Christ Keivom

I try to explain what you’re like and I do it the way Proust
describes rain: musical, innumerable, universal. Everything is reminiscent of you.
A face in each moving car. A strand of hair in every dish. A rustling of leaves
Or wings or pages turning. A footstep on the winding road, which is either coming or going.
I have forgotten which already. Lately, I’m always in between—you and the next thought
of you. In the morning, before my feet touch the floor my mind reaches for you.
In the night, you are the charm of arms, warm as the kiss of an open mouth.
Whatever is absent in me, is present in you. Whatever is intolerable about me,
is made tolerable through you. Yet, it’s strange we suffer in spite of this!
The truth is, we are only hints of dust or one hint of dust.
Who’s to say we’ll still be alive when anyone is reading or will
ever read this poem. Time grows life inside the body.
And life kills by growing time inside the body. What else is there to say?
Death like love can never be prepared for, is instant and permanent.
Everything will end and when it ends. I know where I want to be,
in love, in love, in love…

 

 

Christ Keivom (he/him), is currently pursuing his master’s in English Literature from Delhi University. His work has previously appeared in Novus Literary Arts Journal, Mulberry Literary, Monograph Mag, Write now lit, The Chakkar, Farside Review, Spotlong Review, Agapanthus Collective, and Native Skin to name a few.

 

an instant biscuits package found at the very back of a failing refrigerator / eyelashes on my baby’s cheek that I swipe off, and hand to him to make a wish / the h sound the letter x makes in Spanish / the beauty mark underneath my ear / enchiladas topped with mole, queso fresco, and sour cream / lopsided, ugly chocolate cupcakes that my brothers devour in a minute / the social studies PowerPoints kids like me saw, when we didn’t make it into the Academically Gifted program / the tear stains on the poetry book I first saw myself in / the banda, cumbia and reggaeton blasting from my phone / the smile on my babies’ faces when I surprise them with hot cocoa and pan de dulce after reprimanding them / Corona bottles littering the house after a party / the worn out picture my uncle carries of his boys that he shows to everyone whenever he can / my papi’s neon construction vest / my grandma’s passed down chocoflan recipe / the second and third generations, that hold onto our roots as tightly as possible / the sandy, rocky trail of pulgas / the mamalonas driven without a license / the medallas of la Virgen de Guadalupe girls wear around their necks / my people, mi gente, with their gorgeous, bronze hands, and gentle accents

 

Haile Espin is a Mexican-American writer from NC. Her work has been published in The Louisville Review’s 2022 Spring Edition, Apricity Magazine, Valiant Scribe Literary Journal and elsewhere.

 

If only I could burn the echo to kill the
evidence of sound. I mean, my mother’s

voice over the phone: I was admitted to
the hospital. I didn’t want to tell you.

As if delay would not break me still. As if
it would separate venom from sting, leaving

only the spider’s sharp bore.

I know exactly what she meant, why she
didn’t tell me about the illness. The logic:

look, son, I am alive. Do not worry about me.

But I am stubborn in my compassion, so, of
course, I worried. Feverish all week, I was

burdened by the gravity of powerlessness.
It would weigh my bruised heart, and then

outweigh it.

Despite all of its glory, the body’s ability will,
in the end, fail us. Accepting this truth may

or may not make a difference.

In times like these, the truth troubles me.
I have no agency to deliver the people I love.

My volition ends with the body’s limit.

I, physician of nothing. No antidote to erase
the wound. If I could, I would

erase the phone call, peel back
my mother’s voice reporting her illness,

peel back the illness till it forgets her body,
origami the wound for its paper-boat escape.

Indeed, I could build a house
full of conditions. But in the end, everything

crumbles to the reality of the body.
Look at my hands: hands.

No alchemy in the veins to repair. No blood
pure enough to wash clean affliction.

Lead me to a river that cleanses every plague.
A sea to reanimate the cell’s grey wilt.

Where are you?

O river. O saint of water.
Blue latitude. Wet miracle.

 

Samuel A. Adeyemi is a writer and editor from Nigeria. A Best of the Net Nominee and Pushcart Nominee, he is the winner of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2021. His chapbook, Rose Ash, was selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the New-Generation African Poets chapbook box set, 2023. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Palette Poetry, Frontier Poetry, 580 Split, Strange Horizons, Chestnut Review, Agbowo, Isele Magazine, Brittle Paper, Jalada, and elsewhere.

