|
434 wires unlock the land |
limbs sling across the chasm |
Alexandra Watson is a poet and fiction writer from Syracuse, New York. She serves as executive editor of Apogee Journal, a publication amplifying historically marginalized voices. She teaches writing at Barnard College in New York City.
LEILA CHATTI
Around me, the stubborn trees. Here / I was sad and not sad, I looked up / at a caravan of clouds. Will you ever / speak to me again, beyond / my nightly resurrections? My desire / displaces, is displaced. / The sun unrolls black shadows / which halve me. I stand.
TREY MOODY
My grandmother likes to tell me dogs / understand everything you say, they just can’t / say anything back. We’re eating spaghetti / while I visit from far away. My grandmother / just turned ninety-four and tells me dogs / understand everything you say. / They just can’t say anything back.
CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON
There is no justice here, he’s believed / to have said before being proven / correct, after the mob descended on his jail cell / with cocked weapons, wearing black masks, blacker / even than those that frame ivory teeth trained / to curvature by the terror.
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