Shaki Peters, 32, Amite City, July 1

She was full of laughter and an abundance of life.

Shaki, there’s a plant that grows here, where I live, 

called Shadbush—it’s also known as Service Berry—

but it’s the genus I thought of yesterday, seeking shade 

on the hillside, carrying you with me in the heat of day. 

How it gives shade, gives fruit, dark purple, seeded, 

and nourishing. 

                                 Your face, Shaki, in the one photo 

I can find, is round and open, dark and sweet. Your eyes 

seem to tip up a bit at the outer corners. Your lips 

are full, plush as pillows. I keep waiting for some story

to explain your murder. I don’t know how much

that matters in the long run, but it might fill the gap

around your death. I keep thinking about the name Amite

City. from the French for friendship. 

                                                                           Like my hometown,

Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. Likewise,

no friend to trans women. I spent a month in Louisiana

in 1984. It was hot and humid and I loved the way sweat

soaked me, sticking clothes to skin. I used to move

from shade to shade, the shadows of buildings, 

banana trees, and one very large fig tree in the yard

of the house I rented, hand-shaped leaves the size of fans.

In 1984, Shaki, you weren’t even born yet. It was a heyday 

for being Queer if you don’t count AIDS. We were all 

trying on gender like a wig or a dress or suit and tie. 

I used to go to a drag bar in Philly where I had a crush 

on a zaftig redhead I now know to have been trans.

She was very kind to me, taking my face in her soft hands,

fragrant and styled like the mother of a childhood friend 

I had to share a bed with one weekend. I clung all night 

to the far edge in fear that I would accidentally touch her. 

There was a ripeness in her, sweet, nourishing, a kind 

of femme that makes my heart ache, that I’ve never known 

or been. There are many kinds of shadow, Shaki, many kinds 

of shade. I think of you now inhabiting that: luscious, lush, safe.

---

Brayla Stone, 17, Little Rock, June 25

You gotta forgive me if u feel I’m too much

Brayla, there was a lot of you to reckon with for only 17.

Your Facebook page is full of photos of you in pinup 

pose, your tongue stuck out, these interspersed 

frequently with the faith that God got my back.

The paradox gives me whiplash. I feel very old 

and very white swimming up from your social media sites.

The wigs of many colors, the clothes likewise, 

and eyelashes the size of butterfly wings. I feel 

your fight, your will to not just live but to thrive.

Seventeen in Little Rock, Arkansas, and someone

paid five thousand dollars to have you killed

by another teenager who already once beat

a murder charge. 

                                   You had humor and pride 

and grit and some source of cash that kept you 

in brand name flash and bought a car 

for your momma. 

                                   Your body was left in a car

on a walking path in a suburb called Sherwood,

which is ironic in a sad way, with its innocent

suggestions of Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

 The cops say there’s no indication of a hate crime, 

Arkansas being one of four states in which they don’t exist.

Forgive us, Brayla, for not being enough for you.

---

Merci Mack Richey, 22, Dallas, June 30

This man TEASED my bestie for being gay in middle school whole time he really had a crush on her.

Merci, I try to imagine your fear, being chased 

and shot by Angelo Walker who bullied you 

in middle school. Only you two know what happened

in the days before your death, the video you planned 

to release.

                   Once again, a man has killed 

a trans woman because he couldn’t live with his desire. 

It started in your teens, his teasing, taunting, 

then as adults? 

                              To shoot you while you ran, 

to stand over your fallen, your small body and shoot 

you again. 

                     Merci, you know the fear 

that festers to killing disgust. You could prove

what Angelo Walker was, what he is still, 

even with your death on his hands. Killing you 

does not kill the part of him that wanted you.

---

Subhaga Crystal Bacon the author of two volumes of poetry, Blue Hunger, 2020 from Methow Press, and Elegy with a Glass of Whisky, BOA Editions, 2004. A cis-gender, Queer identified woman, she lives, writes, and teaches on the east slope of the North Cascade Mountains, in Twisp, WA, USA.

