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[Untitled]
By Kate Asche
the sac
itself wasclear
        and I cleaned itlike a window
and in the windowsaw my baby
our baby[birdlike
mouth opennasalarea still
oversizedlike a beak]eye’s aperture blue-black
head thrownbackand twisted beginning
to separateneck brok
en in the contractions’violencetwo arms
two legstailbone translucent... [whatcolor is
the baby?]silent heart [sac contains“chorionic cavity”]
with utmost tendernessI...
From within my bodily singularity
By Julia Fiedorczuk
Translated By Bill Johnston
From within my bodily singularity
I play at sending out gentle sunbeams.
I don't believe in myself, but…
Late Autumnal, with Cockroach
By Erin Belieu
Morning thick with inscrutable dinge;
another season drained. I’m watching
the pest control man fill the rat bait
station, black attaché of poison hidden
in the hedge.
And while I pay a monthly
bill for him to do my killing, still
it seems miraculous, how much insists
on...
First Fall
By Patricia Guzman
Brother, this morning was full of movement, sun flooding
the windows and dew on every green thing. The clouds

slow motion behind the screen of leaves. I wish you
could see the treetops starting to turn into flames.

I wish you could see the...
Max
By Sarah Ruhl
Death no wild thing
and you a boy,
Max.

One night in your room
(or body)
a forest grew

and the walls
(or cells) became
transparent

because brightness
invites
transparency, I guess.

Then a little boat
to hospital smells.
Doctors called

the forest cancer,
not obscuring leaves.
And you a boy.

You say:
“Why can’t people use the word
courage

instead...
Intimacy
By Paisley Rekdal
How horrible it is, how horrible
that Cronenberg film where Goldblum’s trapped

with a fly inside his Material
Transformer: bits of the man emerging

gooey, many-eyed; bits of the fly
worrying that his agent’s screwed him—

I almost flinch to see the body later
that’s left its...
Respite
By Elane Kim
It’s New Year’s.
It’s New Year’s & the stars are white-hot & all your favorite dishes
are flushed warm on the island: tteokguk for fortune, knife-cut noodles
for longevity, persimmon pudding & a tin can of sardines.
The nectarines are in season in our...
Underway
By Georg Trakl
At evening they bore the stranger into the death parlor;
a scent of tar; the faint rustling of red sycamores;
the dark flight of jackdaws; guard was set up on the square.
The sun has sunk into black linen; again and again this...
Restricted Fragile Materials
By Catherine Barnett
It should be easy, I tell my son,
to dispose of the possessions kept
in these rooms.

I’ve left some things on a shelf for him, see?
These coupons might still be valid,
the vinegar will keep forever.

I’ve always liked the idea of order.
I’ve always...
“Have You Ever Written a Poem about Death?” My Mother Asks
By Catherine Barnett
We keep saying “it’s ok it’s ok it’s ok”
to the improvisations sweeping through my father’s body
like apnea,

like anaerobic gewgaw plumes radiating from what he is and was and is.
I can’t know what it will be like when he’s gone.
He’s not...
Forward, Backward, Slow, Fast, a Sun Shone
By Corey Zeller
Sam Kinison died on his back on the side of a highway seemingly talking to God. Richard Pryor’s family and friends, thinking Pryor was dead after setting himself on fire, jumped over the fence of his compound in California and...
Stetson in Retrograde
By Adam O. Davis
1.
If a house is haunted like a radio
is haunted If a body is a radio
of blood If a body of ghosts
hums like blood over a valley of
bone If blood is a...
Introductions
By Ariana Brown
i’m ariana &
i’ve been conquered.
child of méxico, africa, usa–
i have someone else’s name.
i was born in a cemetery.
in 1848, frederick douglass
wrote an article condemning
the u.s. conquest of méxico.
i went to the alamo
on a field trip once.
my uncle’s dream
is to own...
Into the Weeds
By Kevin Prufer
The brutality of those two men
who broke into her apartment
and murdered her boyfriend,
...
Anna May Wong has Breakfast at Tiffany’s
By Sally Wen Mao
In Santa Monica, the sunrise has this way of emptying
everything inside you. I visit my future deathbed.
It’s February 1961, and I watch myself sleep.

Dawn: outside my window, date palms sway and lovers
in blue Corvettes make their morning getaways.

There will never...
I Have Wasted My Life
By Justin Phillip Reed
There it goes, thin thing,
cheshiring between trees
whose reaper-robes trail
...
- Social Commentaries
- Race & Ethnicity
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- Death
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- + 5 more
Residuary
By Amber Adams
On the morning after my death
it will seem like any other day
where you will both wake and sleep
and some events between,

but I will not be here
to change the mop pad, or order
the coffee pods before we run out.

I will be...
Sweethearts
By C.L. O’Dell
One day
either you
or me
as if drugged
will be staring
at a collage
of photos
in an unfamiliar
foyer,

the other
sleeping
in the next room over
inside a shiny box
like a saw-in-half trick
where everyone
seated in rows
is waiting for something
to happen.

I know
I’ll be stuck
in that first room
where old friends
who knew
you...
Hood Aesthetic
By Amy M. Alvarez
Naturally, broken glass, throbbing bass, a roll of bills and a paper bag passed between the hands of hustlers. Just as true: the rows of corn planted by the family at the end of the street. Even in this leaded...
A Toothless Crackhead Was the Mascot
By Reginald Dwayne Betts
[An Outline for a Film]

A woman leans against a man who leans
against a brick wall watching cars stop like dead men
on this one-way street. Some dude glares
like O-Dog from Menace, his face towards some street
we'll never remember where a man...

Quick Tags

p1[Untitled]

p1Late Autumnal, with Cockroach

p1First Fall

p1Respite

p1Restricted Fragile Materials

p1“Have You Ever Written a Poem about Death?” My Mother Asks

p1Forward, Backward, Slow, Fast, a Sun Shone

p1Residuary

p1Sweethearts

[Untitled]

Late Autumnal, with Cockroach

First Fall

Respite

Restricted Fragile Materials

“Have You Ever Written a Poem about Death?” My Mother Asks

Forward, Backward, Slow, Fast, a Sun Shone

Residuary

Sweethearts