By the pressure of water / my arms glide back / seraphic, / my fingers catching in the sea grass. / Here, I pray for the sting of salt in my eyes.
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A Normal Interview with Monica Sok by Mariah Bosch
I write down dreams as they tell themselves to me. I write down as much as I can remember, trying to get the details and the order of events right––not interpreting them but documenting them. But I think there’s a little bit of freedom in figuring out how a dream takes shape on the page.
Read MoreContingency Plans by Belle (Bom) Kim
Perhaps I won't be wholly lost if I can make something from this pain.
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Glades People by Roxane Gay
Tricia loved to talk with her clients. That’s how she judged people.
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Warnings by Rebecca Turkewitz
We heeded most of the warnings most of the time. But we were runners. And no one told the boys’ team to practice in pairs or avoid wearing headphones at night. Besides, when we ran, who could touch us? We were our own private rooms.
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On Epistaxis by Cameron Martin
'I get nosebleeds.' I almost wish we all did at awkward moments. How much more easily the awkwardness might be diffused in the humanizing light of the body’s nor “I get nosebleeds.” I almost wish we all did at awkward moments. How much more easily the awkwardness might be diffused in the humanizing light of the body’s normal frailty.
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Cosmic Latte by Ron Huett
This is my introduction to the word and the last time I will ever speak it against another black person.
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Moles by Kellie Rankey
The behavior seems instinctual; children first meet their mothers, and then they meet the dirt, and the latter may pull them from the former. There is a connection to dirt and digging and digging and the life to be found in layers. All sorts of reasons to love it, they tell us.
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Perennials by Shelley Wong
Still, I lose: I cannot even recall/our common silences. The years have transposed/into any year
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Belly Heat by Eleanor Howell
This was not what she wanted to do with her day. She had meant to spend the afternoon writing a pitch; now she had scramble to protect her body from a mess that she, even in her drunken state, had attempted to prevent.
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Looking by Emma Brousseau
But the man was jealous of even a peek. He took up my entire sightline that day, hanging half his body out of my eye or running between them to try to block every moment alone, every moment trying to see myself.
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Stick After Stick by Joe Griffin
We pulled into the yard and sat in the pickup for a moment, idling in park. 'That was a fucking thing,' said Rob in a low tone. I looked at him, nodding in mute reverence.
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Six-foot boy by Fay Sachpatzidis
as a child / when i couldn't sleep, / i'd slink into my parents' bedroom / and tickle my father's calloused feet
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Ghost Child by Danusha Laméris
Only he is not my son. / He’s the one I was expecting that season / my belly grew taut as a honeydew.
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The Fall by Morgan Riedl
The fear of heights is more common in women, but I inherited my fear from my father. He fell out of my life’s orbit when I was 8. I have a hard time safely locating myself in space and time, so I orient myself in relation to others: my father (before he left), my mom (before I left).
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Everything Beautifully Sideways by Laura Minor
We sit and talk away the coolness of soil / until no one mistakes this for anything else, / and we are just a tangle of luxury in the grass, / a triangle of bodies holding up the sky--
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Mother, May I? by Melissa Lore
Mother, did I make you proud?
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Mermaid Tears by John Poch
He cannot fathom the stained glass of their eyes, / one girl Mediterranean blue and one a simple hazel / of the island colors here, a hillside mix / of stone pine green and brown volcanic soil.
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Do You Eat Monkey Brains? by Arvin Ramgoolam
What did the future have in store for me when my only cultural touchstones were Apu from The Simpsons, the evil Mola Ram, and the village of starved, tattered clothed Indians offering the hero their last bits of rice?
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A Normal Interview with Khaty Xiong by Jer Xiong
A lot of things have changed me as a poet since 2015, but what these changes have ultimately revealed is that I cannot live without poetry. I need it to commune with the living, to commune with the dead, and to meet the many burdens of grief that come with being alive.
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