You are a tortoise in a hard hat.
I am a heart growing gallons and gallons of hair.
You made it with me: a perfect love,
which went hard from the softness of its innards.
And though all the love went elsewhere, you hung around,
like a gas, like sand in my bikini pants.
Katharine Kilalea is the author of One Eye’d Leigh, shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize for writeers under 30.
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EZZA AHMED
I was running, the neighborhood / boy my secret guard. A cloud of dust and dirt / my shadow. // My stomach would hurt / from fresh cow’s milk, / a white film swimming to the top. // In a place of people who are / and aren’t, the kids are raised on cardamom milk / and kites. The rain trembles at who it’s about to touch.
JULIA TORO
Sitting around the white painted wood and metal table / that hosted the best dinners of my childhood / my uncle is sharing / his many theories of the world / the complexities of his thoughts are / reserved for Norwegian, with some words here and there / to keep his English-speaking audience engaged
DYLAN CARPENTER
I have heard the symptoms play upon world’s corroded lyre, / Pictured my Wallonia and seen the waterfall afire. // I have seen us pitifully surrender, one by one, the Wish, / Frowning at a technocrat who stammers—Hör auf, ich warne dich! // Footless footmen, goatless goatherds, songless sirens, to the last, Privately remark—
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