by Helene Lara

It was hard to forget that warm, damp afternoon in the middle of a monsoon summer.

I inched toward the closet, knowing my destination was to its very far corner, where a box concealed by a ragged-aged blanket lie. I gently removed the old quilt and lifted the cover of the flat-square-box. Its corners frayed from countless openings and closings.

There, neatly folded, was my pink and blue kurti I purchased in India some years ago. The neckline adorned in embroidered gold leaves. The sleeve cuffs matching the same. The bottom hem and side slits decorated with tiny elephants in bronze thread.

I remember when I wore it to my best friend’s puja, a ritual performed to celebrate the purchase of her new house in Mumbai. During the puja, a piece of bronze thread had come loose and twirled through the air before being carried off by a gentle wind. I watched it dance through the marbled gray sky—-knowing my best friend was about to do the same, to dance and whirl around in her brand new home with her new husband.

Through our time together in college, I never thought I’d be saying goodbye and she’d be moving 7,500 miles away from me.

Sometimes, I put on the stylish kurti, play a classic Bollywood tune and dance in my living room with all-the-freedom in the world. Listening to the rhythmic drums weaving between sharp melodic sounds of a lovestruck chanteuse, I tap and twirl my feet. Hips and shoulders zigzag alongside the vibrating beat. Hands stretched out, long and high. I’m swept away to another time.

I feel the hot air of the overcrowded city, the heavy wet smell of sidewalk corridors and street vendors peddling savory treats. Intoxicating scents of cardamom and clove. Mango and chai. Black pepper and licorice. Sandalwood and rain.

I shimmy freely through my living room to remember that day, to remember our friendship, then collapse onto a heap of pillows on a pale blue sofa, before gently putting the floral printed dress back in the box for next time.

by Ellis Grayce Faye

He entered the busy office. He tried to make music of the monotone office sounds. The duh-duh-duh steady rhythm of the printer, the soft crinkling of fresh, white paper, the almost silent scratches of a pen against a legal pad, the tap-tap-tap haphazard melody of the computer keys. But it was all a stretch. The phone rang twice in a distant chord and the lights were too bright.

He walked up to the secretary, who didn’t look like how movies made out secretaires to look. She had sunken skin with deep wrinkles. Her blue eyes were heavy as an old dog who has watched over the barn for too long. Her hair looked like it was made of soft straw, which she put up in a ponytail. He noticed as he got closer that the collar of her shirt was wrinkled.

He waved a timid hello with a wide, toothy smile and she gave him a smile back, her glossy pink lips pushing up her sullen cheeks.

He told her his name and she told him his office was on the left, next to the one with the big window. Her voice was scratchy and calm and it came from the back of her throat.

He thanked her and started to walk to his office, his leather shoes against the tile, adding to the office symphony.

His office neighbor gave him a friendly hello, just as the man in the house next to him smiles when he’s out walking his dog.

The office felt like a suburb; Gray houses with cut off lawns all standing next to each other, stacked like blocks set up by a child obsessed with order.

Except in the office there’s no children running in the streets or dogs barking from windows. Only seeming order and artificial hellos from neighbors.

But he focused on the symphony.

by Evelyn F. Katz

The outraged nip
at words distractors shoot
like rubber bullets into crowds.
The outraged rally
to save confederate statues
but wash away blood mapping
our country’s history.
The outraged chokehold
street peddlers,
Plow into crowds
Detonate teargas bombs
Impose curfews
Retreat to their bunkers
and watch on their flatscreens
as the country burns.

In the Broken

My beauty reveals itself in my broken
skin,

scalpeled and excavated
restitched
sunken
pink.

Under a lover’s wandering finger
the dip of flesh

disfigured.

I let the sun lick
My beauty broken
And when my lover asks,
I tell him
It is my point of light.

Election Day

A man I may already love
Casts his ballot on the other side of town
And I, my body still lingering an hour ahead of itself
Number 8 on line at 5.
We all
Masks in the dark, waiting to cast our right to complain.
Then to Lowes where I buy paint
The man I have never loved right will spread across my walls.
All before 8
When I meet on screen
The man I may already love
My I Voted sticker affixed to my forehead
And his
Still pressed against its back liner
Waiting to see if it all really counted.

by Ellie Musgrave

It is possible to love things about life
even in what feels like a slowly
suffocating cavern of darkness,
even when it might seem like
there are more bad things than good.

It is possible to love a swell of greenery
of my favorite part of the park,
at the perfect pre-sunset time
when the low light seems to catch
the delicate spines of leaves aflame –
this love most abundant among the
places I choose to call home.

It is possible to love a righteously good song
that uplifts even in its kitsch,
sending glorious synth triads and
wickedly good guitar arpeggios,
riffs unlike any before it –
this love, too, is possible, even when
it seems to have left the earth.

