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by Naomi Shihab Nye From somewherea calm musical note arrives.You balance it on your tongue,a single ripe grape,till your whole body glistens.In the space between breathsyou apply it to any woundand the wound heals. Soon the nights will lengthen,you will lean into the yearhumming like a saw.You will fill the lamps with kerosene,knowing somewhere a line breaks,a city goes black,people dig for candles in the bottom drawer.You will be ready. You will use the song like a match.It will fill your roomsopening rooms of its ownso you sing, I did not knowmy house was this large.
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90 pounds when she left himmy mother says I amtoo young to know the significance of weight old enoughonly to think that 90 poundssounds like the feminine ideal Wasted to perfection At the first sight of my own bloodI screamed so they sayI like to imagine I remember drops of red on shattered glassat the first sight of my own bloodI understood something not right in my bones There was no money thenfor nursing students all womenthey used each other’s bodies like mannequins phlebotomy practice in dorm room bunk bedsbright young women atomic futurescovered in bruises like heroin addicts Bruises…
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by Chris Watkins Go with me.It’s just as likely as a virgin birth.So let’s live in a world where Josephknew it was a miraclethe whole timeand didn’t have to be convincedby any angels.Let’s say he led the donkey proudlyall the way to Bethlehem.Let’s live in a world—because we can in a poem—where no one said anythingabout the two of them being togetherand raising a child, and Herodonly wanted to kill baby Jesusbecause he hated babies,not for any homophobic reasons.Let’s keep Joseph a carpenterbecause they work with wood,but let’s give him well-manicured nails.Let’s have Mary teachingthe little Christ all about illusion—walking…
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by Helen Meneilly But eventually, you are cross-legged on your ownsofa, in your own little apartment, eatinga piece of cake topped with sugared peachand you’re drenched in the wet orange joy of it. Every time you touch your fingertips to your soft pale belly, you realise: you are living.What a dreamyou could be wishing for in some other, darker, life:to be here, now. Bathtub full of tea, cotton bedspread speckledwith a hundred blue flowers, a thrift store ceramicplanter with a sunlit basil plant forming itself right before your eyes. You have come so farto love your little life so muchthat…
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Once a year, in May, we take his boat out on the lakeAnd pretend the other isn’t some kind of disappointment.He’ll tell me about his new home project, new paycheck, new motorcycle—the new fiancée’ll be there too. They’ll talk about God and GMOs and the vaccinesthat contribute to our decaying morality. I’ll nod and smile politely when they saythe homosexuals are infecting the country.I’ll remember how this time last week I was kissing a girl I met on Tinder in a cemetery parking lot—how when she leaned in to kiss me her teeth hit mine so hard I saw sparks. She laughed…
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by Clementine von Radics I will make jokes at my own expense,be charming as a surprise.I will ask about your new lifeand Be Cool About Itand I will not mention Memphis.Or how your hair feels in my hands.I will not mention the last time I saw you.My mouth, so far from yours, I saidI am afraid I will spend entire yearstrying not to need you.As if I wasn’t certain.As if this wasn’t my confession.
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Answer the phone; assign a call number; refer to case management; refer to counseling; most often, refer to both. Open an intake file, close another one. Ask a client if they’ve been here before—nod politely, like you don’t know they’re lying, when they say no. Re-open their sealed file. Paulina, the receptionist, buzzes the room with a message: Sarah is on Line 1 and she’s crying again. (Sarah’s always crying). They can hear her sobs echoing through the office over Amira’s soothing voice saying “deep breaths, in and out.” Her tears, leaking through the end of the receiver, leave a…
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If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left.
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by Samantha Allen 2/5 I loved Samantha Allen’s Real Queer America, but oh my god, I HATED this. I’m sorry, it just isn’t for me. I do not like this kind of mindless campiness. I found the characters one-dimensional and annoying, and there was not a single aspect of the plot I enjoyed. I gave it two stars instead of one because I recognize the artistic value of the book, and I can think of regulars I’ve had at the bookstores I’ve worked at who would have enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I’m really not a fan of this style of writing…
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When I started going to church—yes, as an adult, and yes, of my own free will, I thought I’d lie and tell everyone I was reading in the park. Every Sunday, that’s me, under the monkey tree at Barton Springs, reading in the park. If I hadn’t shared my location, maybe. Most likely, no one would have asked about my time at all and I could have spent my forbidden church Sundays as honest and godly as the wide-brimmed hat ladies in the front pew. “What the hell, Emily?” my friends asked, and I thought, “Yeah, what the hell, Emily?”…
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Emily Vance Brown 