Category: The Last Word

Five Poems: Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi

This Doom I am still learning to die for myself.I can’t unremember a few. And I knowpeople who are enough gravity, whowill look you in the bullseye and say:this is how to stay, this is how to live.But here are their hands, tugging ontothe rainline from their eyes calling Godfrom the other end as if…
Two Poems by Jan Wiezorek

Uphill Uphill disorients us,our gnarly breathing,not knowing howher sentiment loadsher florid face, rotatingunder leaves succumbedto false serenity: Had to putmy dog down, she says—like standing on her head,blood rushing to her face,eyes roiling leaves—hillyfootfalls, pausing, no treescomfort her, no words, noquiet, upside lying down.I’m trying not to cry, to bestrong for her; her breathsclimbing (penumbral)…
Two Poems by John Gallaher

A Private Language In the parking lot this afternoon, a woman (mid-60s?) walked downthe row, got into a silver Ford sedan parked next to me,and sat there a bit like she’s really thinking, like she’s contemplatingexistence, working on her thousand-yard stare, as I was loadingmy groceries. Then she got back out, went down a couple…
Poetry: “God Responds [to the Proust Questionnaire]” by Jubi Arriola-Headley

The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals [their] true nature. —Vanity Fair Where the typical journalistic interview tailors questions to the particular qualities of a subject, the Proust questionnaire’s unchanging…
Adam Day: Five Poems from Midnight’s Talking Lion and the Wedding Fire

Chile example 1973—Zurita arrested and held in ship’s cargo hold; process-experience under witnessing. He tried to disappear his eyes with acid, but failed. “Instead he created a document: chapter twentieth century having disfigured its face. Might not be quite right. Then, a photo of its bandaged cheek with the text below, EGO SUM, and: ‘My…
“Dol-lim Ja Imprints”: A Poem by Georgia San Li

Characters for the Next Generations One generation of heirloom tomatoes divides their eggs, bubbling with blisters, bloody broken stems in the end. How many precious pigeon-red rubies will man flood with fires and vengeance of war in the end? Who were the three African women in tangerine silks and golden slippers, rerouted at Charles De…
Original Poem by Caitlin Grace McDonnell: “Dear Wolf”

Dear Wolf, It’s been seven years. What happened in those woods is a story that keeps changing. Sometimes you are very large and toothsome. Sometimes you are a man in uniform. Sometimes you are my grandmother; sometimes, you are me, but smaller. Wolf, I can still see you behind that tree, poking out like a…
Three Poems by Rushing Pittman

For a long time I’m unhappy then I’m fine … I’m fuller than any moon.I’m made of cobalt hearts.I’m everything inside the multitude of another.Here I am inside my kitchen peeling an apple.The apple takes up the entire room.Wonderful living with you and seeing you.No, I let you sleep.Or why we love or what love…
New Poetry by Cloe Watson: “Mothers”

Remember when the sky fell below our feet,time wasting at the fringes? It became the cracks we stepped on in fear and joy, slipperyin their changing. Remember the clouds, love? How they became our stepping stoneswhen we had to go separate ways, the tall hill between our homes steep with longingand real monsters. As the…