Author: Travis Shosa
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Two Poems by Christian Hanz Lozada
back to the future doc brown and martyworked retail togetherfound / in down time /mutual awe for the other’splace in age-spectrumsand enough commonalityto see multiverse possibility my doc was a white hippywho once snorted a cokekilo the band agreed to sell //he carried guilt in his pocketa japanese flag his fathertrophied / bloodied kanjiin the…
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Two Poems by Corey Mesler
Venturing Out, Raleigh, Tennessee, 1965 When I ventured out with the otherboys, past the burgeoningsuburbs, to the cold and skeletalwoods, I was always afraidI would not find my way home. Iwas more afraid that it wouldnot matter, that home never reallyneeded me, and that I never reallyneeded home. What if I disappeared?What if I didn’t…
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Welcome to Main Market Onitsha: A Survival Guide
As an indigene and due to the nature of my upbringing, I have spent many years in this market. I know it the way I know to eat with my right hand. The people who come here make mistakes that cost them money, valuables and sometimes their sanity. To avoid losing any of these or…
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Imago
After school, her skinned knuckles still throbbing, Sophia logs onto the family computer and pores over haute couture. The bathroom was empty when she punched the wall, of course. Sophia can’t even sneeze in front of an audience, let alone punch something. So, in between Biology and Algebra, she crept down to the sub-basement of…
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Literary Beyoncé
Literary Beyoncé wants you to know she can recite the alphabet backwards. Literary Beyoncé can dance and build an Ikea bookshelf at the same time. Literary Beyoncé can smell the 5G in the air. Literary Beyoncé understands fractions and has memorized all state capitals. Literary Beyoncé once proposed to change the band name from Destiny’s…
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Food Groups
Meat I look in the mirror and I see something raw and hunted, left hanging to drain slowly Fish Remember the story where mermaid flesh is eaten to achieve immortality and it’s very definitely a curse? Dairy Freud would say something gross about drinking milk having to do with our mothers’ breasts, but he’s an…
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House of the Sun
I came to Hawaii for the sunshine, seeking white-sand beaches and endless blue waves. I wanted a tan. I wanted to see whales. I wanted to lounge by the pool, drinking cocktails before brunch. At night, the air was warm, and the stars stole my breath. In the day, the cleaning lady stole my dignity—she…
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Tunnel Vision’s Circling Drill Accelerates
I. Tunnel I know there mustbe a surface, yet memory’s crustis lately suspect— II. Vision’s The limits of the eye contract the other senses’ broader map.(At night, I still dream landmarks from childhood under my eyes) III. Circling Each rotation tightens fiction’sfriction repetition teeth.Passion’s lockjaw circumvention:vectors roundedby belief— IV. Drill a routinized behaviora mechanically rotating…
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Two Poems by DS Maolalai
This office is sending me crazy this office is sending mecrazy. these people I see everyday make me sick as a bear. jelena sits on the stairwellthrough lunch making callsto her husband. they may get divorced. eddie’s been talking five yearsabout quitting. he’s planning to get marriednext year or the year after next. victoria neversays…
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Request
Would you hold on to this for me?the time traveler asked,without explaining what this wasor will beor how long the commitment is for but you have said yeseven though the days are alreadyin a whirl for youchopped up hours spinningout the twilights, stickingnoons end to end to dusks You will not understandbut you thought you…