Category: Poetry

Three Poems by Sergio A. Ortiz

A Wolf “I know there’s something better down the road.We need to find a place where we are safe.”—from “Praise Song for the Day,” by Elizabeth Alexander passed by my eyesleaving his footstepsin my veins.Stealthy and hungry,he stalked the cityscrutinizing the future.Today the shutters are closedbecause in this poemthere’s a wolfcoming to get me.Even when I…
Poetry: “The Force” by Danielle DeTiberus

Generations of boys whacking offin bedrooms and basements, imaginingthemselves one of three men inside a juiced-up worm frothing at the gold bikiniprincess. Metal cold on so much bareflesh that even the married, middle-aged cad can’t help himself to a taste betweentakes. But what of Carrie, nineteen and nowomen around to shrug at, to roll her…
Two Poems by Kate Bucca

Cleave The man I chose for an affairrose onlyto my forehead. His cock barely registered in my mouth. So when my husbandthrew me down and forced his way inside I answered him honestly— yes, you are bigger— before he struck my face. ~ Flashbacks ease with treatmentor so they say. Instead I recreate,drink…
Poetry: “Getting an IUD after Trump Becomes the President-elect” by Emily Paige Wilson

An empty vase has been placed near the sink.An elongated bottle cut from bright cobalt glass,slender neck stretched four or five inches high. It’s mydistraction when the clamp’s cold pinch starts to pulland turn my stomach. I did not wish for this intimacywith fear. My doctor’s fingers caressing a cervixthat won’t open, as if it…
Poetry: “Night Snake” by Jennifer Martelli

I try to bend my backto the sadness. The moon grows backfat, a yellow scythe. Perseus decapitatesthe head of the Gorgon, snakes litter the cold sky, just asdangerous dead. My friend found one blacksnake head, one rat’s tail, juniper budswaxy & strewn in her yard after a quiet night.Anything I’ve ever feared regenerated, camearound on…
Poetry: “The Demagogue Diet” by Samantha Zighelboim

I ate my way through the debates, the conventions,that interminable election night. I ate through my classes in the days after, trying to console my students. While youappointed your cabinet of brutes, I was eating. I’ve eaten through the terrified phone calls, the sad texts. I atewhile my friends marched in the streets and I…
Poetry: “The Morning After the 2016 Presidential Election” by Lynn Marie Houston

So much dependson the two lesbiansacross the streetwho turn offthe morning news,leave still-steamingcoffee on the table,eggs uneaten on plates,and walk hand-in-handto the mud roomof their white colonialwhere they gatherthe American flag(so heavy nowit takes both of themto lift it),open the front doorlike they do every dayand place it in its holder. Lynn Marie Houston is…
Five Poems by Eleanor Levine

The Day After I’m crying for you America.For all the bullies who have picked on you.Knotted your hair in a twist.Soaked your face in leeches.Perpetuated myths about your reality.Sunk you in the apple barrel and pushed you deeper into it.Made you drown, but let you breathe, only to worry you might drown again.I am sorry…
Three Poems by Stevie Edwards

Five Days Before the Election & I don’t want to feel the earth today because a rich man is in itwho says he has the right to grab the most mine thing I can think of but maybe wouldn’t want tobecause maybe I am almost thirty & have grown stately in myself these last three years,watched ass…