Morning Worship – Grant Shimmin
Huddled, in the freezing pre-dawnaround a battery-powered altarlistening for what our coldbut eager ears wanted to hear We sat, a worshipful group of teenage Christian companions on camp in the heart of winterstraining to make out what was happening in a rugby…
Shore-gazing – Praise Osawaru
Praise Osawaru (he/him) is a writer of Bini descent. A Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and Nina Riggs Poetry Award nominee….
How to Tell My Body I Love You – JoeMario Umana
after Georgia Ifunaya’s Self-Love running waterfrom the showerbecomes hands& crawl my skinlike cover crops over soil, planting a million pimples on my body—a land fertilewith want. I slide into the tunnelof my left palm’s indexand thumb, slippery like okra’s drawmade from soap and water. this…
Thoughts about Tension – Blessing Obiahu
Tension should not be the umbrella word for that jolt that reverberates through your bones and skin when you brush a live wire on a day IKEDC forgets to flick the switch off in your zone because it does more…
Placed in a Place – Merlin Flower
Placed in a place To the rain that edged on only as a muffled scream gobbled by a car and then a truck. To the rain that came back, more furious with the cyclone. water rushed everywhere knee deep…
Osholonge – Onoberhie Janet Ojevwe
A street divided by both the doers and the saintsA street divided by the houses: dilapidated and well structured Divided by different tongues, practices and beliefsTime to time, blue and red sirens come visiting With full force, taking into captivity the doers…
Lover Prelude – N Sehar
After Zaina Alsous Inside the eyes is a river. Inside the river, some loose fragments of tree Inside the tree, fish skulls, salt buried in the chest of the earth, unnamed Forgotten lovers. Inside the lovers, a sea of sorrow. Inside the…
Two Poems by Mercy Musa
A Body Performing a Disappearing Act Like lace dipped in vinegar sorrowthe nature of my narcissism is translucent,this body, almost transparent, almost fading to nothingthis skin, almost disappearing, almost syncing to dust If only I could hold light in the…
Jaundiced – Hibah Shabkhez
You and I, ma chère langue étrangère, we stand on the banks of the Loire, ruefully watching our poor twisted paper boats lurch downriver in the sunset-gilded waves. The sun simmers steadily upon the same crinkled place, but our broken…
Night song – Abdulrazaq Salihu
after Sylvia Plath The rusty blood of brown blades Set your body to rest like bean seed In dry soil — decay.My small palms lay 5 inches too smallTo hold your shoulders and the soft-Cracked air the night flushes in.An ode starts…