By Becca Liu Where evening meets a shell-shocked lover is a distortion of light on water. The shell-mottled sidelines are a construct of winter, contouring a melody nestled in return. We hear the clip of persistence, pearly presence of this gargling world. Gulls plummet in circles and low clouds swagger in. I carve the beach to bring you to water, to forge you a one-winged bird in shallower pits. In the low country, winters are not enough. Heaving seabeds dry to salt. Slowly you peel the skins off a grapefruit, fingers clinging to the cottony pith.

by Ladan Osman That Which Scatters and Breaks Apart Everywhere they turn, the walls ask, why, why not. From every space someone calls a question and there echoes so many answers, it’s impossible to hear. Save me, he calls. Open me, she calls. Divorce me. Their despair is a bird in an abandoned nest, its brother has jumped out and died, its sister is dying beside it and still it perches: Do I fly? Can I fly? You’re here because you said, I hate you instead of, I’m sorry. You’re here because you couldn’t forgive but kept on making stews and hand-washing his good socks, blowing curses into hot water. “Knives All Over”, 2013 by Alison Kuo. Digital Photograph Trouble I have a chill in my womb. I have a child in my wound. Everything is massed up. The sea doesn’t blow. The wind rivers the sea in the wrong direction. How will I get along with this man wolfing me? How will I get alone? He herd me. It never bordered me before, what I got as a regard. We used the hardest language. We cast threats. We’ll born in hell. Some of us fall by the waistside and... Read More