Category Archives: Poetry

If I Were to Taste You Again

by Tara A. Elliott

It would be all almonds, the sweet, cocooned belly
of the melon, berries rupturing black against my tongue. Continue reading

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Young Marriage

by Andrew Payton

In our first apartment, above the small
plaza where schoolchildren rehearse
their patriotism, and a fruit seller scatters
pigeons with her knife’s wooden butt Continue reading

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The Hawaiian Alphabet

by Colleen Kam Siu

Hapa is a Hawaiian word
that means part,
but more recently, half.

In 1870, Hapa
meant part-Hawaiian
and part-Chinese laborer;
the latter imported
for their bitter strength, eager
to escape broken promises
in Kwangtung,
not yet knowing
that’s the material
that makes a man
who calls himself Master.

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A Heart (In)Action

by Kalehua Kim

Today someone sings about a broken heart.
Tomorrow I could sing about a broken heart.

The song on the radio can’t tear me like tissue
the way your grunts and groans shred my heart. Continue reading

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Aubade with Shooting Star

by Shei Sanchez

Darkness on route 144. The hour before dawn still
folded in the failing moonlight. November air

hangs dewed, wanting. My only source of light
caged in the eyes of my car, searching

for the right of way. Brightened for whitetails,
possums, refuge. Groping for tread and mettle. Continue reading

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