#7: Other

Editor’s Note:

Some snippets of the incredible work the theme of Other has wrought in our seventh issue! These and the rest of the works in this issue speak for themselves, without preface:

“Only time concludes / every fruit is potential / seed and rot,” May Chong, Duality

“The moon picks up a pen and writes everything on a monk’s body floating in the Irrawaddy,” Jaspal Kaur Singh, 1966: Burma’s Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI)

“come & witness my bruised     /     clementine heart,” Mya Alexice, Poem for the Half-Siblings I’ve Never Met

“black calls to dark calls to deep / underneath drop-salted / ocean, kill-coated / hull, north-sighted star,” Maurya Kerr, A Seven-Point Criteria for Racial Identity

“Let me be clear. When / I bend my knees, it is for prayer, never a plié,” Liz Marlow, Rabbi Avigdor Białostocki’s Dance

“the emergence of half moon tonight / reminds me of my sister, / the one who did not grow into the full length of her dreams,” Ololade Akinlabi Ige, What My Sister’s Monochrome Reminds Me

“I still / don’t want to be a body, just a body / of water,” Despy Boutris, I Still

Plus some of the brilliant artwork you’ll find in this issue:

Linds Sanders’ Holding the Break

Sintim Isaac’s Unspoken

Bethany Johnson’s Safe Keeping

Yvonne Welman’s Comment on Klimt

Gregory Stapp

Editor-in-Chief

July, 2021

Prayer study

The sun’s a baptist. Or that’s what I’m told. 

Fully immersed in its rays, 

a dead hummingbird bakes on the sidewalk. Intercession: 

collapsed wings meet, stained glass plumes lie lifeless. 

I am startled by how large a dead hummingbird looks compared 

to a live one. Let’s ignore for now the ants feasting on its beak.

*

I have stopped taking wine 

with communion. I am allergic. But 

I like to pretend I am catholic. 

*

Folded hands, halved body

break bread with the floor.

*

My neighbor feeds the birds in her tree. Every year they return 

to her. Hummingbirds land next to her as she weeds 

around her day lilies. I weed around my marigolds, watch her 

with them. I, too, want to buy a hummingbird feeder. “Don’t bother, 

just yet,” she tells me. “They’re going 

south for winter. Wait for spring.” 

*

I will not speak to you any longer. I am done.

*

The dogwood leaves make no sound 

when they fall. It is only the first week of September.

We haven’t even bought a rake yet.

Katie richards

what is [the beauty of] riot

is it [u&dystopian] fiction when a wall is more human [than man] 

a matter of [semantics meaning] the rights [include those] 

to consume [violating] bodies without citation 

so [we contemplate the difference] a letter [makes or what] arranges to

kneel on your window [sic] till it breaks 

what cracks [accounts not for] the bone 

taking away what [bread] you never had [we recommend] 

you eat [yourself] instead [start] with your tongue

an assault [on the senses] as in [the song of] fury & 

what [justice] serves [a testimony] or [a hunger or what] 

testifies of hunger [to demonstrate the intimacy of] language 

& a hungry testimony in [the language of] intimacy

these ambi [valent] grams are [two] sided  

reproduction [but the coin] is a blade

what can be looted except [our morals [which serve]]  

those who taught us [humanity] lying in [debt to the neglect&violence of] state

the opposite of a jury [as in] operating because they were [already always] outside

striking against the not [serpent but ouroboros of] law 

so victory is revealed [as fallacy] but whose 

[questions we] shoulder or otherwise [beg]

who gets to be [the people] & 

what is predictable or was it [quantifiable] 

what [domination] means 

& [in] what [sic] materials

Kym cunningham

Duality

The New Yorker comic says:

on the Internet nobody knows

you’re a dog.

The Internet barks: Bitch.

Bitch. Bitch. How dare you

fit so neatly into the maw

of our nightmares.

Bitten, I too become rabid

thorns. Endless scythe and slash,

satisfaction dead in the husk.

Old jackals move on, dare

grumble sympathy, groom

acquaintances. How

does cruelty so calmly close

one eye? Does it know

how its scars scatter sleep?

What joy does the broken

get from the breaking?

Only time concludes

every fruit is potential

seed and rot. Each may

expand without erasing

and so

you choose bitch or bridge

or burning or beacon

or bell. Every day.

Every day. All the days,

and if they brand you avocado,

this world is already all stone

without the added salt.

Every day you fill another hole

left by hell’s passage.

My heart beats: I do not

remember the carnival barker’s name.

Something new is growing,

growing out of these ashes.

May Chong

1966: Burma’s Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI)

1.

Glowing from dark skies the night’s lips parted.

The night’s eyes kohl colored half closed

after the coup as rifles pointed at our collective faces

buried thousands in shallow graves. 

Murmuring at the spectacle, the night’s lips whispered— 

don’t let them find your treasures under the tamarind tree.

