By Uche Nduka

no matter what’s on the menu
morning is a suitcase
I have to unload

no cataloging method
though one writes through
family heirlooms

in and of itself
or through the verbiage
of the foliage

or that constancy
that makes common sense noncommittal

to move as if
the mattress mattered

By Uche Nduka

if you think I’m going
to run away
I’ve got news for you

beauty alone can’t explain
why we still have a lot of ground
to cover in praise of fingertips

with within around you
there are lots of reasons
to love these crevices

I’m not going to settle
down as long as there
is a song left in this cellar

promises sway back to back
your flashing gown is a crown
good things happen when you’re around

By Virginia Konchan

So much of life is utter bullshit.
I say this as someone who used
to foot the bill, lead the charge.
In my recurring dream of unpaid
prostitution, I only realize I was
exploited when I’ve already fled
the scene. Give me my labor back,
the blank space where life should be.
I’m half–drunk on gin, writing in tears.
Translate me, and don’t translate me.
A faithful translation is one in which
the translator’s hand never appears.
Do you remember when I used to be
confident and adventurous? Vaguely,
watercolor stain on a concave mirror.
The wolves of obsolescence are hungry.
See you soon: a euphemism for get lost.
Nature tries to recall our higher selves,
but we’re too busy valorizing business.
The mountain stands tall, mountaining.
The deer adopts a specie not her own.
My dislikes are many, affinities few:
I like songs to which I can sing along,
my family, and solfeggio frequencies.
Alone, loneliness is never a thought
until intercepted by a rattling door,
the odor of a man. No woman needs
intercourse: few women escape it.
Thankfully, I’m a vegetarian now.
Then there’s language over there,
failed enterprise. You can’t eat it,
you can’t fuck it, it’s not beautiful.
And yet, like a cosmos, it survives.

By Virginia Konchan

I left my heart at the gravesite
of my cat Elvira, killed on a road.
Before Elvira, I lost six other cats.
Their photos line my wall, in frames.
They are figures of sovereign innocence,
the impossible science of the unique being.
Is to know more about the world to know
more about terror, horror, and abjection?
To bear being seen, the recuperative gaze
of love that sees no flaw in the beloved
is a life labor: with Elvira, it happened
the second I cradled her, the moment
I said you’re home now, you’re mine.
Months passed, after she was taken,
when the only moving image I could
bear to see was raw uncut footage of
animals reunited with their owners,
or saved from peril — dogs, donkeys,
and snow leopards in mute ecstasy.
All of her cries were interrogative,
on earth: the world a question she
sought answers to. Driving home
last night, I pulled the visor down
to occlude the sun. And in its place
I saw her, the stable object of beauty
floating in the air, irrespective of my
position, comforting the comfortless.
Call it what you like, it’s still there:
a silent, calm, ponderous presence
illuminating the heart’s empty room.
I call it grief, call it Elvira, my baby,
call it mother, or what it is, the moon.