Articles

Divorce is plastered in red on the outside wall as an advertisement. As an enticement. Sort of like, come and get your divorce today! Usually, when I think about separation it is that of the oil and buttered peanuts or that of the father and child. Such rules made to be broken for the sake …

Shifting—singing—silting: the poems in Continental Drift form a landscape that cradles us all. Mai-Linh Hong’s debut collection (Trio House Press, 2026), winner of the 2025 Trio Award, shows extraordinary tenderness as it imagines pasts, presents, and futures of its subjects. War refugees and forced migrants board boats and find new shores, asking, “Can you say …

fermented drip clingthroat pigeons freckle a tidy sky hearty spread peacock tail duck a lasso suck a hummmmmmmm flamingos shimmer abattoir pink curdlediron stainplay (there must be a lesson here) bushel of lemon yellow thrashers milkstain sweet summer syrup slurp beach sticky with corvids downtown atlanta speckled in seagulls fermentedcare clingcut a hummingbird ducks a …

The hose spat once, then died.I carried buckets to the thirsty ones, Umma’s tomatoes hanging tired on their stakes. Her mint curled in its pot.At dawn, as porch lights slept, I shoveled handfuls of earth until worms surfaced, folded them into fresh soil like secrets. A bee landed on my wrist, stayed. I let it.The …

The submission window opens—Diaspora Issue.Mango framed like a moon, perfect bruise marbling the center.Two tabs glow; one for guidelines, one for their subtext.I hold the cursor over Withdraw the way I hover at crosswalks.The form asks demographics, then stars the line when I skip it.Sir, the special? I nod at the polite waiter. The special.Last …

Dear Reader,There is a version of this letter where I open with a metaphor. Something about fruit. Symbolic. It would be a reference to the new year and how hard it already is. A sliver of grace to ease us into this message before I must say the unsayable. I tried very hard to write …

Killinger’s farm is gone. Only the silo’s headhouse remains above water.   The Atlantic refuses to rescind. Hurricanes in February. Killinger can climb no higher in the silo, but the water will. A community formed on Katahdin – the rescue boats begged him. The water will lower. He stayed. The makeshift living space atop the silo had …

Winner of the 2025 49th Parallel Award in Poetry Forget dull facts of shovel, pail, pump,and sail. Instead, shed curl and skin-scalelike gecko in every sweat-rimmed linen. Leavetraces, knowing the body has already gonemissing. Forget the necking up on Tantalus,no more idling cars or privacy in grovesthat decompose to other kinds of shelter. Forgetslick treasure-trove …

“She’s a beaut, ain’t she?”  Evette knew the old nurse didn’t expect a response, but she nodded dutifully, readjusting her hand underneath the curls tickling her palm. The infant’s puckered mouth latched at her breast. Sooty, round eyes looked straight up at hers. How could Evette not get lost in them? They didn’t loll around …

            pleased to see you in my dream last night on a                                     bike in the center of a dim kansas street             to see your gray hair hitting your shoulders and your                                     arms old and muscled in a tanktop, sunspotted             i will do my best to get out in that sun for …