Poetry

Not the kingdom of God, being undecidedand all, nor the kingdom of this life, givenits many irregularities and the peach treewith its offspring of oranges but I admireand, dare I say it? love citrus and the decayit’s capable of. I’m capable if I want to be.It took this many years of licking salt cubes.I’m staring […]

“Don’t promise a pumpkin and deliver a squash.” —Matthew Feinstein I. We nod. We sleep. We wake,wondering about the sun— every night, do we summon it?I wake up supercharged, heaving  barbells up a wall of mouths. I believe in poetry above all else. That doesn’t make me anythingbut a poor fish in a brilliant pond  of amniotic slug […]

For a brief moment I want to be (w)reckless—forget the weather, the smell of melted chocolate& jewelry rust on my grandmother’s dying skin.She said there were lemons growing outof my mouth. She knew the fruit but not my name. In the sun I am just another meltingthing. I smile at strangers with all my teeth.I […]

you sprawl across the thistle of a weedy slope, bones splayed over the hill-belly,friends beyond your fingertips.fog between your teeth. you watch a scant coyote feebling along the flank. too much rib, less feral than winter. pluto yoking at the sun. light out of reach. this will become another day you don’t want to remember. it’s lucky you’re wired for forgetting. your housekeys,the trash you […]

I A swan is eating another swan.It is not beautiful.It is hideous, and bloody, and terrifying. It is also beautiful. II Your mother goes to the doctor and they finda shadow on her lung. When they open her up, insideher lung is a blossomed calendula. When the doctors askhow it got there she saysshe inhaled it […]

I’ve become adept at shepherdingheartbreak to minute areas of the body,treating the lesions with smoothing iron and ice in equal measure.  I’m an imperfect mechanism,an unskilled plough hand—my pastures razed, my stained bones fallow.  I wish to beat my armsinto an instrument more useful to a worldthat’s full and waitingwith cocked hammers.           The mystery in my body          is spoiling in this climate: […]

after Sandra Cisneros,             in a nutshell,  i have returned to you like                              the way death returns when one gets depressed. grief has unlit everything in me back & forth,                              but i am jealous of the veinsthat form smiles on my face. Yeshua is jealous of me,                              i can do what he can’t do of me.  hallowed be […]

on earth, golden silk orb-weavers build asymmetrical webs, with the hub—or center—positioned towards the upper edge. & it is here that they sit & wait, so that when theirprey does arrive, they might use gravity to pounce & kill, quickly. in 2011, these spiderswere sent to space. & scientists aboard the International Space Station discovered […]

for and after Kevin Bertolero Do you remember how it felt to be boys in the grass? Staining our every-thing, our nowripped jeans we wore through the knees? It was so big then, possibility; love waseverywhere and for everything. We rode our bikes to the base of the hill where theprefect tree was, we watched […]

Earth is a ringed planet. A teenage faggot is a body orbiting low atmosphere The ground and its people swing them up like discus, but not enough to break Escape velocity. Thousands of blue-haired children float in the solar breeze Like a Kubrickian slide. The richest men on Earth launch garbage into the stars Like […]

Home Improvement Amongst the implied violenceof the chain and rope aisle at Home Depot,I am emboldened to make let’s-fuck eyes at strangers.Then the soft amber of the lighting fixture sectionwrings me out and I want someone to please comeand pick me up, pluck me from a mean girls’ sleepover,drive me home and put me to […]

It says “remember when you lost a tampon inside yourself?” It says “scratch your head.” It says“open your eyes.” It sends memories I’d forgotten. I’m forced to wonder what forgetting means,if I can be reminded so easily. My moon puts me back in my body when I have dreams aboutlevitating. When I was younger I […]

The things that saved us are the same as they ever were.The spring irises glazed with rain, puppies learning to walk,the feel of his hands in yours or his skin,or your own skin, soft against the bedsheets.The way water cools the throat and slakes thirst,or how a good meal softens and rounds the belly,the way […]

And some of the other times and the volleyball girls in milkglass socks beating reddened hands on rival eyes, well the orange tree is right there and if ur so hungry lie beneath it with ur mouth open catch some flies swat summer in the face and the sunset will go blushred fences in between […]

The neurologist tells me I’m intriguing, a specimento write about in her research.  She’ll change my nameof course.  It will help legions of doctors.  Tegretolis shaped like baseball diamonds and tastes like grapes.  After the seizure, I could not speak or type.Day one of Tegretol I float in space.  I bump into walls.Day two I […]

