By AIDAN COOPER
You river your fingers, / I dip my toes in, water us // until lotus flowers ring / the space between our knuckles….Continue Reading Fragment #2 (Lysis)
Category: Poetry
Orange Me Open
ELSA LYONS
Does the orange want to be peeled? Tenderly / I push my fingernail through her stubborn rind, // reveal the bulge of her white-veined flesh. / She’s almost throbbing with juices. They’re almost // circulating through her. It’s almost music….Continue Reading Orange Me Open
mandarin
ELLA LIN
and she peels me / another mandarin. i imagine / we must look strange, / our mouths dripping juice like broken faucets / into the night. her black hair / falling further, with nothing below. the broken mirror hanging / above wet paint on bathroom walls….Continue Reading mandarin
Communion
CHELA CUNNINGHAM
i want to study your lines of (division) / the trinities that make you (divine). / and when the Christian missionaries walk by us / i’ll ask them if they’ve heard of my god …Continue Reading Communion
Homecoming
TAPTI SEN
I taste dirt. I chew flesh. I pick at scabs. I gnaw at flesh like a dog that just can’t let go. I twirl my fork around tendrils of hair. I roll ice cubes on my tongue. I lick at my collarbones, prodding and probing like a—…Continue Reading Homecoming
The Moldau
CLARA CHIU
And in those gaps that mediate truth, I’ll wait for you in the field we talked of,…Continue Reading The Moldau
[WORKING TITLE]
MEL ARTHUR
I tell my therapist with a mouthful of
squirming tree branches & …….Continue Reading [WORKING TITLE]
love poem that ends & begins at Amherst Cinema
SIANI AMMONS
it’s a nameless Thursday & i feel my footsteps…………Continue Reading love poem that ends & begins at Amherst Cinema
A TOAST TO AVARICE
MYLES KAPLAN
Looking up, the splendid clamor of
silver utensils……..
…Continue Reading A TOAST TO AVARICE
mutagenesis
KATE BESTALL
feed me love & i’ll crack it
open like a sunflower….
…Continue Reading mutagenesis
May this Bald Body Bring Us
LEYDN MCEVOY
The other day, you pointed out the window / to the glorious hills we call mountains. / These trees tall with secrets, ours– / their tops we cannot see, only dream to, and I forget how little your hand fixes your hair. …Continue Reading May this Bald Body Bring Us
Dear Diary
MADI SUH
these days all my thoughts have begun to feel like letters to you / sometimes it hurts to think. talking to you is easier. / and so, / hi. / i have not been creative as of late. / lately you have begun to take residence inside some part of me; in particular, you do spend a lot of time in my head. / hi….Continue Reading Dear Diary
Untitled
MARIAM BESHIDZE
When does a body become a thing? / When it stares from beyond the glass / At the conglomeration of people surrounding it, / Shedding tears on a Persian carpet. / When it cannot smell the patchwork / of dead flowers laying on top of it. …Continue Reading Untitled
Self Portrait As The Thing Left in the End
MEL ARTHUR
In the shower, the hot water has taken time to start a revolution. I figured now is not the time to put my hands together to ask for grace. Though I wonder what could satisfy me, hear the hum from the back of my knees…Continue Reading Self Portrait As The Thing Left in the End
Tell me if you’ll answer, and I’ll remember how to ask
NICOLE ITKIN
When I reach out, what am I reaching– / for? / (my) / Flowers blearily / stare out the windows, / Orchids: at midnight, red-robed
They kiss
the glass, lips pursued,
smudging the Clear
they’ll forget about;
Soothing,
forgetting…Continue Reading Tell me if you’ll answer, and I’ll remember how to ask
CARMEX
SARAH DOWN
slick slippery sticky / I try I try I try / to wash this nauseating nostalgia off. / my nineteen-year-old knuckles / gently bruised – busted yellow / by my fifteen years of fingers / searching blindly under the couch for my nine year old self …Continue Reading CARMEX
Peanut Butter
AIDAN COOPER
Where the chunks notice childhood / behind the awning of our mouths. How we’re domesticated dogs / with teeth sharp only for peanut butter. / Move me to the place you learned the crust carries …Continue Reading Peanut Butter
Junk Drawer
LILA SCHLISSEL
Mom said I was a hoarder like it was something / to be cured, jewelry boxes to be shaken out and become / Ricola-wrapper-rain clouds // for Ricola-wrapper carcasses / waxy paper skeletons that / gifted a small throat honey-coat sweet…Continue Reading Junk Drawer
Turtles in the Mud
LAINEY NOGA
A turtle is perched atop a leaf, / Floating in muddy water. / From up above, bobs up and down, / He tells me to hop on. // Floating in that muddy water, / New leaves are springing up. / He tells me to hop on so / Together we can grow….Continue Reading Turtles in the Mud
Took Me A Whole Sixth Rewatch of Glee & Golden Girls
SIANI AMMONS
that Maybe it’s time I clean the silver veins from my bones / w/ Dawn Original Scent Ultra Dishwashing Sadness Melter & when it’s done, / heat my melted sadness, & try not to flinch at my reflection in the weeping…Continue Reading Took Me A Whole Sixth Rewatch of Glee & Golden Girls
All That’s Left
EMILY WYKOFF
All I have left are the things you said / That’s it, nothing tangible / No one would ever know you were here / In my too-small-to-be-a-single dorm…Continue Reading All That’s Left
Tell me what you miss
ELLA LIN
I miss lemons. I miss sun-baked milk. I miss heat. / I miss the melted wads of spit and honey / drying on rain-rusted brick / the chipped bits of baby bamboo / roaming through golden water….Continue Reading Tell me what you miss
AMERICAN SHOPPING LIST
CLARA CHIU
Before you leave, don’t forget the butter, the quart of chicken broth, the onions and parsley – we’re almost out of milk, too, and patience; we need thyme for seasoning and rosemary for remembrance, because when the silence becomes real, the creeping uncertainties draw you back: it’s the fact that a cookbook is a product of trial and experimentation…Continue Reading AMERICAN SHOPPING LIST
Notes from Nothing
WILLOW DELP
Hold it. Drop it. Shake it. Bite it. / Love it, hate it, leave it. Leave. It– / is fleeting; everything rots. / Nothing is forever. You will be the one to leave first….Continue Reading Notes from Nothing
to an evergreen who is me written by a self of mine far from here
AIDAN COOPER
there is no way to get you, not / really. // there is only marble column in rippling bloodstain — / the leaves are clattering, you clutch your breath and your coffee…Continue Reading to an evergreen who is me written by a self of mine far from here
This place and the other
MADI SUH
It was on the corner of Wilder on the way to the 7-Eleven / that you first stopped me in my tracks, and I didn’t notice / the car that would have killed me…Continue Reading This place and the other
Red
SHREYA HEGDE
A Jet moved across the sky / a Meteor to hit the Sun awry, / yet it escaped unscathed / saving the Sun’s fate!…Continue Reading Red
Falling Apart
EMILY WYKOFF
Will this love die if unattended? / Abscising our petals, like peonies decaying / Feed for squirrels and worms and everything else / That wants to eat us alive …Continue Reading Falling Apart
Nine Lives of A Cat
FAHIM ZAMAN
Who knew behind the twelve trees’ / ceaseless tears of fiery leaves / and those hundred and one river / coves of green shade there were / only a lone pair of amber eyes?…Continue Reading Nine Lives of A Cat
I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment —
GABBY AVENA
I mean — I need a moment to move through — an image to see with — an orange on an altar, rotting on speedlapse…Continue Reading I’m Sorry, I Need A Moment —