CAITS MEISSNER // PRISON GHAZAL

// WHAT IS REAL

// LEARNING TO ORGASM (WHEN THE WORLD IS DYING)

"I hang up my human robe and run / towards the horizon, but it runs, too / can one be reborn in darkness? / or must something be cut away."
-Learning to Orgasm (When the World is Dying)

REBECCA MACIJESKI // JUNE 28th

"How in the evening we discussed Kafka, / imagined that in our sleep we, too, / might grow a carapace"

JUAN MORALES // 
DOWNTOWN AMBATO, 3:14 a.m. 

"I turn in the bed every few minutes / and mangle my limbs in sheets / that scratch lullaby / out of my head."

PAUL MACKLIN // ORIGAMI SKYLINE

"Sunrise is an Arctic light- / the world stiffens / and salt and pepper snow / falls on our little papyrus / buildings."

ARIEL FRANCISCO // READING JAMES WRIGHT ON THE L TRAIN

"Everyone / scatters to the adjacent compartments, / lift scarves up to their noses as they exit. / The vomit stretches like an evening shadow"

JOSÉ ANGEL ARAGUZ // ZERO FLIRTS WITH NADA

"I am eyes, the shape of the sun, / what the moon yogas into"

LEAH GÓMEZ // FLOWER LANE, EL PASO

// MEAT

"She met Felipe in Juárez when the yellow buds / Of cacti bloom like sure lips before biting / Into the purple bodies of plums they plucked"- Flower Lane, El Paso

LAUREN PAGE // THE ORCHARD BETWEEN US

"branched around my thigh / her fingers drop citrus seeds—
/ grown in subtropical climates for their sweet fruit."

SARAH GRODZINSKI // METH

"remember how he tastes / in September, when his sinuses thicken / and the saliva in his mouth turns to syrup."

MARLYS WEST // STILL LIFE QUAIL LEG ON A WHITE PLATE

"if there is cake / our mother is wonderful and how could our father leave / when she is made of wax and chocolate"

SHYMALA DASON // DIRTY SHOES

"our mothers mourning in a circle / Over ragamuffin daughters, what to do? / Emigration."

AE HEE LEE // DOPPELGÄNGER

"She tells me she has found holy enlightenment / in pill bugs she has collected in the backyard; / she asks me politely for milk to dunk them in."

HEATHER BOURBEAU // SEA HORSES (SYRIA)

// THE DRY CLEANER

"We learned the male sea horse / Carries the eggs,  / Protects the next generation— / Much like you carried our pain"- Sea Horses (Syria)

CAROL QUINN // SISU SESTINA

// WATER THIEF

"Even the marsh grass reaching up / like someone drowning is inevitable."- Water Theif

LINDA MARIA BAROS translated by
ADAM J. SORKIN & LIVIA ANDREI // from L'AUTOROUTE A4 ET AUTRES POÈMES 

"Occasionally they stop at a motel / and leave the table with girls tangled in their beards / like crumbs of bread."- Entrechats with Six Battements