Poetry

POETRY By Marisa Lainson Every year she kills it, the orchid. I take comfort in this ritual, a riot of purple starved to bones. Sweet is the inevitabil­i­ty of her neglect. In girl­hood, I worked to emulate the shapes of her: the sharp wrists and hips,…

POETRY By Shannon Marzel­la Brook­lyn, you were a hot mouth of wolf- hunger. Those nights, you ate me whole, ribs & every­thing, then spit out an acidic sunrise–orange blis­ters split and cack­ling, or maybe it was you pouring laugh­ter, filthy and bright. I forgot every­thing but the cross painted…

POETRY By Michael Rogner I have basil burst­ing bodies emerg­ing garlic sig­nal­ing the under­ground life has life left tomato vines strain­ing while the asshole jays poke holes in every fruit we all want the toma­toes inside us we harvest seeds in barrels feed them to clouds left…

POETRY By Tamara Kreutz When my hand finally braves the wilder­ness between my legs, I find its oasis gone —dry, a desert, and despite the distant thun­der­ing inside me, no rain will fall upon this dry earth. Our daugh­ter has sucked me to deple­tion, but you ask…

POETRY By Summer Hardinge When she writes, Ya need dogs for company, I almost feel as if I need to own one. As a child, I could tame any ram­bunc­tious pup, wild cat, or tena­cious pony. Some­thing like an empa­thet­ic nerve. The dogs in my neigh­bor­hood sense it,…

POETRY By Stephanie Kirby Each birth brings the body closer to death: a birthing body splits like rot, equal in burden to falling trees. Its weight: almost leaf­less.  There is nothing left except a tree in decline, housing life. This anatomy is not so different:…

POETRY By Summer Hardinge tomor­row we will meet the horses/ after they have run the fields can­tered around us /nudged / this is not a war poem/ we use soft ropes/ drape shoul­ders and withers/ coax them in/ they will not halter for this/ is not a…

POETRY By Russell Karrick Perched in the branch­es of the avocado tree, the chick­ens are almost asleep. My son lifts his head from my chest and points to them. Each day I carry him through the yard at dusk and we hunt for sea­son­al trea­sures. Tonight, he spies amanita muscaria…

POETRY By Kelly Gray Most of the people in the restau­rant have cancer. The wait­ress­es have been hired to float their soft palms across scalps as they walk down aisles pouring soup with too much butter because it is too late to care about anybody’s heart. Better to…

POETRY By Jessica Good­fel­low To write about suf­fer­ing you need a dic­tio­nary. You don’t have one, but you have the inter­net which is, maybe, better for suf­fer­ing. Acci­den­tal­ly, you look up suf­frutes­cent instead. You read: par­tial­ly or slight­ly woody; sub­shrub­by. Sub­shrub­by; you are delight­ed. You…