October 2024
In this issue
Contents
Drones
He watches it drop silently into the trench between the soldier’s legs. Yuri clenches, as if the grenade has dropped into his own lap. The Russian soldier scrambles to rise up as the grenade explodes. Yuri stubs out his cigarette in
Epitaph
We found a middle-aged couple standing statue-like next to a new grave, a garish sign on the stonework reading Ghulam & Sons. I remember finding that interesting—a Muslim name in a Christian cemetery. Niharika said something about how sad the
Dragon boy
I get hungry, so I swim close to the surface. When fish are together, turning in tight patterns for no reason other than to be social, it’s called shoaling. Birds I have seen, when I lived on land, do the same
The Lasts of Her
A high-pitched staccato called out from the street behind, hawking kitchenware. Streets dotted with Durga puja pandals were in various stages of being undone. A few feet away, my mother’s rounded frame bent over a fruit cart, busy trying out little
Perennial Daughter
My mother’s kitchen counters are forever scented by lemons she juiced
Two Poems by Noreia Rain
it’s because i have time now, in these stolen hours in which tree shadows stretch across the windows and outside, and the air is just starting to drape itself in cold and to exhale its fog into the golden streetlamp glow.
Ark
All vessels have names, even a container ship whose utilitarian appearance does not elicit poetry. Ever Given. Blood oranges, mahogany, lemons,
What it feels like to wake up and be gay for the first time in your life but also like the way you were supposed to wake up the whole time
There used to be a snag. It was in the chest and like a ponytail caught
The Tricks Witches Play
You fattened the pigs in your stye with acorns and beech mast, And with a wave of your wand, you transformed them into men.
Hyphen Log
question mark-comma-hyphen marks punctuated by division upon division a leaving-behind
Fanny Appleton Longfellow Predicts Her own Death
Lo! Were I a woman bottled and kept, written of as battles bloodied and blessed.