FABLE IN WHICH YOU ARE A BARN ANIMAL AND I AM A CARNIVORE by Hannah Marshall

/ / ISSUE 26, Poetry


Suppose
, you say, it began with the chickens,
the way one wing raised 
could unbalance,
the way they learned
to tilt their heads 
in a concession to gravity, all at once.

Yes! I like it, I say.
The pleasure of synchronicity.
The pigs, being dominant
in cognition, would be next.
They might listen to the rain
and learn rhythm
from the downspout.

Music, it seemed to you,
would be a matter of curled tail
and the scent of hay.
The cows would sing, without 
meaning to. 

I am entranced now: And the dark star
on the forehead of a pregnant heifer
would pulse, and she would moan
the river into the valley. 

You think this lovely, but obtuse.
You say, All night long, the fireflies
make love to the mist,

and in the morning, 
I interrupt,
the fox carries the music away,
warm between her jaws.

ISSUE 26

POETRY

TWO POEMS by Sasha Burshteyn
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT UNSONNET by Dante Di Stefano
TWO POEMS by emet ezell
TWO POEMS by Sebastian Merrill
SO MANY by Robin LaMer Rahija
WHY HAVE CHILDREN WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
TWO POEMS by Tana Jean Welch
ELEPHANT by Julien Strong
WHEN BILLIE HOLIDAY SANG by Grace Kwan
FABLE IN WHICH YOU ARE A BARN ANIMAL AND I AM A CARNIVORE by Hannah Marshall
JUNCTURE LOSS by Liane Tyrell
TWO POEMS by Julia Thacker


FICTION

WET OR DRY by Naomi Silverman
BLOODY AVENUE by Isabella Jetten


TRANSLATION

ANCIENT MOSQUE by Xiao Shui trans. Judith Huang
THREE POEMS by Sandra Moussempès trans. Carrie Chappell and Amanda Murphy
THROUGH THE LAKE, THROUGH THE WATER by Johannes Anyuru trans. Brad Harmon
THREE POEMS by Álvaro Fausto Taruma trans. Grant Schutzman
THE GARDEN IS THIS GARDEN by Hélène Cixous trans. Beverley Bie Brahic
CHEWING BETEL NUT by Mark Dorado trans. Eric Abalajon and Mark Dorado
THREE POEMS by Anne Vegter trans. Astrid Alben


INTERVIEW

with Carrie Chappell and Amanda Murphy


ART

by Omneia Naguib

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