I was reading about solar energy And the book said the sun is the most abundant source of energy available on earth And the sun said you mistake my everything for nothing And I said fuck And I said I know how that feels And my ex boyfriend looked down and said fuck And my […]

a plant does not have thefunctional capacity toknowingly self-destruct; their chloroplasts do not choosewhether to accept the sunlightfrom which they photosynthesize— the sun, simply, says, “i love you,”and the plant says, “thank you,”and they continue on with their days. the plant does not apologizefor the support it accepts. itbreathes in, breathes out, and gives what […]

when the world said sink I sankI am in this way ordinaryI put pasta in the water watch it bloatevery time I think I’m new the old comes back like a stray I once fedimagine a well-read strange man I never get tired of my same storyI’ve tidied up my roomand left my inbox openin case he […]

Dreaming of Alaskan Islands we wound up in Dubuquewhere hills of inedible corn stretch into our vast American nothing. In sunlight and my day dress,I am your favorite burdenbuckled sweetly into the passenger seat,Our hands sticky as you pull yours away to make a left-hand turn. There are no canyons here. Still,I am probably luckyeach day […]

high water i think i’ll live forever because that’s what sharks do. i wanna dive into myself like an ocean bleeding out on the shore, splitting sand down into sand. i wannamiss class because i’m waiting for the bus with youon it, the morning shape of your face all ears & rosyeyelids. how much i’ve forgotten. it’s […]

I wish I were deadis a perfect example of subjunctive mood.What most people don’t realizeis how to conjugate the bodyto expose how it feels to hold onto improper objects. Psychologists call thisintrojection. To engage with a man, I must deny any sign I want to touch him. If I were to tell the truth,I would explain fewer peopleknow […]

on the drive back home      i ask if the moon is following us      an eyelash on my cheek my mother      tells me to make a wish      the moon isn’t following us      we’re circling around it      at five i drank tea from a saucer so      i don’t stay up at night      my palms orange henna an […]

The worst part of the video:The wasp laying eggs inside the caterpillar. A small thing, aDefenseless thing, limbless,And a sharpness on top of it–Its beating wings, itstwitching abdomen, the footage playingDouble time,As to show the process quicker,As to not bore the viewerWith a death as slow as this. In my dream you came out of […]

                                    (after Taylor Swift) This week my whole body has rejected reality, an apocalypsewithin an apocalypse, and I know better than to ask for help. I lived so long walling myself in with cassette tapes, frightenedof the madwoman beneath my own skin. I don’t think I know what crazy means anymore but certainly you know […]

& on Saturday, before we squished plums in our fists and rubbed the color on our mouths—as if we could afford to replace our hunger with a bruised beauty—and took pictures of ourselves with so much flash our mouths looked like flowers in the parched desert of our bodies, we walked to Chinnamma’s home that smelled like girls and sweat. She […]

Lucas Peel is a big mouth moonlighting as an adult.  He is a negligent plant father and can also have a little salami as a treat.  His work is forthcoming in the next software update of the iPhone 7 notes app.  Lucas lives in Honolulu, Hawaii and sometimes tweets @lookchrlz.  We don’t know what he […]

yellow balloons           heavenly release opening chair scene of juno pomegranate peel        post-smoke spit  i’m bleeding out, my legslowerbackintestines twinge, cramp and i can’t stand laugh breathe and i sob into the boiling shower floor.  hip throb. my wrists, ankles, knees, stiff fingers, spinal cord             coated, ember-encased. needled skin, set aflame, tamped out in bath water—a relit […]

Having stripped off the skirt and the jewelryand wiped off the lipstick amidst the beard, eyes and body cleansed of all adornmentsfussed over and fought for against stubborn family elders, yet fawned over by kind friends,I dip my fresh old self into the warm still water over and over for the attendant’s amen,and when they […]

Jabulile Mickle-Molefe is a writer and diviner whose work is often rooted in music, myths, or philosophy. Their work has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, petrichor journal, and Triangle House Review and is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review. Find them on twitter at @jmicklemolefe.

I do not trust myself  to be loved by a stranger, so I pose in lingerie for my close friends and wait for one of them to fall for it. Jo tells me i’m on queen shit and Ryan says that I’m iconic and someone inquires where I found my lime green lace. And I am full until the fizzing returnsin my belly, and reminds me what a […]

Em Norton is a poet from Toronto. You can find Em on Twitter @_emnorton and read more at patreon.com/emnortonwrites.

