FIVE POEMS BY LAURA PAUL
FIVE POEMS BY EMILY PAIGE WILSON
April 7, 2019
TWO POEMS BY CARRIE LASKI
April 9, 2019
When the Family Dies
Was it caught in the
floorboards?
Like the rat we laid out traps for,
and when I was younger,
even in my innocence,
I still wondered
what was crawling underneath our house,
just deep enough down
beneath the foundation,
to be out of sight
and never spoken of.
But when the fam
ily dies
a grave must be dug.
Just look at all the
secrets
hidden here in the soil.
So much dirt
must come up
before it can be laid
to rest.
I Want to Blame You
I want to blame you
for cracking me open like a skull, my skull,
when it hits bone or headboard,
so dizzy and unconscious and faint
it
can be only love.
But then why? So violent
—
the ripping away from everything I’d known.
The lies, and the safety, and the family that wasn’t safe.
Did you really break all that apart, all that was mine?
Not why, but how you were able?
Laura Paul is a writer living in Los Angeles. Previously, her writing has been published by the Brooklyn Rail, Entropy, Eohippus Labs, Shirley Magazine, and featured at the West Hollywood Book Fair and Los Angeles Zine Fair. Most recently, she’s created a weekly video series of her poetry at poemvideo.comand is writing for Bloomsbury’s upcoming costume history edition with Deborah Nadoolman Landis. Raised in Sacramento, she’s earned a B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle and a Master’s degree from UCLA in 2012.
