Let Us Consider
By Christine Mounts ● 2022
Let us consider where we were born. Where else might that have been within our vast, lifeless known space? Science fiction movie myth Of fantasy escape shuttles To nearby livable
Children of Michigan
By Stephani Maari Booker ● 2022
“God made dirt, and dirt don’t hurt. Put it in your mouth, and it will work.” — Children’s rhyme We ate fire retardant in our 1970s burgers. Suckled on sewage
Fire Medicine
By Sagirah Shahid ● 2022
In Remembrance of Breonna Taylor The ancestor of triggers started off as thick and hollow grass, bamboo chopped down and sculpted into a tiny cannon which, if fed gunpowder functions much
Diagrammer of Sentences
By Mary Kay Rummel ● 2022
Diagrammer of Sentences In the corner of the living room, huddled over my pink wooden desk, brothers fighting, mother angry because I’m not peeling potatoes, I’m wandering in English
Restoring prairie
By Leslie Thomas ● 2022
Restoring prairie June 24, 1854: Some of these flowers must be preserved—not that they can ever be made any more beautiful or arranged with any better taste than now.
How I Became a Feminist
By KateLynn Hibbard ● 2022
How I Became A Feminist Because she could not bear to waste a thing, My mother always drank the coffee dregs Straight from the pot, and dribbled on her
Between the Stations
By Benj Vardigan ● 2022
Between the Stations The presets are nonsense, directions to nowhere. Coaxing the dial across the notches we nuance, tune our ears to any clear scrap in the static. On
Art by Barbara Evan
Salvation of Bread
By Diane Jarvenpa ● 2022
Salvation of Bread Every time sorrow is a rock to the skull I chant up a stove it’s belly all fire bloom as I beg any ancestor
Art by Demont Peekaso Pinder
I Wish
By Allysza Castile ● 2019
Last night I woke up out my sleep and I cried for you. I tried to hold it in, but my tears just flowed like an endless river that would
West Saint Paul
By Roberto Sande Carmona ● 2019
Tengo un headache. Maybe it’s the combinación de lenguas en my head, on the billboards (espectaculares, dice mi abi), y en las conversations of people pasando por Cesar Chavez Street.
Art by Christopher E. Harrison
Pet
By Kurt Schultz ● 2019
Kinda clammy, kinda wet, the goldfish kinda needs a vet. A little pale and looking ill, the doctor thinks she needs some pills. The pills won’t do, get a knife,