When I Kneel, I Don’t Think of a God by Farnaz Fatemi
“You do not linger out loud. / You are not in my mouth.” — Farnaz Fatemi
In the Tradition of Women Who’ve Blessed Me to Transfer Their Virtues by Asa Drake
“One year / in the middle of my life // I asked how full do I want to be.” — Asa Drake
You, who carry daylight on your face by Major Jackson
“the syntax / of your smiles is revealed only to little children” — Major Jackson
[Remarkable the litter of birds] by Emily Skaja
“Everyone if we’re going to talk about love please we have to talk about violence” — Emily Skaja
The Courtesan’s Reply – Tambulasena by Shazea Quraishi
“Water drips down / my back. He grasps the rope / of my hair and climbs.”
In Winter by Michael Ryan
"are you smiling / at an idea met in a book / the way you smiled with your whole body / the first night we talked?"
On the Motion of Animals by Camille Rankine
"I could / love you like you / probably should / be loved but my love / is a fish / in the wrong / kind of water"
Conversation by Ai
"and you realize how that image / is simply the extension of another image, / that your own life / is a chain of words / that one day will snap"
Notebook Fragments by Ocean Vuong
"Woke up screaming with no sound. The room filling with a bluish water / called dawn."