ISSUE FOUR
I create images that are narrative, featuring visual schematics, relying on juxtaposition for contrast or disjuncture.
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
it’s touch-and-go with me and weddings
The new octopus at the children’s aquarium was named Athena, and as we waited for her to emerge, I thought of the almost-too-faint second line on the pregnancy test three days before.
I have an axe
with hearts gashed
He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.
I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.
You’ve been dreading this day since the moment you found out you were pregnant—perhaps even before.
my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house
“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”
The hamantaschen have followed us from apartment to apartment, all of the kitchens dark, cramped, cluttered.
She turns her back for me to fasten the rows of metal hooks. Why isn’t our small, tender freedom enough?
I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.
we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
I know you shouldn’t keep wild animals as pets, but I’ve had the same spider in my bathroom sink for over two weeks.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
The two of us toast to a man we both love, to whatever degree, clink our glasses and laugh…
The poetry of Brian S. Ellis unravels, inverts, investigates, and complicates. His poems are radical koans and invitations to forego common narratives.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
To be encased, Clint had always thought, was foolishness. Why allow yourself to be open to such sorrow?
Taking photographs of my hometown has given me a chance to reflect on people whom I have not valued.
the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…
Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.