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Birth Stone

May 8, 2022

The older women wise and tell Anna first time baby mother, “hold a stone upon your head and follow a straight line go home.” For like how Anna was working in the field, grassweeder, right up till … Continued

The Cataracts of my Grandmother

May 7, 2022

Norma Farber

Somewhere beyond this kitchen and her old eyes there lies, I think there lies a country blindly hinted of. with wise all-seeing hands she grasps the damp, the give of dough; the dint of knife that flays the noodles fine; … Continued

A Mother

May 6, 2022

Necati Cumali

Translated from Turkish by Nermin Menemencioğlu The woman must have been out washing A bundle on her arm, her rough hands chapped with soda Like all Jewish women of her age She wore a faded black velvet coat … Continued

Bodacious

May 5, 2022

Vida Cross

FOR ARCHIBALD J. MOTLEY’S BROWN GIRL She’d walk up and take the sandwich from your hand to feed her kids She’d wear red ’round her rear on Sunday to Sunday service Her lips were painted red Her nails … Continued

Failed Essay on Shapes

May 4, 2022

Elisa Gonzalez

Mother tells Girl, who chews the word like bubble gum. Or, newly toothed, Girl really chews an elephant’s helping of gum. More interested in blowing a bubble than in the names of what she can … Continued

Forgot About His Mother

May 3, 2022

Anna Swir

Translated from Polish by Piotr Florczyk She was dying in the basement, on sacks of coal, crying for water, crying for her son, no one was there. The son forgot about his mother, the son was cleaning … Continued

Do Boys Turn into Butterflies

May 2, 2022

Olivia McCannon

You’ll always be a thing of sun-dazzle and sweetness soft as fingertips, suckling nectar and tuned to bliss— No butterfly will be gale-torn, wasp-stabbed, clawed or pinned—not while I inhale your hair, listening What do … Continued

The Drawer Marked Meats

May 1, 2022

Lisa Allen Ortiz

A bedtime story about Bluebeard all the wives on meat hooks then wake up and the house is dark. Fear is a gift from mother— the way she grabbed our collar bones, said: get inside. We had the … Continued

Up the Mountain

April 29, 2022

Ye Lijun

translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain Rustling in the grass. A little squirrel hauls a large fluffy tail among twigs and branches an instantaneous flash. Empty mountain. Birds singing. Flapping feathers so minute, yet ubiquitous . . . … Continued

In the Yard I Lie on my Back and Dream of Turtles

April 29, 2022

Keetje Kuipers

Or would if I were asleep, and not awake while this child runs circles around my star pinned to the ground. She brings me the yellowest leaf, the thinnest stick, each perfectly round pebble she finds hidden in … Continued

Preservation

April 15, 2022

Christian Anton Gerard

Christian Anton Gerard’s tongue is a wetland. When he moves his lips: Palm Warblers. Thousands. His is a Venus flytrap trapping itself. It is what it is. It’s because of the girl from Memphis. Earlier he considered watching … Continued

Ache

March 15, 2022

Gretchen Marquette

what if I began with the duck’s egg its glossy carmine yolk bleeding on the lake’s new summer path its blue-green shell turned inside out if I say the wind was frightening, that in the early part of … Continued

The Vermin and the Stars

March 11, 2022

D. Foy

Fog moon, mud moon, moons of flowers and heat— this is the friction of space on space, the endless exchange of things through which swarm the insects of confusion, as in a changer’s dream, her ear a sleeping … Continued

Bedroom Life with Ceramic Frog

March 4, 2022

Joshua Diamond

Different from other of my lives but not so different because you are a part of it and them and these and this. We sleep because we love to dream and I talk in my sleep, say I … Continued

Sparrow’s Song

February 25, 2022

Regan Good

Shall I be of the Sparrow or of the Blood Eagle? The curve of a rose’s thorn mimics these lungs drawn through to make two bright red wings for a small child, a hopping hellion, hung high … Continued

Still Life with Insufficient iCloud Storage

June 7, 2021

Julia Guez

And here we are— sewing secrets we have wanted in some form to keep, sewing … Continued

Turning Points and Revolution

June 7, 2021

Minna Zallman Proctor

This is a revolutionary moment in that everything is changing. But it’s not a revolution, because most of the forces we’re all reacting to (pandemic, injustice, a massive failure to find common moral ground) are not forces put into … Continued

On the Occasion of Our Tenth Anniversary

June 6, 2021

Julia Guez

Sea-green eyes, skin the color of dust, I come from a long line of fire signs. We seed the open field … Continued

Policarpa

June 5, 2021

María Ospina

Translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary Not being devoured is the most perfect of feelings. Not being devoured is the secret goal of an entire life. —Clarice Lispector, “The Smallest Woman in the World” (tr. Katrina Dodson) She scratches … Continued

Necropolis

June 4, 2021

Lucas Hirsch

translated from Dutch by Donna Spruijt-Metz in memoriam Joost Zwagerman Woken up in a hut on the Bay of Baratti under a blood moon Barking dogs on hilltops ripped silence to pieces held the dead … Continued

Lament

June 3, 2021

Lucas Hirsch

translated from Dutch by Donna Spruijt-Metz in memoriam Derk Wiersum Having had to absorb a lot of life lately I learned through so much pain that being dead doesn’t seem so bad It is up … Continued

Girl in Tow

June 3, 2021

Joseph Levens

At 3:02 in the afternoon of a summer Wednesday, a man in soiled red hiking boots approaches the summit of Mount Katahdin having traveled the entirety of the Appalachian Trail by foot. At the moment he reaches the … Continued

Six Haikus

June 2, 2021

Willie Perdomo

11. One sneeze can kill you Church bells ring seven futures Blackbirds flex sunlight 100. Blunt-rolling squirrels A crow rocks an evergreen The cupola smiles 23. A dog on Front Street … Continued

When the Season Is Fitting

June 1, 2021

Jessie van Eerden

for Diane Gilliam …there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes … Continued

Rosalia

May 31, 2021

Sara Kearns

When I was a child I was pixie dust. That’s only part of the story. The other parts are the boys from New England. How they put their mouths to my neck, a river on the moon. I … Continued

Son of Wine

May 30, 2021

Daniel Elkind

Thereupon R. Joshua, son of Karhah, sent word to him, “Vinegar, son of wine!* How long will you deliver up the people of our God for slaughter!” Back came the reply: “I weed out thorns from the vineyard.” … Continued

Schubertiana

May 29, 2021

Tomas Tranströmer

Translated from Swedish by Patty Crane I In the evening darkness at a place outside New York, an overlook where in a single glance you can take in the homes of eight million people. The giant city over … Continued

The Hero’s Triumphant Exodus

May 28, 2021

Kornélia Deres

Translated from Hungarian by Timea Sipos Climb up onto my chariot, sweetheart. I’ll take you free of charge. The sharks planes are flying lower than ever. We have to hurry. My body is stubborn under metal. I burst forth. My … Continued

Pressure Lights

May 27, 2021

Kornélia Deres

Translated from Hungarian by Timea Sipos This tunnel is underwater. It doesn’t matter whose it is. You’ve never seen anything like it: I hold the spheres of my life below sea level like a virtuoso. An inherited or learned reflex? … Continued

“Person” Comes From “Mask”

May 26, 2021

Gabrielle Bates

Complete focus can resemble utter distraction, just like there’s a point where my lover begins to look like a stranger and large things begin to look small. When the squirrel twitching in the dirt becomes, upon closer … Continued

Looking Backward

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