image curtesy of The MET Museum Archives

by Lydia Downey

There was a perpetual
            residue on our hands.
                        Steamed milk stuck like tar

as my friend and I scrubbed
            down each closing shift
                        and stole our dinners

of half-stale, chipped pastries.
            We gave up trying
                        to leave early

and walked the long path
            to our apartment
                        somewhere

after ten, when only pheasants
           

image curtesy of The MET Museum Archives

by Linette Marie Allen

The snow, a canvas for branch-sprawl, brittle lines—

a quaking aria breaks them, shivering their bridal lines.

The year grows its teeth, gnashing at our stooped gardens,

gesturing the leaves we swore could defy bridal lines.

Newsprint burns in the hearth, its stories curling to ash,

photo by Alex Farber

by Luis Lopez-Maldonado

On a chilly spring morning,
chile still clinging to my lips,
I bit into you—warm, heavy, half-hearted—
a freckled tortilla wrapped in betrayal
and $8.79 worth of disappointment.
Where is your abuela, your sazón,
your carne that falls apart like old love letters?
Even your papas taste tired today,
like they miss the days when gas
was under three dollars
and classrooms were still full:
Another Friday… Another row of empty desks.

art by Richard Hanus

by Penelope Ioannou

in this poem out of

respect for the phase

I am going through. I’ve

always wanted a New

England summer with

the weeds and the man

who is by no means

extraordinary grilling

bland burgers on the bbq.

The humidity would be

sufficient and I would

be formidable because I eat

lobsters and think the stupid

corgi is adorable and

use this man for his boat

or his body or his

stainless steel pan.

photo by Yasser Alaa Mobarak

by Sisary Poemape-Heredia

authored in June

to dance attuned,

after the sun is down.

where the glow is not but a breeze

caressing a nightgown’s scars
                
				under
               
				 in town.
un pueblo is a constellation hidden light years beyond

a mansion at the top of a hill,

even if no kings

—especially if no kings—

are throned to be

between the ages of seven and seventeen.
i am king

and at seven needed a hymn

of Andean musing

and love cruising

warmisitay infused,