Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash
An Offering
O Leaves, O Flowers!
We hold you in our hands as offerings.
We stir in you the ruin of winter,
the swell of summer.
Say a little something,
when…
Poetry
Illustration by Elyas Alavi from the series Waking Dreams Translator’s note: Few voices are more distinctive in the world of contemporary Afghan poetry than Elyas Alavi. The…
Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy/Unsplash the human soul is a dark place, leviathan. so much that my eyes begrudge the light. I sense the dark upsurge. I can’t find a hole large enough, can’t…
Ruth Loveland, Inferno, 36x36 inches, mixed media on wood, 2017 is the last thing I want you to become as in late in life your lover looks at a picture of the day you met a su…
Taha Khalil, Untitled, acrylic on canvas Scapegoat And the knife is in your hand You look just like Abraham, our prophet I’m your old, old Ishmael. Captivity Late at nig…
Kristin Marie Enns-Kavanagh / Flickr Agnes Martin, Eye Hill Rural Municipality No. 382, Saskatchewan The land moves without qualm…
Photo: Evie Shaffer / Unsplash A Funeral Wash me with warm water and soap made of fresh olive oil anoint me with amber and camphor water with rose geranium and orange blossom water Swaddl…
Photo: Analusie Gamboa / Unsplash There were neither plots nor characters, only places. Neighborhoods sliced in half. Terraces and corridors between roofless rooms. Profiles only. S…
Winter Sun, 2017, oil on wood panel, by Kay WalkingStick. Courtesy of the artist and June Kelly Gallery Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet …
They had to remove it and off we went: A transparent image of bones chained together; Half face, three-quarters, full face of the fingers stretched out, fingers without recogn…
Temple in Varanasi / Photo by Saurabh Chatterjee / Flickr Spring descends on this city suddenly and when it does a whirl of dust rises from Lehartara or Manduadih and coats the tongue o…
Farol de Combate This is how, while darkness drew my profile with its little finger I have learned to see past as Montale saw it, The obscure t…
Photo: Picker H/Flickr November in Xichang There are cities one won’t see again. – Joseph Brodsky I. Only a bearded smile shows below a conica…
Photo: Brian Ainsworth/Flickr Borderland (2) Moored in an estuary of chestnut trees is the main building – a mother ship. The sharp-eyed gaze eventually settles, studying…
Photo: M. Maggs/Pixabay La bona educació L’estiu que complia set anys li van regalar un estoig de fusta amb un llapis i una goma. El llapis, perquè en rosegués la m…
Photo: Simon Q/Flickr A patch of sunlight on the wall thin shadows like worn nets or the snagged stockings of a voracious lover impair that patch. Our shoes tap the mar…
PHOTO: Scott Webb/Unsplash * Tulips and their capricious labia, their indecent appeal. The absolute shamelessness of the flowers, but also the sinlessness. The lushness of the earth, as be…
Lorie Shaull, “Stolperstein” / Flickr The story begins like this. No. It does not. There is no story. Or, they shoveled a load of speed and shuddered toward the coast. Saltpans. Sparse groupi…
View of the Kukupalong refugee camp near Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. / PHOTO: Russell Watkins / UK Department of International Development “I can be killed here in Bangladesh. My body can…
Rohingya students reading The Blossom in the Community Rebuilding Centre education facility in Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp, October 2018. Photo courtesy of Mayyu Ali. Translator’s n…
Crystal Z Campbell, Friends of Friends (Six Degrees of Separation), 4x6x72 inches, vintage collection of bacteria slides circa 1940s, steel, LED strips, automotive paint, plexiglas, 2013…
PHOTO: Luca Iaconelli/Unsplash Watching the Moonrise Alone Watching the moonrise alone the silent moon is like the person watching They’re alone together No one utters a…
PHOTO: SkitterPhoto/Pexels considering the Upstairs Lounge Fire We tipped our sticks to the gravel like the bent spines of men groveling beneath trunks of smoke to lur…
Photo: Casliber/Wikimedia Commons We have been away from Jam Tree Gully – now, reapproaching the name not on the gate. Working the categories, the signs, we fear the raiders? Fifteen minutes in…
Photo: Domeckopol/Pixabay 6 His under- wear white Armpits spotless and collar neat From Monday to Monday he is like that because the drainpipe carries off the rest.…