With whirring, with wings, with unthinkable thoughts.

by Lyn Baldwin

On a Sunday afternoon in middle March, I open my truck door and step into in the high, thin light of a spring afternoon in the upper Lac Du Bois grasslands, just north of Kamloops, British Columbia.

by Ellery Akers

After working for months banding seabirds on a rocky island, I lean over the rail of our boat and smell land…

by Lauren Camp

1. Moderate-stage Dementia, Most Likely Alzheimer’s

by Abeer Y. Hoque

Here I love you, New York.
In the neon-striped night, people rise and roar.
The sirens and singers vie with their ululations.
A hundred times I listen.

by Joy Castro

“…friends?
Now you use a word whose meaning I have never known.”
—Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

by Wyatt Welch

Birds are dying all over North America and I make a margarita.
Three green water-crisis limes, California.

by Wyatt Welch

I was,
I was each time,
conventional…

by Iris Orpi

Friday 2011, Chicago

Razor slices of red-tinted winter sky through the blinds, like verses of a waning fire.

by Iris Orpi

For eleven minutes, there was no God

by Annelies Zijderveld

1.
Pour the sugar and water into a heavy-bottomed pan set on medium high until the sugar roils in what resembles ecstatic agony—but don’t reach for the wooden spoon to relieve it.

by Rob Carney

Because The La’s were playing on the stereo, and the crescent moon looked frozen in the morning, and I wasn’t thinking about traffic because these phrases kept popping up and keeping me busy . . .

by Rob Carney

Just now, in the middle of a nineteenth email from OTL about Kaltura and their systems-training videos to help us “begin immediately transitioning” to teaching all our classes via teleconference . . .

by Justin Kitts

Get to see your face
In a hotel hell
Not much to look at
But it’s better than jail

by Marvin Shackelford

Along the tar-chipped road ponds dry at their edges, banks spreading, the streams and springs that feed them narrowing through their stones and winds, disappearing. The sun works at the earth unimpeded for weeks, sets each evening far behind the parched trees bunched across the horizon.

by Paolo Bicchieri

at some rodeo

you kissed my neck in front of my grandparents / it wasn’t that you couldn’t / everyone laughed / it was that five miles away / someone wept when they heard the crack…

by Edward Lee

From the series ‘(Un)Revealed’

by Edward Lee

From the series ‘(Un)Revealed’

by Lynn Finger

Cotton canvas is the most flammable, although poly blends can go faster because they melt.

by Elena Valdés Chavarría

En las calles del olvido
merodea un recuerdo de ti
que persiste
pese al tiempo…

by Irina Mashinski

Anyone who remembers, a lifetime ago, trying to make out new patterns on the wallpaper each night and being terrified by the dark frightening folds of that strange shape on the chair will understand what I am about to say.

by Irina Mashinski

a bird of glass,
a bird with a scratched throat,
a bird that tries to tell it all at once,
a bird that turns its head when called,
a bird that’s pinned with hopes…

by Irina Mashinski

I slept to you,
slept into you,
and then, to fall asleep, escaped from you
behind a cardboard wall, as if unbound…

by Irina Mashinski

November wind
sways you – bewildered lost
between two languages:
one a birch tree and one a willow.