No More Cake Here by Natalie Diaz When my brother diedI worried there wasn’t enough timeto deliver the one hundred invitationsI’d scribbled while on the phone with the mortuary:Because of the short notice no need to rsvp.Unfortunately the firemen couldn’t come.(I had hoped they’d give free rides on the truck.)They did agree to drive by …

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excerpt from The Body in August by Robin Coste Lewis … I believe in that road that is infinite and black and goes on blindly forever. Ibelieve crocodiles swallow rocks to help them digest crab. Because up untilthe twentieth century, people could still die from sensation. And becausemy hunger is so deep, I am ashamed …

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My Father in English by Richard Blanco First half of his life lived in Spanish: the long syntaxof las montañas that lined his village, the rhymeof sol with his soul–a Cuban alma–that swayedwith las palmas, the sharp rhythm of his machetecutting through caña, the syllables of his canariosthat sung into la brisa of the island …

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Love letter by Donika Kelly I wake each morning.And am disappointed in the waking. In the evening, in the hours before sleep,I drag canyons into my forearms, dredge the little tributaries of mud and fish.These pits and hollows make a mess of everything they touch. I am feeling, spoolingaway from what holds muscle to bone. …

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The Swimmer by Christina Hutchins Underwater I became a girlwith a young man’s ripe backthe muscles curledaround definite bones But what you saw from above–a blue-green daemon fraught with ripplenone of my lines a line–  I was brokenshuffled     yet I moved whole It is me again     at the far sidesurfacing     my face and shouldersreassembled     solidity of …

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