S. J. Ghaus listen سنو Under The Sargam, The Sea S. J. Ghaus is a Pakistani American writer, artist, and cultural worker for the people. They are a Tin House alum and resident, VONA/Voices of Our Nations fellow, and recipient of the 2020 Vera Meyer Strube Prize from...
otherland Mee Ok Icaro reads "otherland" they find her shivering stained t-shirt over wild bare legs in an alley my mother’s body in the shape of unknown food chewed by a scatter of teeth I never saw her mud-matted fishing-wire hair but my brother offers to send me...
Livestream Yellowstone National Park I watch schools of salmon lend themselves with pleasure to the mouths of grizzly bears when everything that's supposed to sit circled quietly around me starts shouting, the fat brick of hash I told my friend not to let me keep, not...
Little TimeWe must go for a walkin the freshly-washedworld, he says.We must venture intothe thicket with cactiin our open corneas.There is so much to see,little time.Little time, trickling from an eave.Little time, dropping from leaves,falling,collecting,...
Delightperfume, which by necessitymust diffuse violets dulling the noseto their own scent when I wasfour, the cow ate my dress mistakingpatterned violets for real ones then I wasthe girl now I am the cow you arethe dress you are the dress and so iseverything I touch...
SUMMER CAMP FIELDTRIP TO THE WATERPARK My white friend says you can’t swim, can you—as if she’s known the answer tothis question all her life—then changes the subject. Did you really wear a onepiece instead of a bikini? Before they unleash us into the park, the...
WISE WOMAN Wise woman of Vermont, come out of the forest Assure me I won’t die lonely in these woods, show me How to keep owls out of my hair, tell me how To stack wood, to shoot trespassers, to seal the cracks In my heart to keep the ice out,...
Lisa Fay Coutley Dear Mom— It’s been an hour since the storm sirens began, yet I’ve felt freezing rain for days. Outside my window, the plastic bag snagged in the neighbor’s tree is filling with wind then letting it go over & again. I cannot...
Tolu Oloruntoba The Tinderbox We were a conflagration asking To be incarnated into the world. My mother, superstitious, Kept my father and I apart, Two stones made of The same igneous anger. Everyone else at home, eyes like saucers, Was crying as if...