2.

They marched upstairs and downstairs of our Taunggyi home. BSI: Looking for contraband goods in our home. Father smuggled imported merchandise and sold it under their noses on the night market to feed us. Collaborators and adversaries. They knew. 

• Night wears anklets and dances Shiva’s tandav on the moon.

• Night steals clouds and wraps it around father’s shame.

• Night wrestles Suryastra weapon from the Sun God

and places it in Ma’s hands. Her storytelling power sheds light on terror in Burma. Her few pieces of jewelry sold to feed the family.

3.

The world’s gaze is averted and rests on Mao’s face.

Ne Win, the eternal shining sun of Burma, crushes Aung San Su Kyi’s voice.

The moon picks up a pen and writes everything on a monk’s body floating in the Irrawaddy.

Jaspal Kaur Singh

wife three

February 12th, 1997

Or: what makes the body cum? 

What makes us fall in love? 

Brass door pulls, medieval

city walls, small silver

pitchers of cream,

a tall, lean man exposing himself

in front of a fountain. 

Or: what do we fear? 

Not having something to hold 

onto at dusk? 

The return of a long-

lost father?

Last night I woke up in the hotel basement,

crawfish scuttled across my chest,

my hands purple with dream.

We dared each other to see 

who would push off the pier first.

Once my husband told me that 

he loved me because he was good at it.

There are two kinds of people in this world. 

Those who eat salt. 

And those who wait for a perfect ending.

April 16th

Arrived late last night: Hotel Mercurio

I am red: I stink of heat

In this city: none of the girls are allowed outside

En tutto finito

Reason produces sleep: but sleep produces no reason

At the cafe across the square, a young man came up to me

said that during the Middle Ages 

the priests here would burn coffee to conceal the smell of death

:but I am deathless

Ezra Pound invaded Italy: ended up at St. Elizabeth’s

Hospital, room 224: nothing was ever explained to him:

slept every night on a pillow made of numbers 

and goat hair. When he returned to Italy: 

died under a blanket of suns

That was the last step in an unnatural descent: 

not a way to alleviate sorrow

just the origin of memory

at least the version told by the Greeks

Last night my husband sat on the floor: cross-

legged like a school girl 

I lay in bed eating fat rendered from the dead:

my body warm under the sheets

This is Venice: a city that follows the rules 

of misdirection: like a woman who doesn’t know 

what to do with all of her holes

I have spent the last four years standing

in a stranger’s doorway 

enjoying the resistance

then the sirens stopped:

the air smelled like mild surprise:

the women of the market 

have told me: in cases like mine, any god will do

March 13th

I returned to an empty room. Pulled my panties off.

Threw them in the sink, ran hot water over them

until they sank deep into the Arno. 

This, mio caro, is a city that comes alive in ice. Streets 

not quite frozen enough to walk across. There is the thing 

that no one thought would happen. Happened.

It is true, everyone ignores a prophecy until it is too late. 

Especially when it takes place between a woman’s thighs. 

Language has been clipped. 

There will be no time for the Greeks. 

Daylight nothing but a dress rehearsal for a woman’s horror. 

(Yes, it is my story now.) 

***

On my way back to the hotel 

an old woman selling chestnuts 

in the Arab Quarter pulled me by the arm, 

told me that along the widened streets of Venice

I will meet a man stripped of his shadows

alive with animal love. 

There will be ample water 

to drink. Ships waiting in the harbor. 

A body for him to put his lust into. 

A hundred gondoliers. 

(Vivaldi is dead. 

The black pigs of Rome 

no longer feed out of fear 

of the Baroque.)

I got into bed and drank 

steamed milk 

and coffee 

out of a small 

paper cup. 

I wanted to change. 

I wanted to be permanent. 

I turned the TV on and watched 

as my belly glistened in its bluing light.

ann pedone

Ghazal: Other Than Yours

—beginning with a line by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

How could one weep for sorrows other than yours?

That grief-struck summer I seek no refuge other than yours.

In that midnight room, alone with you after so long,

I want no deep song other than yours.

Night descends its spiral staircase, unfolds its sable

patterns on the bed, no skin satin other than yours.

You're my Shiva with a blues guitar

I teased you once. What laughter in those days other than yours?

Will you get in trouble for this? Your question as you take me.

Whose trouble? Whose face on the pillow other than yours?

Those ghosts, our years together. Have I crossed

three states for embraces other than yours?

Forget those foolish nights. In tears I quote myself.

No past lies down with the present other than yours.

Your skin's scent of musk and arrowroot, could I

forget?  No flesh rises between my hands other than yours.

Shiva's marble-veined haft I ride all night. 

Whose body speaks through dreams other than yours?

All night between my lips, questions I mean 

to ask. All night, no sweet oblivion other than yours.

If you say the word, I'll stay. You slide to the bed's

far end—what silence so eloquent other than yours?

