GrapefruitOlivia Graner
Grapefruit, bitter misnomer,
sticks between tick and tack of the cracked-up kitchen clock, between porcelain flowers on the edge of my dish, staying stubborn with each second sunk, until some marriage—of late morning cloudlight and a settling honey sheen and the gossamer wasp blown in through the window and the heap of now-april rosemary beyond, proliferating past its bed down to the other earthworms and speed weeds-- softens the begrudging citrus. Sweeter, now, (thank you, time and space) it slowly slips away. |
Photographs by Melissa McKay-Hagan
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Tiny Love Stories
My eighteenth birthday. It’s my last social event before the coronavirus shuts everything down. That afternoon, we’d just learned that school was closing. We probably should have cancelled the party, but my mom let it happen. Instead, she purchased individually-packaged snacks. She made plans for us to wipe down the house afterwards. And when the cake came out, we didn’t put candles in it. To my surprise, my mom passed out candles anyways, one per person. Instead of sharing germs, we shared a flame, touching candle tip to candle tip. Six feet apart, we blow them out together.
Anna Zheng
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Art by Anika Hofmeister
industrial lullaby
Anna Zheng
colicky babies will squall in the heat
of thunderstorms and sunshine so keep them in. yes, keep them in til the lights are dying and i come home then i will soothe their bones in street lamp glow the sidewalk is a tarmac blanket to warm their bellies tucked in sweat against flesh against sweat the hot breeze of passing buses to damp their brow like spirits with mouths that moan thunderstorm exhaust and metallic shrieks slice the corner between astor and gould. the seams rent it all comes undone like the drip of a broken faucet fills this apartment and i cannot hold the pieces together with my arms full of breathing sleep, my child. dream of polyester flowers and climbing to the top of the fire escape no boughs to break no trees to top but i’ll hold you in sore arms and stars still glisten in feverish concrete eyes |
Photographs by Melissa McKay-Hagan
the view from my window.
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