Sex+: “พร (porn) // wish (n.)” by Max Pasakorn
“Last year, I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in the Fine Art of porn production.”
Valentines: Two Poems by Noah Arhm Choi
“Do not actually burn the bra. / Not on the fire escape. / Not in a trash can. / This isn’t an episode of Friends.”
Food and Beverage: “Aubade with Secret Herbs and Spices” by Steven Espada Dawson
“comedy / is tragedy plus thyme.“
Poetry: Three Poems by Chen Chen
“& your cum’s cooling too fast on my thigh / & your cum-sigh’s the hit single me / & my cumming replay while you’re away”
Poetry: “SAVAGE or BURMESE PYGMALION” by Mandy Moe Pwint Tu
“I’m Eliza Doolittle, coughing out The rain in Spain stays mainly / in the plain.”
Valentines: “MissYouSo_FrankOcean.mp3” by KB Brookins
“Every limewired ringtone, every cat fight // we announced like ballroom commentators”
Essays: “In 1981, Tita Nena Translates Whitman” by Asa Drake
“Once, at the beginning of an important friendship, we pointed at a flag and joked, Can either of us write anything sincere about that?”
Animals: “In This One, Tío Conejo Never Learned to be a Trickster” by Monica Colón
“He has happy rabbit sex with other rabbit dads / and the courtyard walls are pink”
Food and Beverage: Three Poems by Sebastián H. Páramo
“At the Chinese buffet, my Father loves to try new foods. / We follow him. We keep up with suburbia. Keep up with the jonesing.
Hybrid: Four collages by Michelle Peñaloza
“Collage, like poetry, is a way to collapse time and space. Collage can be a portal, an altar, a way to visualize and make possible the impossible. A way to create new realities.”
Animals: “Damage” by Melissa Nunez
“There is one butterfly marked of indecision, that doesn’t seem to want to stay put, yet in all its maneuvers never manages effective departure.”
Food and Beverage: “Hella Hungry in the Bay” by Alan Chazaro
“When I think of food, I don’t necessarily think of literal ingredients. Instead, I imagine everything that goes into community nourishment — the cultures, histories, lessons, family lineages, beloved recipes, social migrations, and geographical influences, each a form of resistance.”
Food and Beverage: “White Boy in a Parallel Universe” by Karen Zheng
“jack eats spoiled food la la la la la”
Hybrid: “A Ticking Heart in 10 Beats” by Jazmine Becerra-Green
“In those early and mostly uneventful trips to the OBGYN, listening to my baby’s heartbeat was a wilderness.”
Valentines: “Two-Body Problem” by Erin Vachon
“I will love you well in wasteless Tesla circuit”
Animals: “In Perpetuity” by Para Vadhahong
“while I scribble my name on coastal skylines / of mass-produced cards, if only to trick you / into thinking I am in motion”
On Love, Community, and Fear: An Interview with José Olivarez on Promises of Gold
“The description of Promises of Gold/Promesas de Oro describes Olivarez as having “explore[d] every kind of love―self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural” in this collection.”
Poetry: “PYRE OF A VANISHING PLANET” by Ruben Quesada
“from a torrent like a lion's roaring on a distant coast / as a breeze steals our breath away”