For weeks I would cry out to you in dreams.  

No steps would retrace themselves in dreams other than yours.

We have it out in dreams, in dreams as we

never had.  What debts recollected other than yours?

Next morning, you're miles away across the room.

No history won from struggles other than yours.

Faiz cried, Don't ask me for that love again!  That morning

I drive away alone, over a horizon other than yours.

carolyne wright

translation of lines from Faiz Ahmed Faiz by Agha Shahid Ali

Poem for the Half-Siblings I’ve Never Met

I stalk our father’s facebook

just to see pictures of you.

we share a nose & I bet our

hair kinks just the same. one

is a halloween photo where you

dressed up as black panther

characters. after I first saw

that movie I cried

in the theatre,

thinking of a little me seeing

black heroes on a giant screen—

& I realize now I was crying

for you. you’re both little me’s

& little hims, & children too

of the women who raised us, whose

last names echo mine

like a swear word

into a chasm.

his absence

is still how he raised me, like

how a zero in a fraction

still affects the answer.

to simplify an equation you have to get rid

of all the

excess so you’re just left

with substance. so

I want to reach beyond him

and pull you into my arms.

to know of you but to never

know you, I am perishables

crushed in my own fist.

come & witness my bruised

clementine heart.

when you’re older maybe

you’ll try to find me, if

he ever tells you about

me

or the others

who weren’t worthy

enough for a facebook

album.

I can be your treasure map,

your coming-of-age novel,

your wakanda forever if

that works, too. open

your mouth

to find the mark

on the underside of your lip.

all of his kin have it

from birth and it will lead you

straight to me. I am your landmass,

the continent of our people.

my borders are open

if you ever need

a place to rest.

mya alexice

A Seven-Point Criteria For Racial Identity

Define your bodily appearance.

mama brown whispers to

unknown tone

in her belly, begs me

for just a while more

to stay small

not kick

and

hush baby hush

they mustn’t know we’re here

I keep her swimming, buoyant

I am both her

and the creatures

who hound our heels

Clarify your ancestry.

I race every space, run fleet foot

over thresholds, past

thresh of crop

and thrash of lashes so long

sometimes, running, I misstep

tumble over the liminal

headlong the legible

blow up the binary

without its consent

Explain your self-awareness of your ancestry.

mama taught me

to wash my coloreds separate from

my darks and my lights

to save bleach for the whites

of their eyes

to run rover over the color line

and never cower

and when planning a party

to always invite the impures

such growlers, and the greatest dancers

calling out roots

pulling shade

bared and muddy feet

astomp

in praise

Explain public awareness of your ancestry.

to them

I am

either / or

neither / nor

passing / proclaiming

house / field

clear / smear

this / that

wh/ bl

Summarize your culture.

I sit in the colored car

such pinkness of pink

bang of black

gleam of a girl

brown eyes averted

from a son

strung up

so high

stained

bright blood

lit

Define your experience.

in the dream I’m at a blackjack table

I bet it all, but never sure whether to

stand my ground

double down, or

hit the road running

we three—

ace of spades

queen of hearts

and me

taking leap after leap

into dark

after

dark

Specify your subjective identification.

black calls to dark calls to deep

underneath drop-salted

ocean, kill-coated

hull, north-sighted star

behold

a blessed mutt is born

kicking

licking

tracking

tending to

her staggering

piebald self

low throaty snarl

in my soul

Maurya Kerr

Rabbi Avigdor Białostocki’s Dance

—Jedwabne, Poland Pogrom, July 10, 1941

1.

Knives, sticks, stones. Wielders prod,

throw until their arms weaken. With

hammers, we break Lenin apart.

He was never ours, but here we are,

carrying him, mangled on a stretcher.

2.

While they shove sticks under our feet—

forcing dance—the ground might reimagine

itself waxed wood. Let me be clear. When

I bend my knees, it is for prayer, never a plié.

3.

Barns age like hair from brown to gray. Gray

holds tight to difference, revels in its shade.

Once the dolls ignite—some filled with straw,

others filled with life, turning back ends.

A barn can never be a barn again.

liz marlow

What My Sister’s Monochrome Reminds Me

every day i write new verses of hope

& teach my brother how to recite by heart.

this is the best way to hum a dirge

or a better way to pull away memories.

the emergence of half moon tonight

reminds me of my sister,

the one who did not grow into the full length of her dreams.

mind you, my father in his dark room rewrites his memoir.

he erases my sister’s name from the prologue

& she resurfaces at epilogue.

i grow like a refugee in darkness.

it is hard fighting a war never prepared for.

it is hard carrying grief across an ocean of memories.

when my brother says, everything good will come,

it echoes back at me like our journey is far.

there is one other room where we kept our sister’s memories,

in it her monochrome thumps on the wall,

it echoes back at me like goodbye my lovers

Ololade Akinlabi Ige