By Allison Swenson
I remember first hearing rumors
of the atom. We are all made up
of crumbs, Q told me
when we were kids.…
of the atom. We are all made up
of crumbs, Q told me
when we were kids.…
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- By Alice OswaldIt's a rush, a sploosh of sewage, twenty thousand cubic metres being pumped in, stirred and settled …
- By Karen HouleOne man and one woman park the government Jeep
on the gravel shoulder of the Grand River watershed.
Paired… - By Cyrus Console
Rotor wash, or the downward-flowing
Air by which our helicopters formed
Imprints in the jungle grass beneath
Now stands effectively for Vietnam
Because our understanding of that war
Omitted many things but not the wind
We bowed our heads and fled. In this case we
Refers effectively... - By S.J. Fowler & Rebecca KamenSIR, the 28 spheres of Kamen’s harmony
Susceptible, inferred, immense, actual - the electron microscopy… - By Diane ThielWe've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers... - By Norman FinkelsteinI have built a machine to visit the stars.
I have built a machine to outlast the stars.
There is a glass ball inside a copper egg.
There are dynamos and turbines, Tesla coils and magnets.
There is a boy in Brooklyn, Wisconsin
and a... - By Ava CipriHere is the encyclopedia where I learn first position
Here is where I begin ballet: at 12, in a class of 6-year-olds
Here is where I get my period
Here is where I substitute dance for childhood
Here is studio “B” where I practice
Here... - By Leslie Contreras SchwartzA body must remind itself
to keep living, continually,
throughout the day.
Even at night while sleeping,
proteins, either messenger, builder,
or destroyer, keeps busy
transforming itself or other substances.
Scientists call these reactions
—to change their innate structure,
dictated by DNA—cellular frustration,
a cotton-cloud nomenclature for crusade,
combat, warfare, aid,... - By DJ Savarese1. Who needs water with so many wings?
2. A Dewey Decimal System for feathers.
3. The librarian in the trees says, “Quiet!”
4. "I felt an intimacy with [birds]...bordering on frenzy [that] must accompany my steps through life." –John James Audubon.
5. Bird... - By Katie WillinghamLately, I've enlisted an app on my phone to keep track
of the time that I can't witness—it maps the dark blanket
of missing consciousness, a jagged line. Best night/worst night,
it says, though I remember neither.... - By Katie WillinghamWe know the last stuffed specimen of the dodo burned
in 1755, though Wikipedia's "Dodo: Talk" page shows
sources conflict on whether the fire was an accident
or intentional. They say it had started to smell. The... - By Katie WillinghamDiagram of a diagram: if properly decoded,
... - By Moon Bo YoungTranslated By Hedgie ChoiThe research center is a cube building with a neat chimney plunged into the right side. The researchers are covered head to toe in white cloth. Unrelatedly, they are sexless. They don't draw lakes in forests. They don't play classic...
- By Marlanda DekineVigilant for so long,
I am full. ... - By Felicia ZamoraAn ulcer develops inside my lower lip in crevasse of gumline, the translucent milky gray pocks oral mucosa landscape of dark pink & I remember my flesh incubates; a home for short-lived tenets evolving a kind of thought come to...
- By Charlotte PenceWhat is death to us? We've heard that myth,
a ghost story to tell around a camp fire.
We're too busy to think. Our copies constantly
clamor around our waists like children. They rush
from their cramped classrooms into the red light
of the first... - By Mũkoma Wa NgũgĩIt’s strange artwork, perhaps voodoo,
a human skull strung in perfect symmetry
to a tree in Mount Kenya forest,
it’s grinning away a sole bullet hole
now jagged. It certainly adds a twist
to the aeolian harp, doesn’t it? Art
is inspired in many ways,
here it’s... - By Linda BierdsHow, Alan Turing thought, does the soft-walled,
jellied, symmetrical cell
become the asymmetrical horse? It was just before dusk,
the sun's last shafts doubling the fence posts,
all the dark mares on their dark shadows. It was just
after Schrödinger's What is Life?
not long before Watson,... - By Christopher PhelpsI didn’t know the details.
I feared the details.
I loved the details.
The details, said etymology,
were our first cuttings. De-
tailor, did you know
where you came from?
From taliare, to split:
talea, a stick
companionably unstuck.
Long enough to look
at the realities
of luck:
wishbones,
each to one’s own
taste of...