POETRY

LEMONS AND JUSTICE by TAZ HANCOCK (Hong Kong)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

I believe in lemons,

plucked with fissured hands

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MILWAUKEE by ADDISON RAHMLOW (United States)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

A pulse dwells in these glass towers, beating, breathing,

slates of transparency basking in clean air, clear air.

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MEN WAITING FOR A TRAIN by LOIS BELOVED (Australia)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

At first they stand, orphaned, like a line of birds,

First on one foot, then the other, in unison

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DON'T TRY TO BE BLACK ATLAS by CARISSA CEASOR (United States)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

Shirk your sense of responsibility.

Leave your guilt at the door of progress.

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MY WORDS ARE NOT MINE ALONE by AKSHITHA UPADYAYULA (India)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

My words can provide a sense of comfort, a feeling of being understood, a thought, an awakening, an escape, a reason to fight back.

MATHEMATICS: TRY AND CALCULATE ME by NAZEEFA AHMED (Canada)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

you look at me and see someone to solve, to prove, to sketch, and

you try to classify my incongruities

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HOMESICKNESS by YASMINE BOLDEN (United States)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

You have never known those shores or those people or those

words that sound like a memory your heart can retell

but your mind cannot.

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RED AND GOLD by VIVIAN ZHI (Canada)

Issue 2.3 December 2020

I am from the streets of Chinatown,

Where in a small apartment south of Dundas and west of Spadina,

A Chinese couple is raising their newborn son.

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YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FROM ALABAMA by LEE GAINES

(United States)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

you cannot escape the South.

you may leave it, but it never leaves you.

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DON'T YOU SWAT AT A FLY by ARIA MALLARE (United States)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

Don't you swat at a fly.

Don't you mindlessly shoot that harmless creature to the ground,

And don't you carelessly sweep its soul into the trash.

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HIMALAYAS IN JALANDHAR by NEERAJA KUMAR (India)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

On top of us all loomed a shadow

veiled 30 years ago, my grandmother says.

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WHEN NOBODY'S LOOKING by MARIANA SANTIBAÑEZ (Mexico)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

Spring shoots out of a flock of robins,

even when nobody's looking.

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MY PARENTS CONSIDER WHAT THEY'LL DO WITH THEIR REMAINS by OTTAVIA PALUCH(Canada)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

We're just ash and dirt.

Whatever wasn't wished upon a star.

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CHANGE by LYAT MELESE (United States)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

Change is unexpected.

Like the day I was told we were moving to America.

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7 BILLION PEOPLE by LIORA SCOP (South Africa)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

The world is silent in anticipation

the rivers have returned

the water lulls peacefully in wait.

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SPOKEN by HANNAH LING (Malaysia)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

I believe words are awake,

with agency to take on a new life

of their own after our lips give them birth.

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STARS AND CEREAL by ANNA O'CONNOR (Ireland)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

I do not see the stars from where I stand

but I know they are there.

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THE ARMOURY by AMALIA COSTA (United Kingdom)

Issue 2.2 August 2020

We come in droves, frothing at the mouth and baying for blood.

Our enemy invisible, stretched across the world like the taut skin of a drum,

A global shroud signalling the newest apocalypse.

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A MEXICAN TWIN / GEMELO MEXICANO by ASHTON PERFECTO (United States)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

I am an American boy

with a Mexican twin

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WALTZ ANOTHER NIGHT AWAY by AIKA ADAMSON (United States)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

The night comes with a special kind of softness,

where the music swells and carries itself through the hall

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CANBERRA OCEAN by ENLING LIAO (Australia)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

Suddenly—thirty-two nights without seeing a star

Bright shining, good luck, good luck for me.

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DISLOCATE by KATE GARDNER (United States)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

And the sea has many teeth, far more than I. But if we are one

then I have all the same teeth as the sea, then it has all the same teeth

as I.

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HIM by ARIELLE LINN (Myanmar)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

In the thousand faceless poems I've read

the moon has never been named a “him.”

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INFINITY (COLLAPSED) by CAROLINE DINH (United States)

Issue 2.1 April 2020

Sometimes I like to collapse infinity

into a single point in time I label “now.”

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RETURN TO MY TREES by ELEANOR LEWIS (Wales)

Issue 1.3 December 2019

i have come back

to the village i swore i would never see again.

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REFUGEE by AFREH SHEKH (India)

Issue 1.3 December 2019

the first missile tears through the skin;

skinning the embers of

a quenched country

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SMALL FAREWELL IN THE HISTORY OF SUMMERS by TING LIN (China)

Issue 1.3 December 2019

I look at you for decades and your words

melt in this subtropical heat.

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INVISIBLE PARKS by MAY ZHENG (United States)

Issue 1.3 December 2019

Air sticks to my skin,

like honey. mosquitos circle my ankles and wrists

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THE FISHER QUEEN by DANIEL SHARPE (Northern Ireland)

Issue 1.2 September 2019

Sweet Erin you lay far from me,

In soils toiled by blight and blood.

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BECAUSE YOU'RE WORTH IT by KIANA JACKSON (Australia)

Issue 1.2 September 2019

Your deplorable, horrible, despicable, ignorable.

You reiterate, evaluate, desiccate, and exacerbate.

Can’t you accept the way you look?

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WOOD AND WATER by ENLING LIAO (Australia)

Issue 1.2 September 2019

Late afternoon.

I never knew a whisper, soft and sweet, could sing

In tranquil lapse.

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SWALLOWS by ROSIE JONES (United Kingdom)

Issue 1.1 April 2019

A poem is when a scattering of swallows suddenly form a perfect v.

A poem is the angle which makes dew on a rose petal look like diamonds.

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PEOPLE PLACES by SAMANTHA WAGNER (United States)

Issue 1.1 April 2019

I believe in

People Places,

A Place for every Person to

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HEARTBEATS by MAI MCGAW (United States)

Issue 1.1 April 2019

On a frosty October morning, I walk to a field

And lie flat on my back in the dewy grass.

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BREAKING THE SILENCE by BRITNEY PHAM (Australia)

Issue 1.1 April 2019

The silence can be eerie

Dark, damp and cold