You gargled salt water

Pretending you would become the ocean

And maybe you believed you could 

But saltwater turned into cheap whiskey and cigarettes

Yet no matter how many you lit 

you never went up with the smoke

And I’ll admit you stained me 

like the wine you spilled on your father’s carpet

All the sleepless nights

We wasted talking about the future and the people we wanted to become

How our sadness became a lifestyle 

And in the blink of an eye I saw everything we would become, all the time we would waste so I gargled salt water to get rid of your taste

And moved to the ocean, yet every time I light one,

I wonder if you can see my smoke signals or the way you stained me 

like the wine you spilled on your father’s carpet

---

Holdyn Bray is a poet and makeup artist from Sacramento, California, who currently resides in Los Angeles. She received a bachelor’s degree in Women and Gender Studies from UCLA in March, 2020. You can find more of her work on Instagram @nydloh .

Meet Me on the Roof

When all was over in the night
I went to him. He took my wrist
and led me to the roof, turning once
to look back at me—I turn to iron dust
lining the path of an unsteady pole

The sky was in shock from Bombay lights
Leaning on the balustrade, now we looked
for darkness, now we tended wet roads
from the confidence of twenty floors
Meeting his eyes again

split me from my flesh:
around that wound my ego has hardened
When I had left him at his door
I began shaking all over
uncontrollably, addict in sudden withdrawal

---

Ducks from America

They alight in majesty from the wind
One foot upon the cement shock and flutter
Old or tired—fold their wings at last
pass black turds behind cement stares ahead

How they bend their tall necks all the way
around bury their orange beaks in their backs—
graceful except their feathers are somewhat dirty
of course their travels have been long

How far can I bend my neck? Not far
You don’t look good doing it anyway
Perhaps quack like them—yes the voice
in bending breaks later than the neck

Three of them are brown look—why
are they fighting—ha! ha!
digging their black beaks into one another
instead of bending burying graceful back

At what age do they come out of that country?
Fifteen, but also as young as eleven
but surely by eighteen
and only rarely in their twenties

And what age will they leave here?
Out by twenty at the earliest
but mostly twenty-five
though thirty really is more accurate

And sometimes they linger
For years sometimes
But they are always in danger
Eaten both here and there

---

Agam is published in HarperCollins’s 2020 The World That Belongs to Us: An Anthology of Queer Poetry from South Asia. He was nominated for a TFA Award in 2018. He grew up in Dehradun. 

THE HONEYMOONERS

When I married Stan, we 

honeymooned on Triton, a lovely

hotel built from frozen nitrogen.  Oh, 

that was grand.  235 degrees

below zero made us cling tightly. 

Lonely Neptune captured Triton.  

It worked out well for everyone.  

Stan and I plan a second honeymoon.  

This time we’ll jump on a methane 

ice trampoline, hold each other 

with every leap, kiss in mid-air 

the way Nereid and Naiad do 

when our telescopes have 

gone to sleep. 

---

DULCET TONES COMES OUT TO HIS UNRESPONSIVE DAD

Dad, if I tell you I’m the fig newton 

in the box of raisin cookies,

will you get it then?  

You’re a mailbox,

a slot that can’t be opened.  

I’m the letter falling 

on the sidewalk.  Still,

I keep trying to get through–  

we’ll be better friends then. 

The mail will arrive, 

all of it.

---

Kenneth Pobo has a new book forthcoming from Assure Press called Uneven Steven.  His work has appeared in: Amsterdam Review, The Fiddlehead, Paris Lit Up, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.

Daybreak

What if at daybreak

You saw two suns rising

Each facing the other,

Its mirror –

How would you tell

East from west

Or would you take this

As a sign

That you are

Your own compass

---

Clues

What gave me away?

My voice?

The way I hold my hands?

The way my hips move

When I walk?

Or the way my eyes followed you

Across the room?

---

Sumedh was born in Mumbai and lives there. He works in the financial services sector and enjoys his work. He has started writing recently. He is a serious birdwatcher and likes to travel in pursuit of “lifers”. He has also started learning Hindustani vocal music in the past year.

