A Poem by Anuja Ghimire

I’ve given her blood poems
Her pale hands return them, dried
I’ve offered her my young dreams
Sometimes, standing in three feet of snow
With open eyes, when the heat burns holes in the sky
Fifteen years, I’ve carried water
What can I grow in a land that isn’t mine?….

A Poem by Ryan Nakano

Part I. Coral

Ahh, the coral
beauty sees the boy &
the boy breathes
thru jagged little gills diver boy dives deep into his back pocket
to pull out a piece of porcelain Made in
his memory begins before he was born
back when grandmother was a mermaid and
the reef he remembers belonged to the gill-less
sea
force of a wave
the tide of war once littered the beach & the boy
surfaces
combs the shore for shells
combs the shore for something to remember the kingdom….

A poem by Mary Anne Mohanraj

His father said: he saw two men kissing
in the street, and it made him angry.

I was eighteen the first time I
spent the night with another girl,
walked back to campus with her
the next morning, wanting to hold
her hand, afraid to.

A poem by Paul Yamada

Prelude

It’s not just the lake and the park
it’s not about residence, no
or physical dwelling, abode

perturbations and back spasms
will follow you like perfume on
the tongue, shirt cuffs and pant legs

if there is nowhere to write here
is there somewhere, anywhere else?