The topic of “real” American identity and assimilation has never been so simultaneously divisive and uniting.

It came from a catalogue. I opened / the plastic bag inside the plastic bag / and out tumbled fabric fine as flesh.

Beyond dead. Torsos glazed with epoxy, exuding an icy sheen. A spinal column exposed, its flimsy cord dangling from a robust sacrum.

Mama was born in the year of the Dog. In the Chinese Zodiac, dogs are known to be loyal and stubborn, of which she was both, but mostly I thought of her as brave.

The chalk taste of prescription pill / washed down / with too-sweet lemonade. I only take it / because you do, and I wonder / if you get high so you can tolerate me.

When a group of Alaskan women flew to Washington, D.C. to meet with Senator Lisa Murkowski during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, I wanted to be on the plane with them.

Featured artist Gabrielle Bates on the permeable boundary that exists between society and self

When we were girls, we weren’t supposed to look adults in the eyes, and when we did, we could barely stand the intensity, felt like we were too close to a human kind of flame.

I got my period two days ago but tell him I’m pregnant anyway.

The heavy door slammed like the hatch of a submarine before descending under water.

Tokador. When I say the word, there’s hesitation in my voice that I can’t help as soon as the first consonant leaves my tongue.

Jenny’s first change, like everybody else’s, was expected.

O bobolink. The bobolink is dead / at my door — found leaving my apartment / to school then to work. After some searching, / I guess it’s a bobolink—this lemon- / headed crow, this crumpled parachute cloth.

When I got the phone call the third time Daveonte was shot, I knew it was the last. Still, I held my breath.

Busted furniture. Building materials. Car guts. Then a few feet away, loads more: old clothing, broken toys, soiled diapers.