NKEM
by Ugochi Okoli
Image: Ogunlesi Paul Oyetunde
The last time I saw Nkem,
His tongue was in my mouth
It moved in ways that echoed things
Our lips would never make into words
The things we weren’t allowed to do
But we did Continue Reading
Poetry
Corona Diaries: papered memories
by Clare Roche
1980. fancy dress day. mum forgets, absent with her crowd of children, weaving in and out of legs and doors. calm inventiveness finds a blue white patterned packet of toilet paper rolls. endless winding, tugging, looping arms legs torso. humiliated, a stiff not-so-scary-Mummy. Continue Reading
Corona Diaries: CORONA CORRESPONDENCE
by Jane Flett
Strange ways to pass the time. I write a letter to all the television characters
who haven’t got the memo yet. Listen up! I scrawl to a girl hollering pints in a pub
so packed there are other humans there, but that’s as far as I get. I want to remind
her the future will make this moment seem like such crazed & delinquent abandon
but the impulse makes me feel like a snitch. I write a letter to God instead.
Dear God have you considered investing in video conferencing
& do you think this season will be your most critically acclaimed? Continue Reading
Everything In This World
by Marianna White
Image: Ambika Thompson
It doesn’t matter where I am, the line at the grocery store, brunch, a funeral.
Some part of me is always angry
ready to pull the hair out of the shower drain,
but it is easily led away.
I am attracted to women that are so full
of themselves, they leak.
Continue Reading
First of the Season
by Callan Latham
Image: Friederike Jäger
My dad cuts up a watermelon in the kitchen,
the first of the season. It is seedless, smiling
with no teeth. The heart is always the sweetest,
he says. The hummingbird outside begs
for more sugar water, manmade nectar. Continue Reading
Her name is Alice: She is her Wonderland
by Francis Bede
Image: Francis Bede
A poverty of toys enriches the imagination
Of a young child on Camden Street
Her Promethean eye that grows
Into stories, into character’s heartbeats;
Continue Reading
Untitled
by Ronny Rose
Image: Ronny Rose
i ate the holy parts
sacrament tastes better
out of turn
Continue Reading
You Don’t Meet Your Husband in Philosophy Class
by Karen Breen
Image: Ambika Thompson
So, over the summer, I read that book by Descartes that you gave me.
He was wrong about a lot of things, I hope you know that.
Just like you trying to tell me that I couldn’t know you
and how it’s fucking easy. Continue Reading
Untitled
by Simon Perchik
Image: Maya Bornstein
You read out loud the way this bed
listens for the makeshift seam
loosening each night down the middle Continue Reading
woke to birds
by Janelle Cordero
Duality @ Janelle Cordero
i woke to birds my eyes / were open and i could still hear them but / this is january and the birds / left our city months ago so / i ask you what’s more real / birds or my thought of birds and you / would of course say birds because / my thoughts are not your thoughts but / to me i cannot choose because / the boundary between my mind and the world makes / less and less sense the more / i pay attention / Continue Reading