When they decided to kill the priest it was winter / and they wanted it slow. They led him out barefoot / to a steaming pot, and had us each take turns / dipping an enormous ladle, black from other hands.
For the Bear by Meghan Purvis
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raining somewhere else by Olga Demott-Bond
i sometimes think that everything that has ever happened to me / is raining somewhere else. i sometimes think that the water has found / a path through high trees, worked its way inside another room, so the damp / next door is spreading, curving an unknown ceiling into a misshapen moon.
Give Me Myself Again by Kristin Jennifer
… a little voice whispered as I dressed for the outing, Take your new glasses, in case you see Tim. I tucked the bronze wire frames in my denim jacket, then bounced. It was October 1998. I didn’t have a cellphone.
Shi by Zoe Konstantinou
-Savage! / You read my poems and tore the pages. / -… / Mute / Ir-rational / a Chinese poem played on the speakers. / Black dirty pots on the hob.
Neuro-atypical by Jan McCarthy
It has been suggested, by certain neuroscientists and psychologists I consider to be the Enlightened Ones, that neuro-atypicality is nature’s attempt to coax humanity into an evolutionary advance.
The Food Upon Which Others Feast by Thomas Elson
Two of our votaries perched like hawks on the walkway, thirty feet above the driveway, in front of a limestone building constructed in 1868. Obadiah, the senior votary, impeccably attired in a dark blue suit, silk tie – the color of which befitted our calendar – and sunglasses, rested his hands on the polished railing.
Gentle, Gentle by Vina Nguyen
When Ba built the garage floor, no walls, no roof existed. White, large men drove in with a truck that housed a sideways rolling barrel; it churned liquid cement into a square, thin pool. The men and Ba settled the grey gruel, swept and spread it out with their metal-bladed, long brooms.
Did You Hear About Mom? by Demi Anter
did you hear about the time mom danced all night in prague? / she was in love with a saxophone player and, by proxy, / all saxophone players. jazz made her feel alive and warm even as / the snow fell on cobbled roads and she and paulina left faint trails
What it Can Look Like by Lucy Crispin
Going in with her, she made sure / there was a notebook and pen / in her bag, so she could write / down stuff they might forget.
Pearls and Manners by Lisa Giles
Mia wore weary like a perfectly fitted dress. The type of weary worn by women who let life live them instead of living it. You could see the fatigue all over her face. Even Mia’s outer eyes