a falling leaf a leaf fallsin gold, dancesto the earth,crisp, clasps nothing.breeze tender,barbets singgoodbye. grateful to the lightwhich kept her alivethat she may nurture;crush her waythrough the mundane.to give, what a wayto die.   Kamakshi Lekshmanan holds an MA in Wild Writing from the University of Essex. Her memories became…

At the Party You come up to me and speak, lean in close, dark curls and eyes like theirs, the two big girls who stopped me, not to play. My little arms and legs a jumble. Drowning without the water. Some memories leave scars so pale and thin they’re almost invisible. Like little crescent moons. Was it fingers? Was it…

The Cartography of Leaving You learned to bleed in perfect strokes at fourteen—a spider-lily bloomed in the margins, sharpening her red pen."Too much heart," she warned, "ruins the form."(You folded your pulse into origami birds,let them nest in the hollow of your ribs.) Then, a storm in a schoolgirl’s skin—she laughed like wind chimes in monsoon rain,

Molly In defence of Molly Malone Leave Molly alone. What's she ever done to you? What about those songs she sings for you? From the gentlest rippling finger-taps to those glories when there seems to be just one thunderous heartbeat that should be terrifying. And you're not sure why, maybe that's your problem, you're not sure why or how or what…

PLENTY sometimes i gaze out west at the Rockiesi imagine myself going up in the mountainslearning to foragegoing out and finding flowers to brew into meadmushrooms jutting from bark and peeking from under wet leavesthere would be alliums growing just out of sight from the roadssomewhere there would be an abandoned temple finding new life…

i sit with a serbian monk on my flight to amsterdam. he is wearing a black robe with a golden necklace of beads framing the manger scene. The bishop appears to be donning a hat from krispy kreme doughnuts, only it is black and stitched with cotton. we are both on our way to the city of rivers and wooden…

Oysters sun on the pavementkicks skin off a rainstorm.an eagle is doing a platter:six oysters for 22 quid.she shows me the angleto tip up and eat them.they are salty and fresh,like a better class of seawaterthan you get off the docksat clontarf. chrysty loves oysters.her teeth cut soft tissueand come out and bite…

generate when your to-do list starts with enter a synaesthetic flow state and ends with send that email you've been putting off you start to wonder if undulating waves of desire & successful freelancing may be directly opposed if it's even possible to feel all desire as one overwhelming flood while still noticing anything— when your friends start to ask when generative disorder…

Parrotland Apparently the man who first named America had second thoughts about his choice. If he had managed to succeed America might have been called Parrotland. Imagine the alternate universe where the United States are the United States of Parrotland— I’m sure it would be a kinder, better place. Parrotlandians would never commit genocide, never enslave Black Africans. Parrotland Thomas Jefferson…

Bird to Bird After Neruda Muhammed was pensive and withdrawn as a child, my brother’s scars elsewhere. Cocaine use can cause purpura of the face, ears, trunk and extremities. Why don’t they say bruising all over one’s body? The trunk of the car contained: Thirty-three coiled jump ropes with fleur-de-lis painted on their wooden handles. Two cases of Gatorade: Cool Blue and Rain Berry.

Trip into Town Ancient oaks against a cloudless sky, each bright green leaf new to the world; no small dark deaths on the roadside, just rippled grass and yellow flowers, and then, lifting my heart, a bald eagle rides the wind with such easy grace that the alarm I live with feels foolish, wrong, until traffic stops at a light…

HER DECIBELS I cried after computing her decibelsof what must have been a petite thudthat morning, figuring in the time difference for her father on the coast,whom she saw in credits that rolled at…

We Arrive the line for the carwash snakes through the parking lot windows down, blasting music at each other to say we’re still alive over here, how about you a cacophony of exultation, we touch ea…

As teachers, we don’t have the time we’d like to read submissions during the school year, meaning our typical turnaround is 3-6 months. This is a long time to wait for many, so we now offer fast-tr…

We have to make it 5/18/25 It feels like August will wound everyone, that the courts will fold completely, those executions will continue to rise that my thirst will change a third time & the m…

broken summer night when the day’s heat rose to night skywith moon, vain and aloof the tenant somehowknew no phone would ringno door would knock and so she gathered the folds of her long flounceand began dancing in her living roomto bone-crushing rhythmsspinning ’round dispensing red rose petalswith fingers and flailing armsfrom kitchen…

Fighting the Easterly The women tell me about a loyal husbandor brother,​ or sonhe snuck under police taperushed up the back stepsto the sound of wavestimpani on granite blockswind a wild crescendosalt-spray crashing cymbals he reached upbig hands pianissimohefted their treasured millennial tapestryhid it in his garage for themjust in case…

Tablecloth we arrive early at the museum of your lifeand start in the book exhibitionwhere Vera Brittain and George Eliot sitin dust and well-thumbed covers we work mostly in silenceexcept for the occasional‘do you want this?' or ‘mind if I have that?’someone hands out bin bagsbut I collect my treasure in a bag for life…

Dophee finger No magician ever droppeda jaw quite like the timewe saw Richiemake his real thumbdisappearfrom the rest of his fistwith a reciprocatingsaw. For the next decade,he’d hold his hands outas if examining a manicureand say, slight of hand,indeed, then wink. During everybody’s marriageyears, he brought many…

Maggie Smith passed while I was in London last week I saw Lettice and Lovage on the West End in 1988. Maggie was 54. I was 18& I thought she was old. Had never read a Peter Schaffer play. More jazzed aboutPhantom with Sarah Brightman because it hadn’t opened in the US yet.Our professor also required us to see…