Cross to Bear–Poems by Afieya Kipp

Afieya Kipp poet
mon objet
I do not want to rinse you off me. I do not want to go. This war in me speaks loudest at night—as if all at once, 
the yin tide, pink, lush, and like a lather—your love salve—I take in with the largest mouthfuls from the most
beautiful silver spoon…As it turns out, once my organs are satiated from the swell brought of the raw honey well,
everything shifts into perspective                  where white wine has clotted to a bubble at the bottom of glasses 
where sunlight turns half your body to gold, begging to be licked

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A Poem to Multiple Men–Poems by Caitlin Scarano

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by Caitlin Scarano

A Poem to Multiple Men

Who made and mended my wrists
of wire. Copper conductors of heat
and electricity. Think of the synaptic
dance, jaw loose daze as you bend
me over and peer inside. I keep you
around to witness the holes in me
I can never see. In the morning we part
wordless, mired mouths, semen on my chest,
the sun rapping against my window
like a chipper neighbor in need of sugar.
I learned the price of loving
a place more than a person: that’s how
I lost one. Were we ever happy? I wrote
and then stomped through each creekbed
between our bodies with kneehigh
galoshes. Most days I take a girl
for a mask. I hide my teeth behind
my hair and pretend to love snow. Give me
the boy with the belly of an ox, give me
one like a child’s tower of blocks
that I can knock down and rebuild
until the game tires of us. I hope you find
someone who loves you. I was never the girl
next door, I was the one cackling beneath
the radiator, bruising herself behind
the eyes. Chasing the moonsure,
the white dog, the man who left me
with a tongue of coal dust.
He’s really no different than the boy
I made into jigsaw and kissed in the rain
until one of us bled.

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Roses Too Bloom–Poems by Emma Erickson

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by Emma Erickson

 

roses too bloom

I hear     babies grow
I hope mine doesn’t

I’d keep  my truth  warm
but  in the shade      dark
maybe purple it reminds
me of coloring when you
wipe your dripping nose
with your wrist and leave
it shining in crooked light
where did  the   clouds  go
here    in between yellows

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