In “Live Action Role Play,” poet Christopher Blackman considers the linkages among LARPing, imperial decay, and the splendor of a full moon.

Poet Ahmad Ibsais’s “Threadbare in Rafah” narrates the steadfastness of Palestinian children against the unimaginable terrors of Israel’s genocide.

Poet Chris Campanioni’s “we never hear about the fathers of birds” explores the contradictory ways the self is formed, concluding that “the rich // confusion between a thing & / I arrives always / through violence.”

Poet Justin Aoba’s “Central Administration Integrates a Dependent Territory” moves through the brutalities of state-formation and collapse, illuminating “fissures / read by the scraping of tremulous finger, / dry lips.”

Part of a series of archival ekphrasis, Eric Abalajon’s “filipino laborers working as the boss looks on” interprets the visual remnants of class struggle from economic periphery to imperial core.

In dialogue with the Qur’an, Ayesha Siddiqi’s poem “Sand” animates the inanimate, exploring what toils “in the machinery of the world.”

Poet Fadairo Tesleem’s “almost a love poem” explores the fervor and agony of being in love while the world collapses around us.

In “Cetaphil,” poet and musician Grant Pavol presents a brief, absurdist vignette that transforms a pharmacy’s skincare aisle into a theater of commodity fetishism.

In “1981,” poet mónica teresa ortiz presents a collage of cultural detritus and personal reflections, concluding with a fundamental question: “What if John Hinckley Jr. had been a better shot?”