“On the Commuter Train” by Yutaka Ninomiya


A crooked necktie / trekking shoes / bedhead, uniforms, textbooks.
Cradles run along the tracks to Mt. Ohira, shrine of Amaterasu,
where myth and modern life intertwine.
A day seeking a slight disturbance in the precision of the arrival.
The hundred passengers in this car have all forgotten how to speak.

/ Factory workers
Voices shouting over the seats,
rap leaking from earbuds,
someone peering into FaceTime,
and just one word slipping through: love you



“The Transfer” by Judy Halebsky

we bought the Blenheim apricot at the store. I think that's what bothered him, that we hadn't foraged it (non-capitalist exchange is a skill I need to brush up on) but that's how the boat left the dock. how we planted it out the window. how in spring the blooms filled the frame // JoJo says it's easier to pee your pants in the new house because it takes longer to get to the bathroom  / Amy says you can hide more in a poem but I think maybe it's the opposite / we brought what we could, in boxes, in seeds, in damp bags of dirt // we lived in a screen painting then, the ones meant not to show the trees but to be in the trees, surrounded by red branches and that light streaming white flourish / all those high risk weeks monitored and tested, coming and going from the hospital, from green to yellow to orange to that speckled burnt orange, we came home with a baby and the neighbors came with oatmeal bath and okra and bread pudding and we gave them bags of apricots / / my mother died in August. still fruit on the branches. I whisper to this one unrooted sapling, repair repair