“I’m in the call room at the Suicide Prevention Center (SPC) when the phone rings. I hate it when the phone rings. I’ve never had a three-hour shift when it didn’t ring, but sometimes there are long stretches of silence. I pray for those long stretches of silence.”—from Janis Bultman’s “Suicide Prevention,” . . .
Read More@josephbrodsky puts on a snuggly tune,tweets a few words: “December. Like counting spoonsin the sideboard after a guest is gone.”Grins on rereading:this is the perfect tone. Gets up, goes to the window, looks out. It strikeshim that the day, still young, has grown dusky. Likea snowflake that—having lived a second in flight,fragile, . . .
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“I have collected words for air in languages I know and want to know. Hawa, air, wind, foo, aire, breeze . . . I say the words consciously—to note how my mouth and its insides behave as I pronounce them. It opens, to let air in and out. Every morning I open . . .
Read More“At my apartment complex’s scarf sale, I tried to give away my last boyfriend. But E was such a beautiful and soft red scarf. He smelled like pumpkin spice. A pumpkin spice–smelling scarf is too unique to give away. I didn’t want some other person enjoying the spices of my labor. So . . .
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I expect you would be surprised that your death affected me so much that I spoke at two services for you, that I am writing about you now. We were friends, but we had not stayed in touch. So, it surprises me too. But you were a friend to me during a . . .
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Ever since my mother stopped reading my poemsI have searched for death in the eyes of my friendsAs if I had been lodged in a fableThat insulates me from dying suddenly, and without reckoning.—Translated from Rana al-Tonsi’s “27,” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025) Tell us about one of the first pieces . . .
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She became a lactation consultant, perhaps to help people like me, whose babies shrieked when breastfed as though the milk were poison, and then she became a Lamaze instructor, perhaps to help people like me, whose birth plans were ripped apart by malpositioned babies and maternal exhaustion.—from “What We Weren’t Expecting,” Volume . . .
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White wall. Poor connection. Bags under his eyes. Broad shoulders that stretch his T-shirt. Get a bigger T-shirt. Speak louder. Speak less. The swell of his bottom lip. The way he shortens my name. White wall. Brown bedpost. Handcuffs. Necktie. Fuck. Something. Something.—from “Spring Roll,” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025) Tell . . .
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Duh sky was heavy wit smoke, wails& choppers whirrin’—searchlightstrained on civilians. Sounds of warclawed duh windows, tried to crawlunduh’ duh do’ways too, ’bout did’til yo granmama got to sangin’.—from “Grandpa’s Detroit #2 (The 1968 Riot),” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I still . . .
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Bertram Bracht’s luck changed for the better exactly twenty-four hours and ten minutes before the American immigration authorities boarded the good ship Betrüger to decide which passengers would be admitted to the United States and which sent back to their perilous homelands. His fortunes until then had been dismal, an endless series of fears . . .
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