Editor’s Note
For this issue, we want you to look at what and who is near you. Here, we are thinking about the word proximity. Its silences, opportunities, and actualities.
Proximities
What are we as humans surrounded by — do we choose to surround ourselves with — and how do we situate ourselves within language?
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Read -
ReadA Legacy of Stuff
There’s a legacy of stuff passed through my family, especially on my father’s side. -
ReadBody Party City
Endings begin with a rumbling: / clap of thunder at the top / of the finale, creak and release / of the bus as it rises from its bow, / first vibrations of the tornado / siren. -
ReadNo Children
Empty basilica, wood slat / walls, white Jesus expressionless. / Blue eyes and blue eyes and blue / eyes and more inaccuracies / in the courtyard. -
ReadThe Countries of Sleep
Are / sleep nets / sparse / dense / or selfish / in their / weaves? -
ReadGlacier Wildness
In our youth, glaciers winged free to the highway. -
ReadHallway Song
First I wake the body / to unring a bell— / as the proctor rolls up I slam down right on the tit / of the sexy mermaid we sculpted / in the sand pit. -
ReadOld Friends Let Things Go
In December, Karen and her family left the murky skies of Philadelphia behind and touched down at LAX on a breathtakingly warm and sunny day. -
Readlike [my] mother, like me
If the bath is a womb, the shower is a river, a rain. Distance between droplets makes a better clean, not deep, but a clearing. -
ReadThe Granary
This past November, I was a visitor in a house with many presences: a mouse in the ceiling, ladybug colonies in the doorframe, accumulations and whispers in the hollow of the wall. -
ReadBloodlines
it’s 1906 / my great grandfather Sam lays tefillin / for the last time then leaves / them on the bedside table, / a loosening; the leather straps / left to dangle -
ReadEmpire a Call Away
Started telling my grandmother / I love her. Loudly, daily, over video calls with / my mother, my mother holding / the phone. -
ReadIf Memory Could Speak a Language • Delicate Freedom
The frangipani’s last falling flower makes its way to a graveyard on the passing-by shroud? -
Readabundance, abundance • maybe trying to rest means no more escaping
I am dirt, bruised by lake light. white rain, mauve / clouds, the sky’s breath leaking. -
ReadWe Discover a Thing Called Growth • The Death of this River
They make border out of moving body / and announce that it is dying / and that Mexico owes the U.S. water / but not from our wet backs. -
ReadPotpourri • When I Worked at a Dry Cleaners I Wore Gloves
A man I didn’t love / died today—a growth / in his colon’s fragile spiral. -
Readin this poem my sister doesn’t die
so i keep renewing her favorite book / on our shared library card. -
ReadThe First Otter and the Moon
I would like to tell you about my mother’s erratic heart, or share what I know of Las Patronas -
Read“Self-portrait skinning twenty-three auks” and other poems
A little rasp in its throat whittled the exhaling air. The auk laid down at last / and stayed there, its breath / so quiet I didn’t know when / it gave way to a greater quiet. -
ReadThe Ad Hoc Cartography of Nightmares
The problem with draining the world from your head / is what rushes in to take its place. -
ReadPolaroid: Prison Visit poems
Here, lens flare recalls the burn holes in her nightgown. -
ReadInventory • Please Give Your Fundraiser a Title—
He owns seven New Balance shoes, all rights / that have lost in this house their one-time partners. -
ReadOne Square Inch of Silence
I said goodbye to my father for the first and last time, after his death, in the quietest place in the United States. -
ReadTwo Books : Longer Looks
Mixed media artist Ellen Wiener on the featured art for issue 16. -
Readfull circle • & it’s the power of suggestion
soundtrack: fall in love (remix), slum village / because it just might, / i dance like my life depends on it. -
ReadI ORDER A NEW MOTHER IN THE MAIL
the mother circulates through Berlin’s arteries, / smacking through streets and bike lanes until a / DHL worker delivers her to my front door. -
ReadSkinning the Fox • Against Salvation
Still dark out when my father pulls / the trigger. -
ReadOn the Impossibility of Owning Lake Michigan • Animal
in the beginning there were no lines no markers of where & what belong to whom / or why -
ReadI Was A Child Disappearing Into Whatever I Touched
In the house is a horse, or the house itself is a horse. -
ReadSide Effects
We sit across from each other to play the game Othello. -
ReadAffirmation • Learning How To Fish Again
Every poem I write opens with a parent. How else / do I bless the ones that birthed me? -
ReadThe Haunted
The summer before I published my first — and so far, only — book, my husband Alonso and I finally saved enough money and time to spend a week in Paris.
Explore
Read more incredible work from our community of writers, artists, and activists.
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Issue 15ReadRoot Systems
How do we get back to the root of things — how can we pull up the weeds in our work to make space for new growth? -
Issue 17ReadThe Cost of Waiting
What are we even waiting for, and where is the line between resting, recuperating, giving up, and irresponsible avoidance?