we will not burn any longer

Marigrace Angelo, Issue 04

they called you a witch, once,
hung you in the town square
for having an opinion.

they claimed you sank ships,
spread famine,
conspired to kill kings.

they crushed your fingers,
cut your hair, deprived you of sleep
searched your body for blemishes

until you told them
what they wanted to hear
to get them to stop touching you.

you, who have learned to heal their sick
and deliver their babies,
to care for their animals, and cook their food,

were left to sink
at the bottom of the river,
dresses full of stones.

and in the rush of the current
sometimes we can hear you whisper:
a warning, a curse, a wish, a prayer

three hundred years later,
they are still hunting
and we are still running.

still surviving, still resisting,
persisting in spite of those
who call us witches.

Personal Space

Lucia Ceta, Issue 04

From Lucia Ceta on this piece:

The call out for contributions to the upcoming issue asked us to reflect about space, and it got me thinking about how much I appreciate my personal space. I consider my personal space the space in which I feel safe and protected enough to create. That space has physical and immaterial manifestations: the mental place that I have to be in in order to create and the physical space in which I am creating. As artists both these spaces are so important, and often one is useless without the other. My illustration is meant to portray a familiar space (physically and mentally) of safety and comfort where essential needs are met and conditions are just right for creating.

our store used to be an auto body shop

Marigrace Angelo, Issue 04

oil pools iridescent on the pavement
while a woman on the street is fighting
with the meter maid;
the grey mist counts as rain here,
and everyone’s mood is sour.
I run across the street to the
café-slash-bike shop to grab a coffee;
instead, I leave with an oat milk dirty chai
and a vegan sausage sandwich.
hell, it’s york blvd after all,
and I’m already part of the problem
maybe I’m tired of fighting the problem
from my keyboard when I’m off the clock,
tired of nodding from behind the counter
at the short-banged white women
telling me that they are getting
priced out of the neighborhood
while I ring them up
for a two-hundred dollar blouse
tired of gritting my teeth
when they muse that they’ll
just buy property
in huntington park and watts
because “I just need a place to live”
but everyone needs a place to live
especially the people already living
in huntington park and watts.
maybe I just want to lean into it for a day.
maybe I just want to feel what it’s like
to buy a café breakfast that costs
an hour’s worth of my wage.
it feels like I’m barely scraping by.
I grab the packages left at jesse’s
while we were closed,
run back to the store
open the grates
and start the day.

IN SKOGSKYRKOGÅRDEN

Jordan Makant, iIssue 04

I see an old Swedish woman on her knees
by a gravestone. There is a small towel draped
over her left shoulder. At her left side there is a bucket.
In the bucket there is soapy water and a brush. I watch her
take the brush and scrub, slowly at first, then harder
and faster, harder and faster. She sees me watching her.
I nod. She nods in return. I smile slightly. She does not smile
in return. I imagine asking her why she cleans the gravestone.
I imagine asking her if she is okay, knowing her efforts are
in vain – no matter how hard she scrubs, no matter how well
she cleans, no matter how often she visits, what lies buried still
decomposes, becomes one with the earth; even the gravestone
will one day surrender to the dirt. I say nothing.
Later, I go back. She is gone. I look at the scrubbed stone,
read what is written there. I begin to talk to the dirt. I say,
I found a flower earlier. I brought it for you. Here.
I place the flower in the soil. I imagine an old woman smiling.