I took the clippers to my head
And let them buzz a lullaby
As they slowly devoured the costume I donned
Before the advent of my memory.
My entire life, I wandered through
A world that wasn’t mine,
Not knowing the possibilities beyond
Venus and Mars,
Afraid to peer into the vast expanse of space,
Assuming that nothing but frigid, lonely death
Could await beyond the horizon.

Now I watched lines of keratin fall upon tiled floor
And tangle together in a lifeless pile.
Tiny prickles stung my neck
In a final act of vengeance,
While others hid in the fibers of my sweater
To haunt me another day.
Such tiny remnants rarely tend
To be broomed away without battle.

At last, my head lighter,
I embraced the dizziness of freedom,
Staring at fragments of the lie
I never knew that I was telling.
I emerged from my bathroom
As the thunderous echo
Of what had been pushed down,
With truth on my tongue
And air in my lungs,
No longer strangled by ropes hanging
From my own scalp.

As my fingertips ran across bristles
Soft and alive as springtime moss,
I settled into my unbounded body and
Welcomed myself home.

 

 

Maddie Kerr is a twenty-one-year-old sociology student at Northwestern University. Previously unpublished, they have recently returned to their childhood past time of poetry to distract themselves from the looming reality of adulthood. When they aren’t studying, they are most likely staring off into Lake Michigan.

Peas in a pod
are accustomed
to company, but

I am not

a pea. When I think
of allowing life to grow
within

hesitation blooms
overthinking ensues.

Not because I cannot
nurture,

but i wonder
if it might be
against my nature
to house anything
besides myself.

My walls feel too thin
I do not want to risk
them caving in.

It’s the invasiveness; for me

to share my body with an other.
Something that becomes someone else.

Another.

I cower
at the vulnerability
of the act.

A power
only my body
can exact.

Then I think,
that another me

is a White Man’s worst nightmare
if I so choose,

and I grin.

 

Kamilah Mercedes Valentín Diaz is a chronic overthinker and the author of Moriviví: To Have Died yet Lived, her debut poetry collection with Alegría Publishing, containing bilingual poetry. Originally from Puerto Rico, Kamilah has tons of experience with change, but during the pandemic she was forced to sit still. With so much time to spare and her mental health circling the drain Kamilah found refuge in writing. Her family, sheer stubbornness, therapy, and writing journey helped her come back to life. If you want to keep up with her and explore more of her work, you can follow her on Instagram @kams_conchispas.

The birds seem to sing the most haunting song at morning’s break
When the sun has broken on the day of burial,
When moonlight succumbs to daily repose
And life becomes awashed in solar resplendence.

When the sun has broken on the day of burial,
When the women have wailed and washed the body
And life becomes awashed in solar resplendence.
When the earth is broken and torn by darkened eyes.

When the women have wailed and washed the body
Eyes no longer descend on suffering
And life becomes awashed in solar resplendence.
Then men prostrate and utter ‘from Allah we come and must return’.

Eyes no longer descend on suffering
When sand begins to darken the burial shroud
Then men prostrate and utter ‘from Allah we come and must return’.
It is only when the ground is filled that we speak words unspoken.

 

 

A.R. Arthur (formerly A.R. Salandy) is a Black Mixed-race poet & writer who has spent most of his life in Kuwait jostling between the UK & America. Anthony’s work has been published over 240 times internationally. Anthony’s Flash Fiction was shortlisted and received an honourable mention in the 2022 The Dillydoun Flash Fiction Prize Competition. Anthony has 3 published chapbooks titled ‘The Great Northern Journey’ 2020 (Lazy Adventurer Publishing) & ‘Vultures’ 2021 (Roaring Junior Press) as well as a novel ‘The Sands of Change’ 2021 (Alien Buddha Press). Anthony’s Chapbook ‘Half Bred’ was the Winner of the 2021 ‘The Poetry Question’ Chapbook contest. Anthony is the EIC of Fahmidan Journal/Publishing & Co, Review Editor at Full House Literary & Poetry Editor at Chestnut Review. Twitter/Instagram: @ararthurwriter  https://ararthurwriter.wordpress.com/