Everything I need to hear / the slug churns out / in its stream of glitter

Despite my history of garden neglect, each year I delight in the sensation of newly turned soil.

Sirens wail all night on these streets / blanketed / (as in, humiliated) / by day’s hurried departure.

and vomit all / my happy-hour alcohol / inside that earwaxed / manhole

TSW Artist in Residence, Bianca Ng, creates the featured art for Issue 12: Before After

I could talk your ear off about the current state of Mexican-American literature.

My students & co-workers worry / if I return to America, I’ll catch COVID / or a bullet in my back.

Dust remembers what we try to forget, preserves the hidden, and keeps evidence in wait.

it is a form of mothering / to hurt yourself / rather than others

I am standing at the ironing board, running a hot iron over a folded and stitched-together strip of quilting cotton to make bias tape.

anjing my mother calls you. / how dare you defy what god has given you?

The way restaurants work has never been fair — yet everyone just seems to accept it.

The first time I watched you kill a fish, you were methodical and emotionless, striking it in one blow.

I want to talk to you about awe / what it means to turn / yourself over

What makes a country great? Surely the answer doesn’t lie in vast tracts of forest land that have been converted into concrete megastructures