Momtaza Mehri

‘like pasolini’s dream of an african oresteia let us be ridiculous’

Fiona Benson

‘days I talked with Zeus / I ate only ice / felt the blood trouble and burn / under my skin’

Momtaza Mehri

‘salmaan the second son & his mama’s seventh seal by way of underwater & underemployment’

Eugene Ostashevsky

‘Making sense of a feeling is like building a boat from water.’

Chelsey Minnis

‘I’m going to smash the geraniums. / Do you mind, darling?’

Andrew McMillan

‘I hadn’t / realised it possible / that I might grow into kinder / ownership of my own looks’

Kristín Ómarsdóttir

‘cut a piece from a lip and put in a secret place’ – New poetry translated from the Icelandic by Vala Thorodds.

Issue 143

Nathaniel Mackey

Will Harris

‘I must / have been the only one to catch his eye, to hold it.’

Chelsey Minnis

‘It’s dangerous like a very powerful doorbell. / Or a portrait covered with a blanket.’

Sarah V. Schweig

‘In my crumbling country every day, / people spend their lives standing in lines / to buy designer sneakers.’

Swati Rana

‘Imagine all the prodigal / People, hoping only to / Escape every human mistake.’

Amy Key

‘She is luscious / and plump like marshmallow; part edible baby, / part nosy neighbour.’

Sharmistha Mohanty

‘even more it was a wish for boundless spaces, a wish for the inexpressibly wide and broad, for the unharnessing of human life’ – New poetry by Sharmistha Mohanty.