CAIRN

I have stacked

here for you

a mound of berries

a pyramid almost

raspberries black

cherries blueberries

all in wait 

for your tongue

your lips

the feel of your teeth

on my finger

as you take

each berry

into your mouth

---

WAIT

a red ant sits

on the second hand

before, the phone

jumped, a spider

I couldn’t keep still

Now it lies dormant,

a tired puppy

the window freezes cracks

yet does not shatter

I hold a lead pipe

for that sort of thing

and when the phone rings

it is always not you

---

pronouns: he/him
I identify as QUILTBAG (bi/pan), neurodivergent (anxiety requiring multiple hospitalizations/GAD/SAD/depression/suspected by a number of mental health professionals of being on the autism spectrum but not tested because “the tests are expensive and you’re too old for the treatment methodologies to do anything”), and disabled (arthritis since 1992, now walking with a cane over 90% of the time/chronic bloodborne cellulitis resulting in multiple multi-week hospitalizations/heart attack). [New! Improved! Now officially listed as disabled by the U.S. government as of 3Mar2020!] Now fall into the “older” category (50+). Adopted and entirely unfamiliar with my (birth) family history.

Summer of ’09’

On a random, summer morning
I dream of the cherry blossoms
Blooming a glorious red;
The idyllic summer of ’09,
The day we met.
Salty heat, the sweaty pillows,
The pattern of a drop of dew
On the misted glass windows
I trace. Fingers intertwined,
Clocks stopped ticking time
When clinking glasses, we drank
Desires from each other’s blood,
Toasting to an eternal love.
Two girls, we trod golden waters-
Our barefoot, evanescent fantasy
Lived another summer morning.

Hands held, dreams spun
Beneath a green forest glade.
Pearl eyes bestowed a warmth,
You even put sunlight to shame.
The cascading summer song-
Bees abuzz, our whispers meld;
God’s creation, intricate spider webs.
We talked, planned, dreamt about
The city we longed to escape.
Red circles on shadow maps.
The rich taste of sour grapes
Enriched with the sweet dates-
Senses on sultry evenings sated.
Nostalgia of tarnished memories-
An oppressive, balmy melancholy-
On random, summer mornings
I remember again, once beloved;
The smile lost in tears
Abundantly hated.

Now a forest of skeletal trees,
Tangled branches, fallen leaves.
I scratch through the rotten fungi.
Futile attempts to reach our beach
Where once we searched for shells
To ornament dream catchers-
They’re too small for dreams
Spanning utopias. You and me
Replaced by
‘Debauchery!’
‘Abnormality!’
Peering eyes hold hope ensnared.
The hot winds of summer nights
Knock off my Juliet’s pebbles-
They never reach my window.

Poison lost, the dagger broke,
Even the words of poetry eloped.
I curse this fledgling sorrow
I never chose.
Beneath autumn’s dusky gloom,
Cherry blossoms no longer bloom.
When verse finally caught up,
Man’s syllables failed,
Man’s spaces quailed;
The enormity of our love they
Could never accommodate.
I have nothing left to say,
My summer ran out of time.
My thoughts are left behind
With those random, mornings
Of ’09.

---

Our Forgotten House

I want to live in that house
Where we built windows
Up in the walls of the sky.
They opened to the purple
And pink clouds that poured rain-
Satisfy the thirst of my parched mouth.
I have been screaming too long, too loud,
I have been running and crying,
I have been dying, dying, dying.
This rage can only be doused
In the water from our house.

The mirror in our house
Still stands in that corner-
Golden gilding, cracked
And tarnished. We left an imprint
Of our dreams on the white fog-
Drawn in unsteady hands of youth.
Two girls ensconced in seven-feet
Of gossamer veil, the lace enough
To shield the blissful brides.
Fake weddings, no grooms in sight.
The mirror in our house
Still reflects the innocence,
Our naiveté and passion, the belief
That at the end of the journey
We’ll find our truth.

Across the picket fence,
With its chipped white paint,
The railway track still lusts
After a rusted freedom.
Buried in the soil, it still runs
Over hills, crossing borders
To our secret place.
Our meadows and fields
Where once we planted flowers
Hoping to one day cover our scars.
But there is no beauty in my wounds.
Our dolls lie in mangled mounds-
Twisted necks, broken faces,
Limbs torn across serrated bones.
The blossoms turned to stones,
No one left, no bouquets to catch;
Our ships have run aground.

I want to return to the
Oakwood desk in the house
Where my father’s watch
In battered leather still counts
The time and wait till
My breath runs out.
I want to go to that house
And lie down in the arms
Of my mother’s chair and cry
For the rustling wind we heard
In the glistening corn fields,
The cries of the orange canary
That visited our window sill.
I want to lie on my bed,
Where we stole our first kiss,
Before I say good-bye
To our forgotten house.

