When El-Natan was born the room swelled like a balloon and filled Jerusalem, my wailing knocking on the walls, my open legs the valleys of the souk and he between them, the rope of our dual history unfurling him. At…
Browsing: Poetry
born not in a hospital not in a bedroom not a manger not ark and wicker not an alley not the backseat not a clinic not the White House born a Sabra— tender, tough in a porcelain bowl welcome home…
An exercise on Psalm 119 I am truly blameless. Or happy. Or neither one. Deep at night, I sit in the shadow of my own verses the furrows I tread with my mouth sheltering saplings that might never grow into…
We sit in the kitchen my grandmother, my mother, me listening to the susurration of water boiling on the stove. Once the bottle is sterile, a careful spoon of powdered formula— my nephew needs to be fed every hour filling…
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis…
Kristin Prevallet – From dire to duty and all the muck in between, change is the only constant. This seems important to remember, lest what is fatal (fated, un-chanced) appear doomed to fail. Nothing is set in stone (made…
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor In Her Lingerie Drawer Five Years Later In her lingerie drawer two pearl and crystal hat pins a black flip phone that says Samsung Verizon my brother’s blue stained drawings from when he was five a braid wrapped…
Rosa Alcalá Homophonic Translation We like things written on us, juicy not the least of which what is your team the ironies I thought my favorite sweatshirt (damaged in print shop) said a coat of sugar, my budding coquettish-ness,…
Betsy Andrews On Neptune Memorial Reef Don’t laugh at me, I told that guy, advance of the morning neoprene stuffing, the South Beach merchandise vertigo—explosives and spear guns, holsters and knives— eddying against the incoming tide. I mean: time,…
Billie Chernicoff Kimono 1. Refusal, acquiescence, travel. 10,000 hours to master the brush. 10,000 to master silence. A study of a sparrow, study of a moth. The sleeve, the arm. An hour to dress. 2. Ode to the nape…