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Today the Gulf of Mexico Is on Fire by Patrick Kindig
The ocean opens
its red eye & blinks:
another witness
in the age
of witness, another
natural thing made
man. Which is to say: silent
& intent
on watching itself
die. Some things
can be helped. Some
can’t. For example:
when sand
scratches your cornea,
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Helen, On Childhood by Elaine Johanson
Wild grapes grew in a torrent
above the hill, the vines
billowing over a wall so old
my sisters and I could roll
the stones out with our fingers.
Grapes overfilled our skirts,
our hands. We peeled
them with our teeth, held
the naked globes to our eyes
to track the climbing sun.
We packed our mouths
to feel their skins pop
in a chorus of honey.
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Regions of Identity by Jeri Griffith
She is me, twenty-two years old, young, younger than I can imagine being from this vantage point. She’s driving a car down a narrow road, wending her way through the New Hampshire woods. That girl is trying to master a stick shift for the first time. She’s not doing too badly, but on inclines, when the gears don’t catch, she finds herself rolling backwards and gets a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
My former self is newly married. She blasts the car radio, making pop songs into a soundtrack for her life. Rock me gently.
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Walls by Tim Fitts
Living in one of those fifteen-story domino type apartment buildings on the outskirts of
Cheongju, South Korea. When I went to bed at night, I could hear screams in the walls. All over
the apartment. I sometimes walked each floor, one end to the next, listening for reverberations
against the metal apartment doors, but nothing. No sound at all. Once back in bed, the screams
kicked up all over again. Men screaming, women screaming, children screaming, like a
collection of lost souls. I couldn’t tell if the screams resulted from shock, or were begging for
mercy, -
Five Poems from Yuan Changming Translated from the Chinese by the Author
My Crow
Each crow you have seen
Has a quasi white soul
That used to dwell in the body
Of one of your closest ancestors
He comes down all the way just to tell you
His little secret, the way he has flown out
Of darkness, the fact both his body and heart
Are filled with shadows, the truth about
Being a dissident, that unwanted color
Hidden in your own heart is there also a crow
Much blacker than his spirits
But less so than his feathers我的乌鸦
你瞥见的每只乌鸦
都有颗半白的灵魂
它以前的栖身处是
你最直系的一位祖先
它不远万里飞来，只是要告诉你
它的一个小小秘密，它如何飞出
黑暗，它的心身如何充满阴影，以及
它作为叛逆者不受欢迎的肤色
在你自己的心中也有一只乌鸦
比它的精神更黑
但比其羽毛更淡刊于《字花》2015年夏季期
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What You Were Meant to Be by Anthony Aguero
isn’t this, but is. The comma, for emphasis
because his life is immediate down to his nesting,
small breath. We quit speaking once,
when the syphilis was back, during winter —
never snow touching the ground. Only semen,
coconut milk licking his lips.
I told him This isn’t it — we’re at it again
and the moon is out tonight. I could see him,
