Category: Poetry—Everyday Chimeras

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]   When my six-year-old son                    was painting birds during art class                    his principal ordered a full lockdown because                    an armed man was spotted skulking nearby. When I got the news I could feel my heart throb                    in my neck. If you pushed                    even a single… Continue reading Necks

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] The long fever of summer looks like broken at last, there’s a coolness that the hours, more and more, leave behind them as they tumbleweed their way to wherever it is finished hours go to. Here, finished isn’t the same… Continue reading Morphine

Carl Phillips

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2f66′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] La  Negra  is  a  beastgirl.   From  forehead  to  heel callused. Risen on an island made of shit bricks: an empire.  The  doctor   pulled   La   Negra   from  her mother’s throat:  a swallowed sword:  rosary beads. La… Continue reading The True Story of La Negra, A Bio-Myth

Elizabeth Acevedo

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] “And the difference was all the difference there was.” ~ Toni Morrison   I’m hard pressed to say America without sounding like a terrorist. I’m a guest here. I arrived with a few syllables lashed to my back. One of… Continue reading Of Unapologetic Black Women and Melania Trump

Destiny O. Birdsong

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] Weird Trans Kid’s bladder is the size of a squirrel— not a squirrel’s bladder, but an actual squirrel, a chubby gray one. Weird Trans Kid doesn’t know which restroom to use. Is tired of all mainstream trans politics revolving around… Continue reading Weird Trans Kid

Tyler Friend

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] You will remember how he moved toward you, hazard-handed, uttering your language—that pidgin of the partially recovered self. And you still won’t have learned, although you know the story well, won’t ever catch the flown bird of your breath, remembering… Continue reading How to Have a Two-Night Stand

Andrea Rogers

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] I smile at a cop for the first time in years—her skin Of caramel & whey, kissed the way French kiss to say Bonjour, not Je te veux, by a pale woman who, like her, Dons wolves’ flesh, the darkest… Continue reading From “Negus in Paris”

L. Lamar Wilson

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]   after Carol Ann Duffy’s “Prayer”   Dear Audubon Society: I would like to participate in The Great Backyard Bird Count, your annual citizen-science project that tracks the migra- tion and population of native species. I have a few questions:… Continue reading Golden Shovel for Trayvon Martin (February 5, 1995 – February 26, 2012)

Angie Vorhies

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] For almost forty years I have been alive, and the magnitude of my unknown grows before me, its shape the shadow of an occult creature occluded, eclipsed, unmade by its elder. Certainty shows itself little by little. It is something… Continue reading Of Names to Disguise the Dead

Miriam Bird Greenberg

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”]   Its beneficiaries ordinary in their disgrace, made to break at lathe or lumber mill, they like to say. Fruit bruised before the fall, broken open beneath the tree, they are liquor for wasps and ruined gods, rust-riven and rat-… Continue reading Of Inheritance

Miriam Bird Greenberg

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] I know tongues of fire as tall as men, autumn sap, red panties, a stack of sparklers lit, riotous laughter, a field of poppies, circus acts. I know mistakes: how fire tastes. I keep a scarlet dress for when day… Continue reading Fire-Eating Woman

Ama Codjoe

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] here. at the dumb stroke of midnight. in the glass dome of roses. the woods at the end of the lake. I was taught where to wait patiently. to fold my hands on my lap like two sorry doves. to… Continue reading I Thought There Would Be More Wolves

Sara Ryan

“Masturbation” is the ideal form of sex activity of this trans-gendered subject.” —Slavoj Žižek   Love          in this omnivorous air this weave of straps & copper          we must look like a long woman who          can’t stop touching herself A tangled braid of bone          A prairie of orchids speckled in amber          in pudendum in hooks          Lean closer           & hear the cries crackling… Continue reading Aubade with Ball Gag

R. Cassandra Bruner

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] I laid down at your door a white bowl of milkweed houndstongue lupins cape tulips & juniper a garland big enough to kill a thirsty horse I like my peace like flower or fire wild you can bring a horse… Continue reading capture

Beth Bachmann

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] don’t call me goddess peace is armed like any man if the ocean is burning oil close your eyes when you come up to breathe lungs float the heart does not the ship is under quarantine often in life there… Continue reading god

Beth Bachmann

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] Heather—his youngest daughter, my sister, his baby, the one who always gave in when he needed money for rent or drugs—left me with her three girls outside McDonald’s, while she drove Dad for a carton of cigs and a Playboy.… Continue reading Clover

Stephanie Rogers

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] My spine is strung together by a string of shattered stars. Neck wrung, I’m a dead swan floating in a moat—an amusement park ride, the fairgrounds abandoned. A stork stands in her nest atop the Ferris wheel, the emerald cascade… Continue reading Swan Soup

Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] I must run: walking won’t get me there. Miles must take the place of arms; distance, embrace. I must run, until I become air. * Conditioning is a whisper on the eyelash of an eye that doesn’t blink, afraid of… Continue reading Conditioning (Run Study)

José Angel Araguz

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] A man doused in roebuck piss says I saw it as I skinned its thighs & laughs. Your death always a joke, the shock of womb, a punchline. Darting through the underbrush, even your hooves resounded like cackling children. This… Continue reading The Antlered Doe

R. Cassandra Bruner

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] In this garden a draft of summer plays across the prayer flags. A handful of slugs marched into the Worcestershire sauce and drowned themselves last night. The red dog is tired and smells like dirt and air. In this graveyard… Continue reading The Eight Graveyards

Anna Dunn

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] You were not as I had imagined the ones that came before—the poems in which I conjured you, dreaming darling girl, stunned sister. You flew at me like a kiss, a hard slap upon the hood of my car. Behind… Continue reading Codetta (or Collision)

Eve Alexandra

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] What you see on the corn is what you’ll get, and the cattle come to the fence in hopes of hay. During seven years of corn, like the sand of the sea, like amber floating, we wore the king’s ring… Continue reading Remembrance: Dream, Palace of Drought

Angie Macri

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] Dad, you are not all right. This business of being a cake, the cake left in the rain. These claims and drawings— family trees with great men and without mom. These phantom limbs. You’re sewing the velvet curtain shut. Come… Continue reading The Wizard

Elizabeth Barnett

[av_hr class=’custom’ height=’50’ shadow=’no-shadow’ position=’center’ custom_border=’av-border-fat’ custom_width=’100%’ custom_border_color=’#8f2866′ custom_margin_top=’30px’ custom_margin_bottom=’30px’ icon_select=’no’ custom_icon_color=” icon=’ue808′ font=’entypo-fontello’ admin_preview_bg=”] I am a white horse wandering an empty planet. Everything on this planet is beautiful, untouched and clean. And I am so beautiful too, and strong. Sometimes, I spend a whole week being a white horse. But in real life,… Continue reading I Am a White Horse

Zachary Schomburg