COME CORRECT by Erika Meitner & Traci Brimhall

/ / Issue 21, Uncategorized

 

If my lips are zipped—if I keep our delicious and contagious secret
—if I am amnesiac or too hungover to remember your mouth 

on mine—if I forget the imprint of your body indelibly stamped—
if I search for you, call for you, lover, stranger, alien—if I offer up 

gratitude to the air—if I rob you of your signals and energy (are you 
battery-powered?)—if we fuck again and again all scorching night—

if we lock our power up to prevent a meltdown—if we twine ourselves 
together like an interrobang—if we cross the imperial sea holding hands 

or recycle our bodies into danger zones—if we do not yield—if I let you 
come deep inside me (finally)—if we buy more time—if your body is a 

snow-covered mountain—if your body is an emergency—if you sing 
Karaoke (I will Survive? The Boxer?) under the stage lights at Tokyo Rose—

if our bodies become facsimiles or ghosts of themselves, like melted 
snow or animal tracks—if you leave me—I need to say this, so listen: 

if you go, do it quickly—the way a rabbit darts into the brush  

 

emoji poem by Traci Brimhall / ‘translation’ by Erika Meitner 

 

 

 

 

ISSUE 21

 

       POETRY

 

BECAUSE I MAKE MYSELF NEW EACH DAY by Rebecca Macijeski

 

AND WE TRY TO FIND GESTURES FOR OUR HUMANITY WHEN WE'RE YOUNG by Rodney Terich Leonard

 

THE HOUR OF THE WOLF by David Roderick

 

THREE POEMS by Sarina Romero

 

FIVE POEMS by Amorak Huey

 

TWO POEMS by Augusta Funk

 

TWO POEMS by Irène Mathieu

 

GYM CRUSH by Josh Tvrdy

 

WHEN SUN SHINES ON WATER by Stella Lei

 

ANOTHER OHIO ROAD TRIP by Erika Meitner

 

COME CORRECT by Erika Meitner & Traci Brimhall

 

TWO POEMS by Hussain Ahmed

 

       FICTION

 

LOVE AND LEAVING IN THE CONDITIONAL by Kimberly Liu

 

EGG WISHES by Lucy Zhang

 

DON'T CALL ME YOUR PRINCESS by Megan Culhane Galbraith

 

AWAKE UNTIL DAWN by Pete Prokesch

 

       ART

 

by Megan Culhane Galbraith

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