Poetry

Bellingham Review is so excited to share with you a folio of poetry that emerged from the 50th Association for Ethnic Studies Conference at California State University, Los Angeles, in 2022. This poetry folio on home, nourishment, and community features the creative work of Shayda Kafai, María I. Morales-Sánchez, Nicole Leopardo, and Pau Abustan. Poetry …

The podcast host asks “When did you realize you’re queer?” but no age counts the same knuckles, wrinkles and twinks, ear and armpit hairs, orthopedic aches the real daddy, time kudzuing reason, premature efforts to fit in and feel good when feeling different is always the first queer feeling. “What was the thing that made …

Hanggang Sa Muli We see our dead everywhere. A butterfly, a bat—Lola? Dad? Is that you? Just today, I saw my father in the long finger of an okra, overgrown past peak deliciousness. It waggled at me— naku, not even good for deep-frying!— and reminded: tingnan mo! Always look close at your garden, at your …

Snowfield I was in the brightness of day that lives beyond the fir trees, I walked on fields and mountains of light — I crossed dead lakes — the captive waves whispered a secret song to me — I passed over white banks, called the dormant gentians by name — I dreamed in the snow …

a canoe no I am on a canoe paddling in water so deep I lose my reflection I am paddling no I quit paddling I lay my paddle in the water watch it float like a flat canoe I am surprised not everything sinks I stand up and the canoe shakes it would be easy …

Every dead child comes back. The cities crowd out from north to south. Blink and they’re fine, blink again and they look exactly how we left them under the water, under the earth, bound and destroyed. The ones burned look fine, except when you squint and they resemble walking ash in the form of a …

On a bus in Chile, I lose my grandmother’s bursztyn ring, its amber from the Bałtyk shores. In memory’s temporal house a woman walks her cows out to where the river meets the sea. The river acquires density. Saltwater lets itself be pressed down. Wind blows directly into our kissing. Spares us sand but not …

i Learn to inhabit your body, try—tai chi, yoga, meditation—anything that trains you to move beyond fear, to stitch together mind-body connections. ii Begin with small items: drum stick, wooden spoon, candle. With these you must dismantle the gag reflex, learn to tuck in your chin, align your mouth and esophagus with your spine. iii …

Before I go to bed I wash my face in the basin called Los Angeles County, upside-down jellyfish, lotus, splash of luminescence. Jupiter smudges the telescope lens with a greasy thumb. A satellite flares out over San Gabriel’s mountains. I weigh 35lbs. on the moon. When I wake up January has swung shut like an …

Imagine your hand. Imagine your hand is a horse. A coal black Friesian drinking sunlight from a stream beginning mountain leaps alongside fiddleneck ferns and boggy rush seeps. Imagine the mountains held in place by the hands of glaciers. Imagine the horse drinking from the glacier melting. Imagine the glacier drinking from the sun. The …