Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Alex Jane Cope
To speak of the shame is to speak of him / and his bed of lichen and his green / ribbon fastened around my throat.
Poetry
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Rosa Alcalá
In my meanness I hear the mother of my mother and her mother / before her, the cold cellars and flat pillows of their hearts. The single current / of anger that ran through their voices, each daughter forever through time / believing herself a burden.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Issam Zineh
The sky in Clearwater is the print / of your dress—all aster & blue starling. / The year ends the way it began. You asking me / for the indescribable. Sky has no notion of sky.
We Are More: Two Poems by Sara Elkamel
Before I loved you, the figs were still in season. / My body was a lone fig swollen like summer. / My body was a lonely fig swollen like summer, / In every dream as bottomless as shame.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Sarah Lao
I am in need of privacy and a new wardrobe. / Indulge me. There is nothing that style cannot fix. // Outside, a colony of bees stir with a missing monarch. / Does that make them more or less of a swarm.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Jasmine Khaliq
I’m tired of sheeping. / how boring, to be good. / a head gets heavy. / I can only feel this ribbon brush against my throat / so long, you know. / one day I’ll untie it, I know, let the whole thing roll off.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Micky Bayonne
once in the splendor of death, we magnify his name two of each for everyone. one for me & for me too. each one …
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Erika Luckert
you write that “what we worship / makes us what we are,” and if this is true / then based on the poems of yours I’ve read so far / you are both a daughter and a god, / if this is true, I am a vine, invasive, here / to climb a wall. “As tendrils cling and twine / about the tree,” you write, and I try / to unwind your words into a history.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Sarah Fathima Mohammed
Moons empty in the whisper / of space between us. / Mother’s ankles roll into / my calf, brimming with silver, / with sleep. The night is made / of photographs. We sleep over / the prayer rug, woven from / all the daughters that have / pressed their lips to it / and swallowed.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Alexa Patrick
The first boy to call me beautiful / had hair like a waving fist, walked / down the hallway, radius of curl / beckoning white hands that he’d / allow, though, I’d watch a little / light in him dim to tar.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Kate Hao
I thought / you had grown angry with me but turns out / you were just lazy.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Four Poems by Leah Claire Kaminski
it’s dark there, and wet, and time is closing in