Issue 5, Autumn 2021
Poetry
Oath of Assimilation | Soo Yeon Chun
I hereby declare 1
that three years ago, I was born again,
as a mellow-skinned immigrant
with slit eyes and twisted tongue.
At the airport, I hugged my mother—
“I believe you,” she beamed,
her words soaking my bones
like the permanent smell of kimchi.
Summer Elegy II | Todd Robinson
Nebraska’s bare branches
paw at skies full of pointless
blue, mercurial daymoon.
Powerless like me
or my disabled wife
wobbling our broken
palace in cashmere
and bracken. She wants
Another April | Katherine Kubarski
Today I end the long cocoon-ment, drop the burlap
itch and scratch for a pink puffer jacket.
Remember how pretty feels.
Novel to be with a man I hardly know, to walk on April snow,
just inches above the hard ground, to talk nothing deeper
than winter’s last covering.
Truth at the Delicatessen | Brian Yapko
An hour after I told them they tried
to pretend everything was normal.
We went to Canter’s, three bagels,
cream cheese, lox, apricot danish.
Their grim faces stared into their
coffees as if the future could be
written in the pale swirls of cream or
the sugar spilled from its envelope
Other Good Stuff…
