Rereading Walden in a place that has itself become new, I felt the prospect of another beginning.

—David Rompf, “Once More to the Pond”

Can I reconstruct this day? Do I really want to?

—William Pierce, “Turning Fifty”

I stood before the bathroom mirror and removed the earrings, like a woman alone again after a disappointing date.

—Tracy Marx, “Zoom”

the nation state    is a body    it is the Russian doll /  of bodies

— Camonghne Felix, “Do You Believe in Borders”

It is the season of fruitfulness. Clouds gather in the east all morning, and the rain pours in the afternoon.

— Kanchana Ugbabe, “Happy Lockdown”

Language, in which the question / where are you from sounds like

are you / from nothingness.

— Krystyna Dąbrowska translated by Karen Kovacik, “Hebrew”