The summer of 2022 is roiling with challenges. By the time you are reading this, or soon thereafter, Roe v. Wade is likely to have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and "states' rights" will quash human rights. People around the globe will suffer from increasingly extreme temperatures, weather events, and food and water shortages. [...]
By Sarah Gundle Something made me think of him. For days now, it has been bothering me: I can’t remember his name. I can recall many of our conversations, the gentle character of his voice, the resignation in his eyes, but not his name. I’ve wracked my brain. I saw him almost twenty years ago [...]
By Elizabeth Spencer Spragins anguish overflows levees lined with unbleached bones— a channeled fury gathers silt of centuries and the river roars their names Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a fiber artist, writer, and poet who taught in North Carolina community colleges for more than a decade before returning to her home state of Virginia. [...]
By Emily Hockaday I sing to the water and lower my only child into the foam, wiggling toes first. I think about all the species the ocean held that I don't know the names of that have gone extinct this past year and focus on the sound of the waves and all the metaphors that [...]
By Karen Kilcup Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal? –Rachel Carson A one-woman Revolution, Jemima Wilkinson was stoned for preaching the light that lives in everyone. The Public Universal Friend was driven north from Philadelphia to the Finger Lakes, her movement forecasting what would follow: women’s rights, [...]
By Erin Edwards It is a simple act to stand in the middle of the road. Simple, but effective. A car either has to stop and wait or run you down—and it just wouldn’t do for a hearse carrying the body of a former government official to accelerate towards a woman in the middle of [...]
By Lorna Rose I listen to the sweaty silence, his throbbing presence as he stares at my developing chest. I learn to calculate the tides. Learn his breath smells like mints when he’s offering me up. Men’s gazes have teeth. Pivot and scan for the response he wants at the appropriate time. You’re pretty. Perform [...]
By Alma Ariaz Everyone tells me It wasn’t my fault, That karma will get him, Will leave him to rot. Everyone tells me I should have fought harder, And why did I wear that, I was asking for trouble. Everyone tells me, That ‘no’ isn’t binding, It’s fluid, it’s blurred, I am overreacting. Filthy, contaminated, [...]
By Skye Wilson I want to break his bones for what he did. No metaphors, just snap against my skin; pain blooming in his eyes like burns on flesh. I’ll scorch all of the skin he touched me with. I want to grow to twice my usual size, drink in the pain and terror in [...]
By Sue Katz The first thing Miriam noticed when the taxi dropped her off at Ruby’s house was the For Sale sign on the lawn. She took a magic marker out of her handbag and wrote “NOT” in capital letters, but it turned out too faint to be easily seen. “It’s the thought that counts,” [...]
We Are What We Shine after J. Venters and M. Barajas Bright as a jewel, we are what we shine. A gang's red-blue color-coded word clash Compton's graffitied not-so "Welcome" sign. Compton Court obliterates the blue skyline, Angeles Abbey minarets, brown grass, like burnished silver, we are what we shine. We suffer potholed streets silent [...]
By Holly Stovall I opened the search bar, typed in "middle-aged women support Black Lives Matter" and narrowed the results to "images." Google spit out a white couple, on the stairway in front of their mansion, pointing guns at protesters marching by. It's not what I was looking for, but Google taunted me—Aren't you curious? [...]
By Ololade Akinlabi Ige After Salawu Olajide Dedicated to my country, Nigeria What greets you when you get here? Walls of broken spines? Fences of bleeding bruises? Burnt roofs that open mouths? Windows with wounded hearts? Your father was a victim of the last bomb explosion and his grave grows mushroom flowers. Your mother [...]
By Linda Laderman Again, we witness panicked people fleeing war. You tell me, people don’t care, it’s Ukraine’s war. Sitting in an Ann Arbor bistro, we order baked Turkish eggs, & I mumble, even Turkey opposes this war. One booth over, a woman applies siren red lipstick, then gestures at the screen over the bar. [...]
