D. M. Aderibigbe Q and A for All Africans On a B train to Kenmore One evening, I sing with my black voice. Two voices from behind fall in love with my accent. Two boys come to me, they own the voices—their skin that of a chicken whose feathers have been pulled off with […]
Read More… from Q and A for All Africans – According to First – D.M. Aderibigbe
Farah Ghafoor Palate Cleanser Mealtimes, we are alwaysangry. Rice sticks to my fingers and burns. You can’t swallowbut we both chew quickly. The kettle screams. Sometimes, we pull out the lawn chairsand watch a neighboring city dance on hot coals. It is refreshing. That,we swallow, like cinnamon stuck in my throat. You call your […]
Jessica Yuan Agriculture I am on my second date with Trader Joe and I think I’m fallingfor him. He holds my hand and I taste soil. I close my eyesand float fluorescent. He hands me a tomatoand I ripen to this. I think he likes me too. He whispers in my ear, “There is […]
Karen An-Hwei Lee Nonce Ode to an Oxymoron How could I ever love such a contrary figure of speech? Say we never vowed ourselves to a neurosis of nonce verse, of fever chills or brazier darkness.Say we drove to a landlocked shore, rolled up our windows at night,listened to the bright surf pounding […]
Read More… from Nonce Ode to an Oxymoron – Karen An-Hwei Lee
Letisia Cruz Promise I lined her eyesand held her wristsstill. I carved her neck longso that when the rains cameshe might hold it abovewater. You will not drown,I promised her. But then hermouth and eyes filled and Ilet them. * Letisia Cruz is a Cuban-American writer and artist. She is a […]
Natalia Theodoridou The Tide A strange day, this. It feels foreign, borrowed, and, for that very reason, sensitive; touch it, and it might drip, or darken, suddenly and irrevocably. It was on such a day that I chose to wake up—and why, nine months later, nine sooner, what’s the difference; but I did wake […]
Anuradha Bhowmik Growing Old With Baba I wore coats of clear nail polish in first grade,and Baba kept my fingernails safe from yellowmasala stains when he fed me rice and torkari in molded mounds that bordered the Corelleplate like a clock. At that age in Bangladesh,Baba would’ve been in Class 1, where he ate […]
Su Hwang Latchkeys When headlights cast shadowpuppets against the livingroom wall, my brother and I didour best to keep upappearances: he’d scurryto turn off the Nintendoconsole while I hung upon my best friend. He splayedopen his biology textbook, I leaptto the upright Yamaha to playthe first few notes of Für Elise:a perfectly choreographedintermezzo for […]
Yael Massen Klezmers on Tour after Josef Gusikov The cow breaks the barbedwire fence, feasts on grassessweet & tall in the minefield. No Man’s Land made metaland rusting in overgrowth.Josef watches each hoof plod the cow’s great heft like a wirewalker. Brown Spots! Mameleh!Hey! He calls, sets down his suit- case: inside the […]