                        After Frank O’Hara is even better than making vegan pumpkin pie like I did last Novemberor filling my stomach with stone fruit samples at the embarcadero Saturday market partly because in your 19 year old you’re like raw almondspartly because of my affection for you, partly because of your affection for the jetboilpartly because of […]

When they cleared out my gutI couldn’t do anything. I was staring at the ceiling blowing kisses. The ceiling ran away. My arms fell off in a very sexy way.It doesn’t matter. My legs  are the only part of methat I want to survive. Maybe that wasn’t direct enough. I am dying very soon. Even looking like […]

I sat and there a scatter         of bushes, earth & one         purple flower fled       like jazz notes, the station he listened to & something his fatherused to listen to, pre & post a lotof things. One night I asked if it hurt, his father & the silence& he said no, nothing ever        only hurts.        We continued to […]

after Michael Garrigan Sometimes I thinkwe went therein a dream (together still) lodgedinside the sleepingbody of the boy I used to be. Jory Mickelson is the queer, nonbinary author of WILDERNESS//KINGDOM, the inaugural winner of the Evergreen Award Tour from Floating Bridge Press and winner of the 2020 High Plains Book Award in Poetry. Their publications […]

Mara Beneway is a poet, illustrator, and educator from New York. Her work has appeared in the Bread Loaf Journal and Gandy Dancer. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of South Florida.

I have told you this before.There are no beginningsto be found here. Here,there are only reflectionsof birdsong in passing wind,only layers of ash in place ofsky. Should your body unravel,it will do so in layers.Be sure to catch the bonesas they fall. Stop waiting for signs.That is to say, stop listeningfor blood. You must understandthat […]

next thought—isolation is a beautiful syringe. next thought—when i went to Chicago that summer i took the train.  Illinois is a whole lot of nothing. neutered landscapes in a lilting breeze. grain silos round as asses.  Midwestern topographies are bargain-bin paintings everyone wants hung in their bathroom, which is to say  something, probably. maybe i like to be […]

            for Ryan Home in timeto watch a drunksun stumbling. It flashes its pink ass & jetslike little crucifixescross the sky: I know such audacity, the needto burn & then beburnished, the urge to vanish: I’ve drivenoff the road with darkintent. It’s just my hands that spared me.It’s scary, being so closeto the mirror you […]

her home-bleached hair, the strong smallness of her,the slippage of her soft walk in the rain,today this girl reminded me of you—the thrumming weight of how I wounded yousomehow inside the curve her shoulders made.I watched her blue shoes stir up limpid poolsof cloud-water, and my expired want  for you mixed itself in, gasping and soaked.last […]

I ain’t the good kind of Asian. I’m the onewho disappoints you. I see it in your eyes when we go out for sushi and I forget what nigiri is. I feel it across your tattoos I’ll kiss someday:  koi fish samurai and fisherman’s wiveswide-eyed cats with claws outstretched characters faded indecipherable, strewn like wreckageacross your […]

To Illness, With Love i am sorry that i broke you or used you to break myself i amsorry for the commotion that followed i amsorry about the quotidian pain like a skipping record i amsorry for the pills thrown in a blender to help us i amsorry for waving your laundry in the faces […]

The arch of the sky keeps pulling; no forecast of rain;Over us clouds undeveloped into silk chaining east to west. Above the tedious skyline the early sun brings colorsbrings news of a warm day. But we’ve become too lazy to imagine better days than this,both you and I, perched on the park bench,watching the brittle shadow […]

do you want to see a magic trick?would you like to try swallowing me whole?have you ever peeled open a tangerine?it’s like that, only you keep going, until there’s nothing leftbut infernos, do you see?can i ask you one more question?will you still kiss me when i look different?will you? will you? will you? how […]

Summer again like a switchblade in my throat. We were girls then, gamboling in glades thick  and honey-sweet with clover. All of it belonged to us: the dusky purple scent of the tobacco fields,  the cicadas buzzing in the chest-high grass, the sleepless meadows only our feet tread.  We rinse the lake water from our hair and dream long […]

maybe death isn’t deep and wet and cloying like / a well maybe death is /a shallowing a / drying up / think of the pond that forms / in the valleyfrom snowmelt in the spring think of how / it shrinks with each hot /summer day by august / it’s gone maybe our lives […]