Poetry
by Zhu Jian.
“Passing by the burial ground, / I see some flickers of light. / A friend tells me / it’s the bones that flash.”
by Laura Paul Watson.
“To be unseen, unprayed for, to be unhugged / in the grocery store and left alone // to select a melon.”
by Jerome Ellison Murphy.
“Now it’s loose in the house, and out back. / Lop away its extremities, they swell back fat.”
by Talia Bloch.
“The playground has been locked for months. / A swing coughs dryly in the shade.”
by Monica Wendel.
“After putting our child to sleep, I hear gunshots – / quiet, quieter than fire alarms, fireworks, thunder, / quieter than sirens, music in the park, or backfiring cars.”
by Elana Bell.
“Each time something went missing— /
the photo album of my first / year, postcard from a forgotten friend…”
by Alma Gaxiola.
“If every life’s a story / Then their’s will always be worth more / Mine was drowned out by the water / Running like fathers for the door…”
by Marie McGrath.
“Imagine me: fearsome, protected, /
my skull a clean and empty chamber…”
by Laura Apol.
“on her desk / there was a handwritten list of guns / there was the cash receipt for the gun…”