It is possible to love
and touch the hearts and souls
of others, even from afar; it is
possible to find love where you
least expect it; it is possible to love
and enjoy a languid or fierce romp
with a lover even in states of
what may feel like crippling grief:
getting stoned and laughing about
Mario Tennis on Nintendo 64, or
reading each other poems after
or before too much wine. It is all love,
it is all possible. It is all yours.

It is possible to love what once was
without letting its loss permeate
the joy of what it had been,
and the joy of getting to
experience it again in
memory. I will never again
play the piano on which I
learned to play, but it does
not detract from the time I
spent playing, learning, loving.

It is possible to love and have love left over,
love for yourself, love for other things
not receiving the glory of your
devotion, today. It is possible to
love all things at once – even that
which you might never stop to pay
attention to; you might never say out
loud, “I love the neon signs on
Flatbush in the rain,” or “I love the
long shadows on Scholes at sunset,”
especially if you’re not
looking at it right then and there –
you can carry that love around
in your subconscious and let it
surprise you when it shows up. “Oh,
I love Laura Dern,” after not having
seen her on your TV or phone
or computer for a while.

It is possible and probable that
humans will never know our boundaries
for love – it is possible that
there is so much to love that no
one person will ever get to it all.

It is possible. All is, in fact, full of love.

by Ellen Bilofsky

I wish I knew how to write a poem.
But why would anyone care?
I wish I knew how to capture an image
That would burn a hole in the air.
I wish I knew how to climb out of this hole.
Now that would be something to share.
I wish I knew how to look forward not back;
One scares me, one soaks me in sorrow.
Somewhere inside I have something to say.
Perhaps I’ll find out what it is tomorrow.

Vines

Make no mistake about it,
When a vine gets a foothold, it’s there for good:
Creeping, sneaking, twisting, spreading.
I planted the morning glory for its rich purple blooms,
Not knowing how it would climb up the cucumbers and take over all,
Sprouting in the squash and smothering the dill.

No matter how times I ran
You followed.
Sometimes crying, sometimes soothing,
Sometimes cleaning up my vomit,
Sometimes with a song.
Using my doubts as pathways to “okay.”
Tentacles of vines of love, of time,
To be peeled off, one by one, as others attached.
How could I foreswear the time we hitched up the coast?
Or our calico cat that fell from the window ledge?

Tearing and ripping and running and tripping.

Sometimes you can’t eradicate a vine.
Sometimes you just have to make up your mind to walk away.

by Elizabeth Haak

The quandary of COVID-19 galls me.
Where are the hotspots now?
From day to day, red dots on the map
shift from place to place so fast
even the experts can’t keep track.
“The data are always two or three weeks old,” said one
“And we have a hard time understanding
the reality is already different.”
When we hit milestone numbers–
(More than one million people have died)
My heart plummets on freefall down an abyss.
Will I ever come up to breathe air without a mask?
Will I ever stoop down to let a child whisper a secret in my ear?
When will I let go of my perplexity:
which anti-virus spray shall I use on what?
did I scrub my hands for 20 seconds?
or just squirt soap and rinse?
The sight of the Covid 19 image
With its diadem of spiky thorns sickens me.
The conundrum of the pandemic escapes the wise.
Only fools have all the answers.

by Deborah Clearman, Workshop Leader

It started with a lockdown
a takedown, a hunker-in.
A line leaping upwise
emptied out the streets
cleared out the skies
rippled birdsong into silence.
Hearts pounded harder, souls dug deeper.
In the eye of the storm eyes glazed over,
screen shot, secrets cracked.

It brought on the pacing,
counting laps, climbing stairs,
counting flights, counting days,
making lists, leaving plans.
Behind the mask the panic, the boredom.
Days turned to weeks, long slog, no destination.
Breathe in, breathe out, listen to the clock tick.
Order in, take out, break the humdrum with a Zoom chat.
This is how it started.

Protest

Helicopters, sirens
No cheer at night
No neighbor waves
When we all should be cheering
Lockdown to end
Together in the fight
Nine Minnesota minutes
No end in sight
Original sin
Stains our soul
A knee on a neck
A knee to bow down
My country is broken
My city in flames
Blue against black
Rage against white
The curse of my skin
Original sin
Where will it end?
Hit the streets! Eat the rich!
I’ll take the first bite
One foot steps forward
Two steps back
Scrawled on a wall
Breathe
Hope

Inbox

I click through the list:
packing our bags
delete
giving up now
delete
screaming
delete
he NEVER saw this one coming
it’s finished OVER
delete
stunning prediction
delete
breaking news
delete
EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION
LOSING IT
delete delete delete.

How can I not be losing it?
numbers are going up
it’s all going to fade away
crowds are burning masks
gathering in the temples
atifa antifa Proud Boys militias
police chief says prepare for violence
winter is coming on.

It’s gotten much worse
delete
this is serious
delete
okay don’t freak out
delete
flashing across my screen
a hundred times a day
politicians shrieking alarms.

