poetry

i do not expect to touch the sky—SapphoIAphrodite,my once-was friend.your gift seems no blessing.you pull bodies togetherunmindful of the priceto be paid.you showed me a world called We:a universe made just for two. andtrusting, i jumped in completely.only to...

           for 奶奶, in the land of steady hands Upstroke, downbeat, the waves fathomtowards the shallow surface of spring—            hiss      lake foam                 of           thin                  rain                     slicked                        ...

"Witches' Butter" (2022), Yazlin Juarez. Courtesy of the author.Yazlin Juarez is a writer and artist from Pico Rivera with a bachelors in literature from UC Santa Cruz. She takes every opportunity to forge spoken word poetry, photography, and design into instruments...

“yellow textile on brown wooden table” (2020), Noah Morgan. Courtesy of Unsplash. Magnolia trees that open their flowerslike doves coming to wingspan. Freshsoup dumplings, hot gelatin runningdown my face before I flick a napkinacross the downpour. Husking...

Lost in the leaves’ swing, I am trying to shake off their green, buttermilk yellow.The refrigerator hums and drums like a whining giant.This house song draws me to her, captured, hanging from a California magnet.Obsidian hair covers her shoulders, melts into her...

When I wake up you are raving about home renovations and Duane Allman and showing me doubling guitars— like how sometimes you walk around strumming the one you built yourself, or play beats you soon forget but I can sing for months. My stomach hurts and I’m tired and...

my spine is curved & looking down on the earth.the other day, a stranger raised my chin up with her  finger, asked the name of my loneliness, & walked meto the end of the road, my hand in hers. before i was  born, i must have wished, with all of mygoodness,...

    My house is furnished with jars of tar and spit they don’t belong to me but take up the empty spaces Leave the TV on after dinner to drown the stillness with canned laughter or politicians on the evening news if the volume is loud enough, then you can...

Days that walk in slippers andbrush baby hairdid not hear fatherstell other tall men I madea mistake withcigarette interruptions her lilac dress suit and purse clickwelcome asphalt and kindergartenwith puppets inherited over hands ofchildren who hadn’t heard I am here...

Mysteries conjugate. Mystery conjugates. What becomes of clarity. In the final remove. Time as time. The past involves itself in the present to what degree? A unitary voice is always manifold, in combination. He is drenched in things his father will never tell him....

Us,romping in the uncut grasseswe gathered across decades.Us, our hands, squeezingthe desperate pigments from four soured walls.Us, singing with daytime vigorand doubts all heaven-bound. Us,and these word-taught lung whispers propping up the big ladder,watching the...

     I remember fondness dirtier. The stark contour, your touch. The things we’ll do bereft of nerves. The light’s hard. The rug burns.   Where would I look for comfort in a body? A lover’s full weight only disappoints me. Damp breath on my mouth....