Jeff Bagato – Contesting the Homeland
Contesting the Homeland En pointe, à pied, the soldiers pirouette across no man’s land, cutting entrechats over barbed wire loops and the remains of comrades potted deep in mud; his foxhole abandoned and gaping clear, that one saddest private took the barbs with a grand jeté; arms curling his head, he joined the ballerina battalion— […]
Francine Witte – Map of Me
Map of Me Let’s start by saying this isn’t a map you’d fold up in a glove box or pull up on a GPS. And maybe it’s not a geography anyone wants to travel. I mean, hell, some days, even I don’t. It’s just that I started drawing it one night after too many glasses […]
Gail Wronsky – A non-binary person walked by
A non-binary person walked by for Marlena Dalí And I thought of my daughter, I mean my child. And of my breasts, which protrude in a superfluous fashion, and of my make-up, mask of an aging drag queen. And I felt ridiculously out-of-touch. A woman gets tired of impersonating a woman, like keeping the front […]
Dana Jaye Cadman – Gifts
Gifts dad had a kandinsky print called pink sweet hanging in the downstairs bathroom| i asked him why the triangles were all over the place| dad had a cancer| a tumor painted on his lung and brain| on one birthday he gave me a dictionary| and another| a map| what are you looking for| i […]
Marsha de la O – What It Sounded Like on The Way to Calvary
What It Sounded Like on The Way to Calvary after Bruegel Sparrows bathing in puddles As the sun passes behind a cloud The scrape when the wheel heaves On its wooden pin Slough brimming Gold roof of water, plash of bare feet Her blue shift hitched up Baby sister milking their mother, jaw pulsing These […]
