Sophia M. Giudici __________ Tattoos Some of us grow upTo make our bodies coloring books—Stories marking warm skin. __________ Playing Dress Up Why are children the only ones allowedto dress up in every color of their dreams?They come outside on Saturday morningsstill vested in the vestiges of sleepTrain pajamas topped…
Read MoreAlicia Cook __________ The Widow in the Window The Widow in the window watchedthe sea-town home across the streetlose its weather-torn For Sale sign. Moving vans curbed and unloaded innocuousclues like a beige couch and an upright piano. The Widow in the window watchedas newlyweds crossed the threshold.She remembered her…
Read MorePaula Cisewski __________ Red Poem In the fenced tennis courts, a woman rollerdiscos solo, weaving between green nets on fuchsiaskates. Meanwhile, an upside-down flag hangsfrom one bungalow and an upside-right flag hangs from the next. This neighborhood we call our own.I’m home slicing radishes into a bowlwhich is a version…
Read MoreThe Second Law of Thermodynamics Shweta Ravi __________ Like the man in the video game, you wonder if you’re being busy, intelligent or foolish. OnSundays, you rinse Mahira’s white school sneakers in vinegar and sunlight before inclining them on the porch like poodles waiting to be tethered. On Mondays you…
Read MoreLinda McMullen __________ Banner Days Prom night, aged 17: the surreptitious banner, half-crouching behind a fake fig tree, read “Enchanted Garden”. I was The Lady in Red. You blushed, and asked me to dance – and I cocked my head to the side, scrambling to recollect. Were you the scullion…
Read MoreMy Med School OSCE Christine Benton Criswell __________ I knew I was in for it when Allen came out of the exam room. He looked pained. “It was awful,” he said. “All I can say is … good luck.” We were participating in our medical school OSCE—the Objective Structured ClinicalExam.…
Read MoreNumbers Frightened Me Robin Michel __________ Not the shapes, colors and textures decorating the classroom walls,but what to do after writing each problem in pencil on lined paperknowing my erasures would rub holes into the once smooth surface. When no one looked, I counted on my fingers, needing more digits…
Read MoreAn Ode to Shakuntala Devi, or Puzzles to Frustrate You A set of five gogyoshi Gargi Mehra __________ If your friend is twice as old as youwere when he was three years youngerthan you, how many candles would you blowbefore you unravelled the mysteriesof the woman who humbled calculators When…
Read MoreLetter from the Guest Editor Karris Rae __________ Human minds like binaries. Maybe this is why we’ve come to see math and poetry on opposite sides of a spectrum: one end cold, practical, unfeeling, artless; the other warm, frivolous, passionate, human. I’ve bounced between these extremes for a long time…
Read MoreCalculation with Women as Birds in Post-Roe America Stefanie Kirby __________ An egg in the hand is worth more than an egg in the tree,which is worth more than the basket of shattered eggs.There are no birds in this problem. No birds laying eggs.No birds inside eggs that were laid.…
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