The bubbles of my words amuse him.He pokes them with a forward tentacleas they rise from my mouth. Biggerbubbles for longer words. I can feeland see rather than hear his giggling.See: yes. A tittering of the body,a gelatinous shake which assures mehe still likes me.—from Benjamin S. Grossberg’s “My Octopus Lover Is Easy . . .
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You must be very tallto love the dark. You needsturdy legs and a heartthat struggles just enoughto bring your blood about themand raise it again to your head.You must feel in your chestthe finite days of its function.—from Dan Rosenberg’s “To Love the Dark,” Volume 66, Issue 2 (Summer 2025) Tell us . . .
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I could not bless. I could not bleed.My body was hers from first tolast. To not say bruise or burntand when the neighbor lay medown and unbuttoned me one by one, I did not pray. I did not ask or say.—from Jessica Cuello’s “My Mother’s Daughter,” Volume 65, Issue 3 (Fall 2024) . . .
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Are they pigeons? Fifth floor, other side ofthis giant window I know by heart theircomings/goings, their stayings-put on the still—from “The Pigeons,” Volume 66, Issue 2 (Summer 2025) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote. I wouldn’t call them poems really but as I walked home from St. Eugene’s School . . .
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“That stigma isolated me from the many other gay men who share my experience. What a loss for all of us to be separated by our silence. Over the past four years, my new friend from the dating app helped me to speak in public about my rape, and I realized there . . .
Read MoreA Review of Eighteenth in Line to the Throne by James Tate (Press Brake 2025) Ten years have passed since the death of the poet James Tate, but in that time something remarkable has happened: already there have been two posthumous publications of his work, starting with The Government Lake: Last Poems . . .
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It is cold, our voices carry like storksand the bonfire clashes with the stars.—from “Elegy at an Imminent End,” Volume 66, Issue 1 (Spring 2025) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I think my writing moved from random notebook rants to something more formal during my senior year of . . .
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“There is a time machine in Princeton, New Jersey. I’ve been a patron from time to time. By all accounts, it’s been there since 1865. However, I wouldn’t discover it for some 154 years. To find it, one must make their way to the Princeton Junction railway station, accessible directly via New . . .
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A review of We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth, edited by Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam Bailey The anthology We Are Not Numbers, The Voices of Gaza’s Youth, published by Interlink Books today, is a collection of essays by young Palestinian writers in Gaza, edited by Ahmed Alnaouq and Pam . . .
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What if I were there? That one question is chasing me like the ticking of a clock. Gazans are getting killed in their homes, mosques, churches, streets – even on the beach. Even the cup of coffee, family gatherings, love, and laughter by the waves, all become targeted by Israel in a . . .
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