I tongue the empty depression where my tooth once anchored. Just yesterday, I sat in a dentist office and watched the pigeons in front of Copley Square strut about in their miscellaneous lives. I asked: Who’s the captain of the birds, here? I want his name and number. When I got home, I watered the […]
Poetry 102
Merridawn Duckler: On the Fated sushi Train
across from me at the sushi place this mad woman talking to nothing so loud all customers avert their eyes to the shrimp passing and reject this one that one that one and then for some reason select the other one though to all extents and purposes it’s the exact same slice on rice as […]
Ruth Dickey: Echo aria
I want a closet big enough to hold all possible selves, want under-bed boxes for nightmares, want cacti and palm trees and bougainvillea and gardenia, want what can’t possibly grow here or together. I dreamed my ex came and stole all the things from two random drawers, dreamed of trespassing at our old house: the […]
Charlotte Covey: body
my body is a rabid dog they need to put down. my body is pert tits, tight ass. my body is an apology: a fragile thing that rips like slip dress, sutured wound. my body is a temple, burning. i can feel them stir beneath their jeans. i can feel them circle me, snarling, slobber […]
Ava C. Cipri: Red Phase, Day 8
11am During workshop, everyone mute when not sharing, please. Lex reads her poem on Zoom. A distressed squawking masks her words. What’s that shrill noise? She removes her glasses, looks into the lens, my parakeet. This isn’t delightful chirping chatter, this isn’t song. The insistent screeching grows longer, louder. Trudy’s mate died…needs another companion. I’d […]
Sarah A. Chavez: Dear Carole, I look out the window
Hoping the reflection of the sun will glint off my hair, flood your ghost memory, and you will feel the tingling touch of my fingers on your phantom limbs and remember you meant to haunt me. That you’ll remember despite the door-slamming and lips of so many others, neither of us wanted this.