Category: The Last Word

“locker room talk,” a poem by yarrow yes woods

i have not heard someone say grab ‘em by the pussyin any locker room. what i have heardis she just lay there so i stuck it in her assin middle school. this was not in the locker room,but at the row of lockers outside my homeroom.laughter of all kinds. this wasn’ta boys’ club. the grin…
Three Poems by Lucian Mattison

Una Trumpada Defined, punching a Trump supporter or being punched by a Trumpsupporter. Perhaps both, but that’s too egalitarian for its namesake. Le di a ese racista de mierda una trumpada fenomenal.Ese racista de mierda me dio una trumpada apocalíptico. And then you dream about punching racists in variety of circumstanceswhich only makes them more…
Three Poems by Catherine Valdez

Names I love how you wear the shade under a treeI see, even though you say I am your blind girl I hold your hand, so calloused that it reminds meof orange rind—tough, yet so easily peeled.I’m afraid I’ll expose all those chalk-like bones . I started school a week ago, a year late, and…
Poetry: Jen Karetnick’s “What We Did”

We did handstands and YOLO leaps at the Holocaust Centers.We photo-bombed other tourists at the Holocaust Centers.We fish-lipped into selfies at the Holocaust Centers.We posted Insta stories of Shuvits and Front Foot Impossibles on our boards at the gravelpits of the Holocaust Centers.We stacked effects and filters at the Holocaust Centers—Snap game so strong, good…
Three Poems by Jen DeGregorio

Jesus of Coal “I was listening to an echo.” —Nick Lowe They say coal is deadbut I’ll bring it back. Just let metouch it. See itignite. Smell its per-fumes. In the new worldcoal will help youmake friends. Rub a charred pieceon your neck to enhanceyour scent. Dump barrels of coalin front of your house for…
Two Poems by Linette Reeman

As Donald Trump Is Being Inaugurated a girl and i stagger out of a tear-cloud and shakeinto each others’ mouths. there is no one i loveout of necessity, but this is a love hatched undera sky bursting and marred by flames. a week later, the joke is still good. we started dating becausea riot bloomed…
Four Poems by Katie Hibner

Smart Varmints You talk about how they’re smart varmints: they crawl out of a splintered helix,grow up crust-pluckingfor gratuities. They want to sic their reliquaries on ours,semantically blitzthrough our amber waves. They’re not cute and they’re not cubedbitesize;they gnaw on our breaded trade winds. You talk about howbots admit them through our firewalls,ignoring their flagrantly-laundered…
Five Poems by Alia Hussain Vancrown

Alif. Lām. Mīm. Morning’s glorious sclera peels night like peach skin.The casual tugging of a hangnail accentuates each hamzah. There is pain in meaningless recitation—when the bearded preacher arrives at the house before the milkman, it’s too earlyfor children to memorize sounds unable to be translated, struck into meaning from only his well-meaningbamboo discipline stick.…
Poetry: Five Found-Word Works of Resistance by J.I. Kleinberg

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. consume the unbearable this unwelcome we lost words J.I. Kleinberg is an artist, poet, freelance writer, and co-editor of Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington (Other Mind Press, 2015). A Pushcart nominee and winner of the 2016 Ken Warfel Fellowship, her found poems have appeared recently…