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Issue 85
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Editor's Note
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POETRY
- Hussain Ahmed
- Benjamin Aleshire
- Diannely Antigua
- Amy Bagan
- Theresa Burns
- Robert Carr
- Chen Chen
- Brian Komei Dempster
- Ben Evans
- Ariel Francisco
- Jai Hamid Bashir
- John James
- Luke Johnson
- Matthew Lippman
- Amit Majmudar
- M.L. Martin
- Rose McLarney
- Meggie Monahan
- Stacey Park
- David Roderick
- Annie Schumacher
- Donna Spruijt-Metz
- Noah Stetzer
- Ryann Stevenson
- Svetlana Turetskaya
- Emily Van Kley
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BOOK REVIEW
- Oliver Baez Bendorf reviews After Rubén
by Francisco Aragón - Deborah Hauser reviews Crack Open/Emergency
by Karen Poppy - David Rigsbee reviews In The Lateness Of The World
by Carolyn Forché
- Oliver Baez Bendorf reviews After Rubén
Issue > Poetry
Shade Lovers
Five straight days of rain,
and the enormous hosta we moved out back
fills out, blue as a lung,
threatens to inhale the ghost ferns,
hellebore. Like something before history,
when insects grew as big as gulls,
and the world choked on its own
oxygen. Here, under the canopy,
among the creepers and water suckers,
we thrive. While out in front the full sun
singes. How the annuals there
exhaust me. Passersby,
all their needs and thirsts. Stay
and rest with me, here. Be morning,
partial, as I am to you,
who knows to turn your gaze to the side
and let me breathe.