Cold Majuro Snow

by Darren Dillman

Enni Bilimon, the last Marshallese survivor of the Castle Bravo nuclear test, steps off the chipped concrete porch and maneuvers around the papaya and pandanus trees and sees the children dancing on the beach of the lagoon, swirling with their arms spread out, mouths open, faces tilted toward the clouds, catching with their tongues the first cold flakes of snow in Majuro’s history, spinning and hopping on little black and brown feet and yelping and hollering with the boys shirtless and the girls wearing floral-patterned homemade dresses called guams and dancing because, to them, the snow is something to celebrate. Continue reading

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The Singer

by Sean Eaton

—after Barbara’s “La Solitude”

You think your new hat’ll hide your blowsy attitude,
the dusk that haunts your eyes at noon, at parties.
It’s true that I’m tired, yet you follow like a faithful hound,
my solitude, my soiled clothes, my odd stench, my bare soul. Continue reading

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rodeo reprieve

by Collette Grace

My mother’s nightgowns are thick, heavy to the touch, swamping me when she leans down to kiss me goodnight. Well-loved fabric built to last the abuse of a thousand bedtimes, coated in the ghosts of her grandmother’s perfumes. Continue reading

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Where You Said

by J.M.C. Kane

My aunt Dorothy had Alzheimer’s. My mother Phyllis took charge of her care. This was not discussed. It was simply what happened. Continue reading

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Language

by Aref Moalemi

Between the deaf and the mute
silence speaks in sign language—
maybe the last living tongue
left
if they don’t cut off their hands. Continue reading

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Filed under Poetry