A Love Note Adeeba Shahid Talukder for Willem My love, you are water upon water upon water until it turns azure, mountainous. The horizon fills like sand between glass marbles. So much has passed between us— last night you told me to press your hand harder and harder as I pained. The sunset was at its last embers. The dark was stealing the blue light from our room. I was falling into you. ~ ~ Compress water and it turns to ice— compress beauty and it loses breath. Gaze at it too long, and even the wide mirror of the ocean [...]

Iyáaní (Spirit, Breath, Life) Sara Marie Ortiz At Haak’u Within the community, on the land, in it, and of it, there is a way in all things that Acoma (Haak’u) children are taught. Shadruukaʾàatuunísṿ It is a way of saying. It is a way of saying our life and the way things grow and grow. It is a way of saying the children are growing so quickly. It is a way of saying the plants, which we so lovingly care for in the fields, are growing and growing. It is a way of saying neither would grow and grow without our [...]

Audience Rachel Levitsky for Becca I don't know anything about the structure of rocks.  Only that I move them  away from where they were  to another location  closer in proximity to me. Collecting rocks is a habit  backed in desire. I suppose I trust  that my desire is true,  although I have doubted it as I've doubted all sorts of love— material attachment to objects  and object relations.  Mother for example. First best friend.  The poster from a museum  possessed by gaze and gender  seen in a country I now call to question, taken by a photographer, of a model  mid-gesture, [...]

French Leave Claude McKay No servile little fear shall daunt my will   This morning, I have courage steeled to say I will be lazy, conqueringly still,   I will not lose the hours in toil this day. The roaring world without, careless of souls,   Shall leave me to my placid dream of rest, My four walls shield me from its shouting ghouls,   And all its hates have fled my quiet breast. And I will loll here resting, wide awake,   Dead to the world of work, the world of love, I laze contented just for dreaming’s sake,   [...]

Conversation in Isolation Harryette Mullen Neighbors nail the planks dividing their yard from mine. Our durable fence. I walk half a block before realizing I’ve forgotten my mask. One ant following another, trusting we all are going somewhere. Stretched between two poles, clothesline outside my window, a robin’s rest stop. Lemons fallen on the sidewalk to be rescued for my potpourri. No one and nothing touches me but this blue wind with cool caresses.

A Prayer for My People BY MATTHEW SHENODA That one day we will wish to be nothing more than what we are. That we will see within ourselves the liberation of nations, of concrete. That we will understand the inevitability in the lines of our hands.            There is a war raging in our backyard            With it my sister's spirit burns That the fire of my sister's spirit will consume our enemies & burn our streets clean.            There's a system of mangled necks           [...]

Blue Elvis BY FAITH SHEARIN It was August 1977 when Elvis Presley fell face down on his Graceland bathroom floor; by the time paramedics arrived, he was cold and blue. I knew this because I was with my grandmother, Belle, who called her sister, Geraldine, who came over at once so we could watch the news. My grandmother knew Elvis liked peanut butter on white bread with American cheese, eaten in his jungle room which had Tiki chairs, fur lampshades, a waterfall. Other neighbors arrived: women in short skirts, women who brought with them more of the food Elvis loved: coconut cakes, [...]