On the Edge of the Falls, Sarah Moore     This is a new language in which home makes no sound.   Violence whimpers his tune, hollow,    and inside, story-caked hands push muddied    earth into mounds tall enough to be   temples which will burn before there is time      to fall to our knees as…

About the Author Kayla Ziefle · University of Central Missouri Kayla Ziefle is a UCM graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English. She worked with Arcade Magazine, where this piece first appeared, as a managing editor and poetry editor. Kayla was also the Assistant to the Poetry Editor for the online literary magazine Pleiades Press…

Light in Hand, Liza Hollenbeck my mother dreams me unafraid  and wedded. don’t sleep with boys until you need to  marry a citizen. in my sleep, i dream of girls    in skirts fluttering like pages  from a fallen passport.  marriage in mandarin is derived    from the root words to be the cause  and to…

Memory, Veronica Torres a (un)Holy war: white or Arab, American or Lebanese, fought between broken noses almost blue eyes a spangled hijab church bells a bald eagle perched on the branches of my homeland’s cedar tree a grandmother who always forgets that our tongues can’t perform the same dances that her language strangles my lips and…

Sweet Dreams, Hannah Elizabeth High The helicopter noise your car makes when you open the windows on the highway, The static on the radio, The ringing in your ears. Your lies that drip from your mouth like tar.   The tag on the inside of your underwear, The hangnail ripped off your thumb, The spot…

Flickering Strings of Love, Paul Knight i see the guiding vision warping, changing “we stand in solidarity with sex workers’ rights movements”  becomes  “we stand in solidarity with all those exploited for sex and labor” a lone trans pride flag, trying to wave at me from where it’s drowning in a sea of pink,  and…

Blue, Linnea Shurig surely not the ghost  of your body  inflated with the hudson  like an old mylar balloon the kind a child begs for  and then abandons  to wander through hallways  until it withers  and dies i imagine you  as you were— a whole generation of queers in your hair a brick in your hand…

  The Japanese House, Effie Jia They pick marrow from their teeth  With calloused fingers and fish bones  Outside because the sweet night air and smoke from the street vendor’s tawa Is only slightly more delicious than warm skin More palatable than newsprint with their daughters’ names Branded like cattle before Eid Recounting forgotten horrors…

Little Architect, Natasha Hirt as is tradition for the women / of my blood, / I shop too much. will sacrifice / a paycheck like a lamb for the chance to conjure up / a fresh silhouette. & I am supposed to hate / this about us. the nerve: to wrap our bodies in myths…

Cellular Hierarchies, Effie Jia i’ve heard about the man who eats boys in the backseat of cars—we all have, learned to fear him, the weeping pustule. i didn’t think i’d come to know him, let alone share his blood— shame is a dog, no, it’s a man who beats dogs & grinds their teeth into…

Light and Dark, Grace Long now der’s clothes to wash and suppa to fix the missus want it all done quick she hate my black ass cus when i walk in a room  she smell her husband on me she watch his eyes fall on my body and him lickin’ his chops like a hungry hound…

Disrupted Cannon, Colleen Simmons i wanted to be a slow dancer. then i wanted not to move my body at all. not even  a ghost in upbeat funeral dirge should come this close. once, when i ascertained the formula, i danced with arced & straight body. i blessed god for allowing my tongue to skirt…