Eulogy for Bao Bayun
Today we mourn our great leader. A loss of great consequence: how hungry our stomachs, how boring our stories, how cold our campfires will be. No one knows when…
One Fight after Another
Dolores, nearing the end of her second ambulance shift of the week, sits in a plastic lawn chair outside the back of the fire station. Between calls she often…
The baby was perfect and
the labor nurse said, He’s got hair! while Todd looked between his fingers from across the room and I wiped the fluid glistening off Nicholas’s pink forehead, touched his…
Frida Kahlo – Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1940)
oil on canvas Mira que si te quise, fué por el pelo, Ahora que estás pelona, ya no te quiero. Look, if I loved you, it was for…
Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti – Ariette d’oubli de la chapelle étourdie (1920)
mixed media on canvas [i didn’t know he had a sister is the wrong thought. nonetheless it comes to me. so does the husband, ferried by the double…
What’s in a Name? Lost Letters and Other Animals by Carrie Bennett; Besiege Me by Nicholas Wong; Returning the Sword to the Stone by Mark Leidner
Lost Letters and Other Animals by Carrie Bennett (Black Lawrence Press, 2021); Besiege Me by Nicholas Wong (Noemi Press, 2021); Returning the Sword to the Stone by Mark Leidner…
Father’s Keeper: Imagine Us, The Swarm by Muriel Leung
Muriel Leung, Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books, 2021). When bees swarm, it is as a function of reproduction. The hive has become too crowded, so the workers…
Leaning Against the Muscle of That Throat: The Dream Women Called by Lori Wilson
The Dream Women Called by Lori Wilson (Autumn House Press, 2021). Lori Wilson’s second poetry collection, The Dream Women Called, focuses on a woman’s experience—girlhood expectations, love and…
Magic, Wisdom, and History: Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin Books, 2021) The powerful bond between mother and daughter in Kaitlyn Greenidge’s novel Libertie is established in the book’s first line: “I saw my…
In a Burning Volcano
This is a work of fiction. Raymond and I walked through the prison yard—from the back classroom, along the chain-link fence bordering dirt sports fields, down the long…