Each year the bones of my ancestors / turn more brittle and gray. / I think how so many must be buried / in the shade of cedar trees. Others, in reeds by the Nile.
—Yasmin Mariam Kloth

Abate. Treat me. Adorn me, / lightly: salt, crimson, /
a quarter of the sky
—Anna Lena Phillips Bell

at what point do I stop looking back / wishing I’d known better?
—Eli Karren

When the interviewer asks if there is any other place you can go, you’ll say no while biting down the excuses your godmother made up for not taking you in.
—Rose Banks

what has our tongue? / what has our tongue that this river don’t?
—Henry Goldkamp