This is what is going down
in the halls of power
I turn the radio off
I fold the newspaper up
waiting out this moment.
This is the way democracy dies
this is the way democracy dies
delete delete delete.

by Danie Brawand

Heaven: Queers, unicorns,
Marsha P. Johnson, cats,
sex workers.

Hell: Judgement, shame,
dogma, cat litter.

On dull-drum days, I look for rhythm.
The raindrop’s kiss hits the cheek of a man
passing by. He wipes it
as a child does his mother’s lipstick,
except the bashfulness is replaced
by a furrowed brow in a distant place.
He isn’t here with his hand
or the gentle touch of his mother.

I love to watch the riders wait for the train.
Their modern dance configured
with pacing the platform, circling hands
in conversation, bright lights of phones
setting the stage.

I am not a contemporary man. I want
less for individuality and specificity
than I do for romance.
I’m not a romantic, either – less interested
in the light of heaven, more curious
about the shadow’s relationship to it.

If holy were a name I could call
I would press it upon grief.
Would shower it on the ones that choose
to feel it. I would tend to my curling toes
pulling at nothing but a bit of calm
beneath the fear of speaking.

Holy is the untouched forest
and the wrapper gliding down the street.
Holy is “other”
Holy is together
Holy is no.
Holy is I’ll try it this time
Holy is cleverness and doubt
Holy is no heaven,
no hell.

Passing By

Leaves paint edges of streets,
a soft scatter or voluptuous mound.
Branches laid bare don’t shiver at snow,
hold place as anchor to catch sky’s pirouette.

A mother grips the armchair,
hand clutching, she smells the soot
and looks for her son
beneath the flashes of fire
raging beyond the television.

I remove the armor of honor
and display shifts. A sullen face,
a grin, a heaviness in eyes.

We are the practiced chaos most days –
the sweeping flakes and shifting leaves,
the droplets sliding across a rearview mirror,
acrobats of evolution. Pretending we are
measured, imagining stillness
to avoid knowing the leaves will fray
and become fickle as paper
edged with flame.

I do not care to envy the trunk,
to pretend steady as if it were
more civil. I do not imagine myself anchor,
do not wish to claim mountain is better
without wind and fire,
do not pretend decay isn’t rich
as loose soil held
in the pocket of garden.

Worry will tug at our roots.
A longing for elsewhere,
which is to say – a longing
to stay the same.
But I see just as the ocean,
it will certainly sway.

A Name for Sorrow

I tried to give sorrow a name.
Perhaps it’s a different one for each of us.
Some call it Lou…
they grasp at it
in the empty field of numbness
staring out as it holds steady
in dark night sky. Out of reach,
elusive and still, a visible hope.

A friend named it Constantine:
a weighted blanket
curling over her shoulders,
soft and constant,
slow and heavy.

My father calls it Other,
stares it down with tight-shouldered disdain,
unaware he’s looking into a mirror
at furrowed brow and suspicious heart.

My mother calls it Chipper,
tosses it in her mind
until it’s fragmented.
She’s constantly cleaning
to keep sawdust
from reaching her heart.

My brother calls it Devil.
Sees flame and spits ash
when I bring it close.
He scrubs his hands
with holy water compulsion,
they’re too dry to remember touch.

My people call it Nectar,
transfer it to one-another
knowing it’s part of flower’s bloom.

As an adolescent, I called mine Darling,
kept it tucked beneath my heart.
Little finch with a broken wing,
a tenderness to protect.

I am learning to call it Trust.
Emptiness
makes space for more.

The leafless branch,
a dried up shore,
impermanence seen spacious,
less like Window,
more like Door

by danica pantic

I am well trained to fear. My entire family’s legacy is basically built on fears that they’ve wished to control or squash. They built dreams out of those fears – their greatest accomplishments came out of reacting to a tragedy, which we all knew was coming yet did nothing to prepare ourselves for. Hope was not necessarily encouraged in a culture that had a history of layers of colonial powers laying themselves upon each other over what we now know as the Balkans. That kind of environment trains people to become reactionaries.

I struggle with how to explain any of that to outsiders. The political history is so immensely complicated, most “scholars” shy away from delving into it because it takes too much work to untangle 600 years, 4 empires, 6 religions, 9 ethnicities, and the thousands of political ideologies that swept the region to explain all the violence and chaos that continues to today. The more I learn about both my country’s history, as well as my family’s, the more I see how the two echo – the country’s big turns in fortune and philosophy usually got reflected in my predecessors’ lives. I am I am the last chapter of my family, and I came onto the scene just in time to see Yugoslavia dissolve.

I began this piece by saying that all of my kin have been motivated by fear, and I have no way to prove that. I do have a history, however, of multiple generations in my family who have crafted entire identities out of fighting for one cause or another that was supposedly saving the country from itself, or outside forces. I have photos of my great grandparents in revolutionary militias, and I grew up watching my father and grandfather fight ideologically (in word and action) about the future of the country. On its face, you may argue that they were fighting for their dreams, but in reality each generation would always actively try to undo the previous one’s efforts out of fear that the old guys had just about ruined us all.