Truth
Anna Catone - { Histories }
Janlori Goldman - { Bachelard's Cabinet } { The Jewish Gauchos of Entre Rios, 1917 }{ One Good Turn }
Elizabeth Howort - { The Sun, That Great Magician }
Sam Abbott - { It Eats You }
Rachel M. Simon - { Seizure } { Title IX }{ Hometown }{ Swish }
Untruth
Rosa C. Li - { Lucky Elephant }
Ken Cormier - { A Day in the Life of a Conversationalist }
Juan Carlos Reyes - { A War for Rigoberto Chismón }
Rachel M. Simon - { After Life }
We Don't Know and They
Won't Tell Us
Rebecca Keith - { Excerpt from Misdirected Postcard, One }
T.M. De Vos - { Leaving Lake Baikal }
Kamilah Aisha Moon - { Going Under } { Don't Move This Dust }{ Burn }{ After Our Daughter's Autism Diagnosis }
| Don't Move This Dust by Kamilah Aisha Moon |
Don't move this dust—
my grandmother's
scratched upright,
older than all of us,
has always anchored
this corner. Unplayable,
tuned to scales
that can't exist,
now a weight keeping
yesterday’s pages
from flying away.
Everything's moving,
turning into things
we don't want or recognize.
Don't budge our world
or move this dust,
don't remind that
eventually, everything
goes slack
and mute as these keys
decaying golden brown
in the mouth of her piano,
stringed mausoleum where
we prop our framed pasts.
Sometimes we don't want
what's best,
we just want what was,
for better and worse.
Often all we have
are banged-up blessings.
Please, don't
move this dust
that has danced in this air
for thousands of mornings,
our mingled skins
glitter caught in sunlight