---

Shailee, 22, is an English literature student from Delhi University, India. A budding poet, her work has appeared in AANI- The Voice of IITRAA, M.Etch Newsletter, Miranda House Magazine (2018-19). She is interested in pursuing academic research in the field of gender and sexuality through the lens of Queer theory and Post-colonialism. She seeks to examine themes such as queer love, queer belonging and identity within the Indian space through her creative work.

THREE WORDS

One Monday morning, we decide
to call in sick to work & wake

before dawn to go see the sun-
rise. We walk into the night, no

cars speeding along the highway,
no neurotic neighbor walking

her cat & her dog. We sneak
through the tear in the fence

to reach my favorite orchard,
the one rife with ripe peaches

& plums all spring and summer
long. You settle on the grass below

while I twist fruit free from a tree,
toss you a peach to eat while

we wait for the sky to turn purple
then pink. We lay down our heads,

happy to feast on our peaches
& look up at the bright stars.

When they begin to fade, I say
I love this & hear the rustle of earth

as you turn to face me. What?
I think of the time I wanted to die

& you brought me flowers.
The world. You smile, turn toward

me enough to drop a kiss
in the crook of my elbow, move

up my curve of shoulder. The sky
turns honey-colored, like skin

in the summer. I love you, you say,
& the first morning birds sing

their songs. You stand up, hurry
off out of fear, maybe,

but presumably to better see
the view. I follow, peeling

my thighs from the dew-damp grass
that surely leaves crisscrossed

lines on my bare thighs. I reach
out for your hand as you watch

the sun come up through the fruit
trees and pines. I watch

the way your face brightens
with the sky.

---

AS THE TAXI TAKES ME HOME, 

I look out at all the lights and think 
of your bright eyes, the way they fix

on me every time we wade out 
into the lakewater. The rain drums

against the roof of the car, spatters
against the window, blurring 

the storefront signs I’ve memorized.
The night is dark—a gentle reminder

that there’s so much we still don’t know.
But I know that the rain makes 

these lights look like comets, 
brightness streaking across the sky.

Maybe that sounds clichéd or romantic,
and maybe it is. But it’s these city lights,

the way they shine in the showers,
that remind me that this world is more 

than its downpour.

---

Despy Boutris’s writing has been published or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, American Literary Review, Copper Nickel, The Journal, Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She teaches at the University of Houston, works as Assistant Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.

A Lot About Sunflowers

S turned into boxes. White and green.
The people at the post said, “starch-white only”
Like satin, like the smell of my widowed grandmother –
Who had an indeterminate friend or two.

S turned into boxes. Fair and square.
Her worn-out flippers, her sold out lamp –
Repurposing, repeating in oblivion. The way
One keeps a saucer, tastes the drifting tongue.

S turned into boxes. Large and small.
She never made plans with me; only
The green moss on the hostel-wall knew how to –
Leave trace, occupy and forbid.

S turned into boxes. Alive and dead.
The warden assumed on her behalf –
Struggling sunflowers, at utmost ease. As easily –
Was it a case of love or woe?

---

Fluid Tenses from the Past

Eurydice turned into roots,
Faltering in the wake of the sun;
Like this scalpel-print, like red,
Like wounds, like the season of rain.
As briefly as photos succeed,
And all images wait until, the night
Was such. The five-inch thick wall
On which the spiraling bottle-gourd hung in
Your home, you had read a series of Greek myths
Subsiding fast as the days passed.

We had just-enough space to dance
In the middle of the dingy corridor
Heading daintily to your father’s.

I tried too. Free from the burden of proofs
Over a field where I was never present
But you were, in the smell of pine-corns and the water-flow.
In the harrowed allies of a riot-clad rail station –
I tried. But they killed us in sleep.
The graveyards are beautiful in snow.

Jigisha Bhattacharya is an aspiring author-thinker based out of New Delhi, India, currently teaching literature in the OP Jindal Global University. She has previously studied in Presidency University, JNU, and enjoyed working on her research in Tübingen and Berlin, Germany. When not dabbling in the arts of dissecting literary and cultural works on and off the classroom, she continues to struggle with non-fiction and poetry. Some of her publications can be found in the following links at The Indian Express, FirstPost, The National Herald, Critical Collective, Hakara Journal, Akar Prakar, Sahapedia and others.