It isn’t easy to be stationary, and mute, even thoughmy corner of the park is comfortable—a corner splotchedwith the moving shadows of the years. And then there isthe laburnum, ecstatic bloomer, resid…

Photo by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa  / Unsplash.com i’m winnie the poohwith brown hairwinnie the pooh who spits up bloodon his tractor in the parkand who mows the lawnand…

The streets are growing emptyof human trappings, life’s color.One after another, we pull back.Nobody is calling out to me,nobody is coming down the street.We speak from behind wallsin the city where b…

Illustration by Emily Holson / @mayophoo worldlittoday · “Enter Depths,” by Dalia TahaEnter DepthsEnough with this.I put the book of poems asidelike a diver floating to the surfaceto c…

Photo by garrettt / Stock.adobe.com We’re disembodied: Aurora, my mother of northern light, and I,echoing through our landlines in the western hemisphere. Shemuffles over the bruised-peach…

Photo by soupstock / Stock.adobe.com away from the white-knuckle waveswisps of fluorescence haunt the undergrowthorange bands like blistering shoreline soreslife vests peeled off by the num…

Photo by Katia / Stock.adobe.com The living don’t forsake the dead, no more than the dead forsake returning.Paol Keineg for his hands I’m done grievingbut not fo…

Photos by Phillip Pessar and watashiwani  / Flickr.com worldlittoday · Som.Slide Mantra Noguchi called it remembering his travels  to the naked-eye observatories at Jaipur& De…

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann  / Unsplash.com Split Fossilfor Willem BoshoffWhen an ancient-rock splits open —     trees and skies starkly mirro…

worldlittoday · Laws are mutating by Vanechkaworldlittoday · “Laws are mutating,” by Vanechka (English Translation by Yana Kane)Laws are mutating. Protests are muted.United ayes sneer at fractious nay…

Photo by diego fabra  / Unsplash.com At forty we hate the jobsthat pay our billsthat get us through the month.We claim something called dignitythat feels a lot like sadness.We have job…

Photo by Museums Victoria / Unsplash.com [And Mama told me]And Mama told me:“I’ll have a broken daughterand I’ll comb her hair with all my teethI’ll show herhow hard it is to put on her sho…

Photo by Steve Johnson / Unsplash.com It’s like that. Murky awakeningto the stories of others.They give us outlines we’ve to fill in.Bushels full of obstacles.Creation comeswith impediment.…

For my student Abdel Salam Qatoush, an eight-year-old boy who lost his leg when his home was struck by a bomb during the war on Gaza Leaning back against the tree,I drifted…

Dreaming of a clear sky, unmarred by airplanes.Of clouds observing their own reflection in the windows’ tears.An innocent day: no news of dead friends in the mail.Of a home, and a guest, and a sun tha…

Good morning, World,I’m there — I mean, I’m here,yes, that’s right, in Gaza!A moment ago I was screaming under ash and rubble —A final missile sent me vaulting up your wayand now I’ll inform you of wh…

I’m made to drink from the strumming of autumninebriatedand so I seethe sorrow of housesthe ashes of Gazathe triangle of our loveI see it, they wronged ita living nightmareand so I praythe prayer of d…

Gaza and Other ThingsThe night sky is a copper-orange sphere.Is this Gaza?Or a newly discovered planet — wilder, untamed?My imagination, once pure, now runs rampant. I let it wander through corridors…

O Genocide,Wear my clothes,Take my formAnd my desires.Take my flat feetAnd my limping walk.Live my love storiesAnd my shyness.Befriend thoseWithout enough timeAnd attach to them deeplyWake early, as I…

If you were mine,In tears, I shall bloomIn fears, I must resistTraitors would be faithfulIf you were mine,Within the lost fields of timewould I bloom?With fear of losing timeMy sin will descend from d…

On a pale coldwinter’s nightthe tents sleepbitter in mouthand heart.With subdued soundrunning after an escaping sun,they remove their morning dressoff bodiespatched with jokesand painful laughter.The…

This is methat little girl in pomegranate clotheskneeling at the door of a burning tentcrawling over fireSmearing my faceCovered in dust from the rubbleGathered in my palm the remnants of a dry loaf,i…

I have two feet, for walking the streets, on the beach, for running madly with my friends, and into my lover’s arms when we meetNot for running away from death . . . every day.I have fingers, for feel…

From the Capital in Transition series by Ravi Agarwal / raviagarwal.com / Reproduced by permission of the artist AsvatthaYou’ve taken your name literally:Asvattha:…

Photo by Manas Mistry / Alamy.com SahibiI am a fleck of shine, a shardof fin. My mouth, a parchmentdarting slick. They tell me I cannot liveunder this viscid film, but II do and I dream. I…