fall 2021
Table of Contents
Return to Home Pagei decay, bro erica hiroko isomura
No One Knows How to Be Good Emily Kedar
Say It Delicious Berry-Picking Laura Cesarco Eglin
Boy With Orange Phillip Watts Brown
A wrist, a wren, a small knife Ellen Stone
The Graveyard Metaphor for Euphoria Kaye Miller
Upon Watching the Rotation of the Earth Charlotte Vermue Peters
On the Straightaway to the Rockies Great Grandpa's Grain Elevator A Nova Scotian Night Light Ryan Smith
latchkey fragments Frances Boyle
She's a Pretty Bird Susan Zimmerman
Late August at the End of the World Bren Simmers
Somewhere within Kostanay, Kazakhstan Justin Timbol
What We Carry on a Pilgrimage Granada, Take Three Elena Johnson
Swans at the Golf Club Ruth Daniell
When I See Lake Water Kristin LaFollette
Between Then and Then Millicent Borges Accardi
Making the Most of Our Voices Ken Victor
i decay, bro
i keep thinking of @EmilyYoon saying that she
keeps thinking of “idk” as “i decay”
—陳琛, @chenchenwrites on Twitter
i decay each time i swipe up & scroll
in the void idk if hashtags revive justice
the revolution will not be televised, they say
but will it livestream on the internet? idk
whenever someone calls the cops i decay
because idk who will be choked next, u kno?
i decay knowing corporal punishment is alive
& well, the death penalty still exists
܆
idk if daniel dae kim or wu thought of this when they offered a reward
of $25K à la crimestoppers for info concerning a young Black suspect
like bro, u realize it’s p much legal to commit murder
against Black and Brown bodies, right?
i, too, decay whenever an elder takes a blow
in oakland or new york or my hometown
across the azn diaspora we’re thinking
that coulda been my grandma, my auntie, my mom, i know
we just want to protecc our own, so
idk if i can blame daniel dae kim, wu, u or me
as much as i can blame a collective amnesia
we’re not all the same asian, obvi
yet we all decay at the same fingertips
of a supremacy that is teaching us
to stifle such minor feelings
like these and those and theirs &
bro, it’s not
just us
܆
& a poem isn’t a synonym
for justice, i know
neither is a hashtag tho
both compose protest
these days a poem is
all i can hold in
my Yellow palms
clenched into fists
tightlylikeso invoking
words in white spaces
persisting on a page
as i decay—