Michelle Lin is a storyteller. Her work focuses on matriarchal family relations, diaspora, girlhood, and monstrosity. Michelle’s spoken word poetry is featured on Button Poetry and her other work is in The Offing, Contemporary Verse 2, Nowhere Girl Collective, among …
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Issue 53 : Summer 2025
Contributors: Prisca Munkeni Monnier, Tasnim Al wa’l, Briana Bhola, Marigny Beter, Kasey Buckley, Peyton Turnage, Chris Wu, Madeleine Hollis, Chris Seaborne, Alexa Doran, Kristi Maxwell, Hanaa Ibrahim, Liz Femi, Isra Hassan, Chii Ọganihu, Kathleen Winters, Caroline Laganas, Konstantinos Patrinos, Konstantinos Patrinos, Gabriel Awuah Mainoo, Lauren Kalstad, Linda Michel-Cassidy, Lizzy Ke Polishan, Gwen Aube, Alessandra Occhiolini, Stevie Chedid, Jean McDonough, Scott Rosario Mottola
My Great-Grandmother Continued to Speak in a Tangled River of Greek
How many English words did my great-grandmother’s tongue
butcher before she was told to be careful? Be quiet.
When did she finally decide to let go of language? Surrender
to a world where phrases would never belong to her.
Once …
Cetacean Stranding
On the day that the whales came to rot, the seaside town of Prince-au-Mer, which existed in a perpetually indecisive state, found itself teetering on the precipice of complete disorder. Dr. Rutherford and his handsome assistant, who was not a …
throat fish
When the bell rings for outdoor rec time, I sprint to the dirt patch beside the basketball court where I find Twelve at work. She squats real low and stacks miniature bricks to make miniature walls, a big magnifying glass …
Inheritance
My daddy’s god given name was Jean-Michel, but everybody called him Chips. Even me. I’d begged to go on the boat ever since I could throw a stick. Mama didn’t allow water play of any kind on account of her …
Cum Rag & relapse
Cum Rag
[now that there is a cum rag I curl
around for comfort] I don’t need
the silver blubber of another purse.
Give me Gatsby or enough THC
to forget Tennessee. Yes, the only
proof I exist is plastered …
Thread
I’m thinking of a gourd.
Maybe there’s a thread
inside. Like a thin
long thread.
It hangs from the neck,
searches to stitch, latch
with the stupefied gaze of a calf still wet
from birth.
Maybe I’m convinced
it’s from …
we were there at the slaughter
we were there at the slaughter
at the slaughter of Fala
not all of us are guilty;
someone—not I—held the knife
and someone—not I—gave the order
but there are no innocents among us
some of us were inside the room…
PERSONAS
circa Summer 2020
pixelated and clear / 5.5 inch screens spawn portals that yawn / faces oust doors
counterfeits of Edvard’s The Scream / the world mesmerized / misty –
eyes / our ery haze met / a pre-rapture rhapsody …
