Hunger Struck Crystal Odelle   “Pick up the knife,” my boss repeats. Smooth and pink, the body on the banquet table in celebration of Barbara’s retirement trembles—or do I? The butcher knife to dissemble the three-tiered cake onto party plates wobbles in my hand. I drop the blade and beg a coworker to perform […]

  AFTERLIFE INVENTORY Arah Ko Are you bringing blood diamonds smart phones damned by cobalt mines are you bringing ornaments and tepid new year’s resolutions are you bringing fatted calves flawless as undriven snow pampered as pet dogs are you bringing your pet dog are you bringing dried rivers and felled rain forests in each […]

  Undying Springs: Translated Chinese Queer Feminist Community Poetry 离离草 Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective   Translators’ Note These poems are from 离离草 Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective’s poetry writing workshops in 2023. They were originally written in Chinese using the Exquisite Corpse method, where workshop participants continued after each other’s lines under […]

  Disappeared for two days Ola Alrantisi   My 8-month resilient boy feels hungry Our fridge and pockets emptied My 28-year resilient husband worried He is wandering in the scary city Looking for bread crumbs Under the heavy bombs Hiding in a gloomy place Biting his nails covering his pale face Thinking of his grandfather […]

  Memories of a Broken Clock Estella Burque   roadside memorial crumbling tombstone this is where I bury my lost and this is where I bury my forgotten split lip tetanus shot this is where I skinned my knee on your concrete hip and this is where I thank you for it threaded needle broken […]

  ordinary legacies Tina Zafreen Alam soundtrack: don’t cry, j dilla no one grieved is really lost any life touched remains i’ll never not cry & still remember we exist simultaneous without division living & dead somewhere in a row at banani koborstan marked by a jackfruit tree dadi waits on my return i can […]

  Letter from the Editor   How to express what it means to live in this time of unspeakable suffering, of unfathomable cruelty, of a seemingly endless stream of new dead to grieve? What do we do with all we’ve seen? How do we go on? In “Blood Moon Ghazal,” Palestinian poet Janine Mogannam captures […]

  The Purpose of Bone iman adam   We had two eclipses the year that I met Nuru. During the first one, all the aunties in the city told us to go pray fajr outside because the moon and the sun, two signs of Allah, were pregnant with each other and would give birth to […]