Category: poetry

Little Sparrow, Baby Mole (The MoMo Twins)   |   Carey Salerno

Listen as Carey reads from her poem…

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Uncountable  |  Marina Cooper

twenty-one desks, three windows, one flag,
you call down the roster, stumbling,
slaughtering syllables and wincing in shame, you
count the children: they chorus present.

a student holds her soul up to the window then stuffs it
back in the heel of her shoe. she approaches your desk
to throw out her gum, and asks,
why are you even here?

the children are monstrous, their dreams spilling forth
like wounds, bubbling, too big for their chairs.
you recheck your roster, then check it again:
all boys in the class are named Jake.

a trio of wraiths congregates by the pencil sharpener,
tendrils curling towards the hallway light.
they reminisce about the days of duck and cover;
you wonder if you should call the office.

count the children – someone’s missing.
(are you sure?)
count again.

one of the Jakes, in a basketball hoodie, is sitting on the ceiling.
come down, you say, but he pulls the drawstrings tight until
the hood closes over his face, faceless
he scuttles into the corner.

you would not begrudge him his freedom, except,
in case of emergency you better know
where all the kids went. and yet! he’s reached heights
that his parents could never have dreamed.

a Jake with the tail of a fox asks if he can roam the hall.
you tell him to fill out a pass, but as his fingers
reach for his phone, he blinks and it falls
right
through.

you shrug, and check the wall clock which is tick-ticking
backwards. the wraiths in the corner giggle while a girl
whose name you think starts with a k asks if 47
(the president) will be on the test.

foxtail Jake is missing.
you go to the door but the shade is pulled, handle stuck,
all locked down like a ballpoint pen at the bank teller’s window.
the PA system yells, be very afraid.

Jake with the roses sprouting out of his ears
asks how much longer you all have to stand
in silence while waiting for the all clear and you say,
what? and check your phone, but the battery’s dead.

the Jake you recognize from sixth period english,
(the class you used to teach last year)
begins to cry, silently, over the wet lump of clay on the table
that he’s shaped into a prayer.

he tells you he wants to go home.

you tell him it’s just 90 more minutes
but he’s already down on the floor,
digging at the tiles, hands sinking through linoleum
as soft as fresh dirt, and he

digs and digs until there’s a hole,
yawning, open, and he crawls inside
and lies down,
eyes closed.

the clay on the table gets up and walks away.

you call the main office for help, and they tell you
the Jake you know isn’t on your roster;
the secretary says to count the children, then offers a list
of names but it’s long – greater than all the kids in your room,
so long that she’s going and going, she’ll name every ghost
since Jefferson County but then you hang up.
still, her voice echoes. you
count the children
and turn on the lights
and see them massed beneath the evil eye
(read: small paper stop-sign)
and Jake in the basketball hoodie has come down from the ceiling,
standing solemn with the rest of his class,
and your voice shakes as you
count the children
and the lights flicker and then
the bell
finally
rings.

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Trauma is a Lullaby in Igbo  |  Nwodo Chukwu Divine

~ Between 1967 and 1970, over 2 million Igbos were killed in the Nigeria civil war

The bombs tore through nnem oche
leaving her son, daughters scattered
one, my mother,
who lingers near me now
like the murmur of the forest
Igbo spirits come like afterlife ebony
i feel them watch me by the fire
singing to my ears in the voice of nkita
reminding me of the stories
of how to mend a tear in my wrapper
of the brutality
of lost memories
stories fit for honoring the fallen

                                    nnem oche stays with us

War’s refugees sing only of hunger in a minor key,
they search for solace in the ruins of dreams
Fragments of lives shattered,
Yearning for a rest swallowed by bombs

                                    nne nnem oche shielded us with her weathered hands

gave my uncle a smile stretched thin
saved my mother from the vultures circling
taught her the igbo way. the way etched in the map of starvation
though stories are all i have inherited,
never felt the sun on ancestral soil,
only the sting of displacement.
Yet, survival is the greatest birthright,
passed down like heirlooms bought with blood.
And i know i’m theirs for in my blood,
the current of their relentless river runs deep

In nna’s diary,
Aunty Nneamaka hides in the bushes
escaping soldiers searching for young girls
finding refugees
Aunty Adaora, a scar on the right side of her face,
grieves for a life stolen for a table adorned with sorrow
though gone, we gather each evening,
seeking rest in the charred remains
I see Uncle Chigozie, the cracks in his smiles,
there are others whose names rustle in the woods,
some woven in the smoke
Chioma, Uzoama, Ebele, and Nkiru,
their brother, Chibuzo,
Ogochukwu, Nneka, Ndidi, and Kelechi,
spirits watchful upon my sleep,
Shards of a shattered whole,
before the exodus, before the silence.
papa tells me trauma is a lullaby in igbo
i braid palm fronds singing this lullaby
of a people who loved their land
And fought for their people

Words in italics are in the Igbo language.

* nne nnem oche – Great Grandmother
* nnem oche – Grandmother
* nna – father

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Asset Management | Karissa Ho

So I was never naive enough—
On floor 11 clouds smeared
by, chalky, loomed—I watched
pale men move through glass
walls from a block away—It was
so cold I got hungry, then sick—
Copper phlegm—A building
reflected in another, resembling
mud—Improbably, trees ruffed
out under Whole Foods and up
from the roof of a gym—People
walked without anger or deceit
or perception of my own regret—
Crusting brick towers stacked
closely—Later, offices and more
offices hid, insubstantial, thinly
and unknowing—I only wished
to sleep, to lock the computer
and never open it again—Never
counting myself so lucky as to
want to know what comes next
—It tastes of pennies, and the
empire they built, from losing
and finding and—Losing again.

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