FAHIM ZAMAN
I met him the night before / In that signature diner / Where all the cars go to die / Where green stars hide inside / With the man who wears the suit. // Who has milk and cookies, and waits till / The Beatles plays on the radio …Continue Reading Orphic Overture LXXXI
Archive
Veneration
EMILY WYKOFF
I’ve loved and lost and respected you / Things I never thought I’d say / I never wanted to love you / Nonetheless, the adoration found a way // They say that love is a choice / But, for you, it felt like falling…Continue Reading Veneration
Hymn
ELEANOR WALSH
And when I hear false my tongue twists G-o-d / But in street lights I see / The moons all around me / Foxes follow me home to you / I pull the Priestess / Your lips are red / The ring I lost months ago…Continue Reading Hymn
Drawing lines in the sand
GRACE ESCOE
I draw a line / My finger digs deep into the sand taking out a nice long straight line / That isn’t really my own even though I made it / The line that I cannot cross / The line that keeps me from making…Continue Reading Drawing lines in the sand
My Achilles Heel: Intro
CAROLYN THOMAS
I lay in bed with my eyes shut as the prison alarm assaults my ears. Nothing serious is happening. The warden just wants us to know that it’s 6 am and time for us to stop laying on our asses and start doing our jobs…Continue Reading My Achilles Heel: Intro
Resurrection Ferns
SONIA CHAJET WIDES
waving forests carpet tree branches / trunks, Dragon scales and hair sprouting / sometimes so dense that the bark is made invisible / the tree / becomes a tower gorgeous / fractal ferns…Continue Reading Resurrection Ferns
The Perfect Man
MACKENZIE DUNSON
A row of homes. Perfect homes, like they were pasted from the pages of a catalog. Sprawling white picket fences ran over the hills, connecting the houses in a puzzle, endlessly together…Continue Reading The Perfect Man
প্রণাম (Blessings)
By TAPTI SEN Kneel. A light touch on your temple. Rise. Kneel: Touch your head to their feet. Your knees sting against the cold marble. Your fingers brush their toes. Seconds pass. Hours pass. You hold your breath, trying not to look at curled up toenails, worn with age. Laughter up above you. Shoulders tremble….Continue Reading প্রণাম (Blessings)
lone goose
RUTH ZURAW
how lovely to be alone / to trace a winding route in / piercing white. // how lovely to crave / to yearn for wood paneling and grimy tile / that failed to grace your bulbous eyes. // how lovely to creep and crawl…Continue Reading lone goose
Sketches of the Past
DAVIS RENNELLA
To remember is to live again. It takes a collaboration of our powers of feeling– living in the raw sensory and emotional records imprinted on our bodies, combining them with awareness…Continue Reading Sketches of the Past
Addiction
SEBASTIAN PAREDES
He drinks coffee. He embraces the bitter liquid. He does not care that it burns the roof of his mouth. He does not care that he can see his hands trembling. He does not care that he can feel his body shaking….Continue Reading Addiction
Faith, Fear, and Finding My Path
PHO VU
For those who are brought up in Asian households, “reverence” is like “respect” but with a higher level of intensity. In case you are Asian but do not see the word that way, my statement merely stems…Continue Reading Faith, Fear, and Finding My Path
Illusioned
PAULINE BISSELL
Look: / I once believed my blood ran blue in my body, just because my veins told me so. We keep telling ourselves little lies. We’re not supposed to believe them, but I do….Continue Reading Illusioned
Stand to See
NICOLE ITKIN
not echoes, maybe / not even ghosts / still, they stand in
for // everything (everything) / I need most. // A girl in red curls over a bridge, / Dress trailing longer, lower- // who’s falling?…Continue Reading Stand to See
I tear open the sky
MAX PASAKORN
and nothing comes out. I didn’t know / what I was expecting— //
babies, perhaps? Ones with wings / too small to lift them back up, / cursed little things / with no-return policies….Continue Reading I tear open the sky
Awakening of Reverence
MEL ARTHUR
…the researcher nibbles at [murmurs] and learns what it means for hands to enfold in one, too, tree steps. Tensions that are touched upon include affliction…Continue Reading Awakening of Reverence
Observations at the Gallery
JACKELINE FERNANDES
I experienced the soft colliding of bodies as more of a pleasure and less of an annoyance. In the crowded gallery, I immediately made out the sound of the bass, the piano, the drums…Continue Reading Observations at the Gallery
Fall 2022
Editor’s Note By SARAH WU, MEL ARTHUR, and GABBY AVENA Mel Arthur:What do Bridges mean to me? I want to invoke Christopher Soto and what they wrote in the book titled Queer Poets of Color. They borrow a quote from Gloria E. Anzaldua, who writes, “Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of…Continue Reading Fall 2022
A Cross Walk In a Labyrinth
DUSTIN COPELAND
My mother said that the pedestrian bridge over arrow-straight Route 1 was finally finished and that we were going to stop to talk a walk over it and my brother said what, why…Continue Reading A Cross Walk In a Labyrinth
Good Life
FAHIM ZAMAN
John Borges, we would love to award you, / Before you leave, for a good life / Lived, Johnny – / If not for a few objections. // Let’s see here, ah, at four some years just, / You cursed in Church…Continue Reading Good Life
Blueshift
JACKELINE FERNANDES
I’d like to imagine my mother spiraling in space, a constellation of the galaxy Andromeda, blueshifted, moving against the force of time, that force which causes the expansion of the universe….Continue Reading Blueshift
WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
GABBY AVENA
we had to learn to share, my sister-and-i. / older by a year, she laid claim to the color purple. there was only one color left for little girls. i hated pink, but it was mine: my-pink, her-purple….Continue Reading WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE
Water Beneath the Bridge
WILLOW DELP
The water was brown. / The Brabantio family had adamantly tried to ignore this fact – even the more progressive members politely refused to comment. …Continue Reading Water Beneath the Bridge
dead on arrival
M. LAWSON
There was a sale at Ace Hardware today: forty percent off washers, so Ophelia walked home with tiny metal discs pinging around in his coat pocket….Continue Reading dead on arrival
(Night)Blind
TAPTI SEN
“রাতকানা” she calls them, / the fools who would return home too late, / trampling over paddy fields and marshy soil / feet caked just enough to miss awaiting rough cement…Continue Reading (Night)Blind
A School Day along 城門河
PRISCILLA LEE
An old man with his fanny pack radio strolls by […] One of the girls sweats past him and wonders if swinging her arms like that would propel her forward in this deathly test of fitness. …Continue Reading A School Day along 城門河
A Sovereign / Two Bodies
AIDAN COOPER
Her Prayer like a touch and boiling / Shiver turning the dust-clouds into rain. // He stands before a lectern named Wash / Where he uncoils ribbons from the holes / He cut through his fingertips the callouses…Continue Reading A Sovereign / Two Bodies
Km:mk
MEL ARTHUR
what do you feel in the silence / what do you feel in the warmth / what do you feel in the center of your being / whatdoyoufeel between / silence what–wheredoyoufeel / the warmth lies…Continue Reading Km:mk
Stars Fallen From The Sky
EMILY WYKOFF
A blonde woman stands on the Brooklyn Bridge, waiting. Lifting her hand, she brushes a strand of perfectly curled hair into her scarf. She waits patiently, eyes staring off into the distance. …Continue Reading Stars Fallen From The Sky
The Three Sisters
ELEANOR WALSH
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived three sisters. The oldest sister had long, dark hair and knuckles that hissed when they were cracked. …Continue Reading The Three Sisters