eMerge Magazine - Summer 2023

Delta Summer by Diane Wiener
Delta summer plays possum with Buddhist Sisyphus lessons a stray cat evening thunderstorm slows thoughts flash flood warnings notice sensations deep weather pushes Wednesday’s speechless noise do not drive unless it’s an emergency cherry pits falling on pistachio shells sound ready to compost the time echo tastes cold air turned hot like when you pee after iceskating when I sing for the boa the kittens trill why do I peel the tape off the book spine leaving it so sticky I have to retape

Summer 2023Issue 19: Summer 2023

Today by Woody Barlow
Today, And every day since Vietnam I see the brown eyes Of a ten year old boy Staring through me… He was not crying Or blinking After we killed most of his Three generation family I couldn’t explain to him About mistakes… Or the fog of war As we carried dead family members Past where he sat He continued to stare Showing no emotion Fifty years later I wonder Where he is And if he has healed I have not.

Two Spotify Walks After Patient Transport, July 16th, 2020 by Laurence Foshee
Part I. Dusk—Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here,” 1975 I grabbed Gatorade on a sunbaked return home to gawk groundward in a cloth chili pepper mask— and not toward Tulsa’s shrapnel within paling skyline, not to co-opt it for the sake of longing any longer. I stumbled over my doorstep’s first Amazon Solzhenitsyn novel— A Day in The Life of Anybody Not Doing All This, where if “You” just had to be somewhere, then not “Here” or even there, but away from all this, was all I’d “Wish” for still— but i

The “Post” in Postcolonialism by Khadidja Bouchellia
Google search: I no longer speak to myself in my mother tongue. Google search: I no longer think in my mother tongue. Google search: I no longer dream in my mother tongue. Google search: How do I mourn the death [word deleted] the loss of my identity? Google search: Meditation for trauma Google search: Quran cleanse for anxiety and grief Google search: Did Algeria open its borders? Google search: When will Algeria open its borders? Google search: Covid cases in Algeria Google search: I have Covi

How to Get Lost by Louise Krug
1. Nick, the kids, and I were invited to a birthday party for the father of my daughter’s friend. They lived far out in the country on a ranch, in an old stone house. We wanted to go because they are nice people, but Nick was out of town so I had to drive. This was a problem, but could be overcome, if we planned carefully (I don’t drive on the highway because I have double vision, a result of a brain surgery I had in my early twenties). After breakfast, Nick and I peered at our phon

Delta Summer by Diane Wiener
Delta summer plays possum with Buddhist Sisyphus lessons a stray cat evening thunderstorm slows thoughts flash flood warnings notice sensations deep weather pushes Wednesday’s speechless noise do not drive unless it’s an emergency cherry pits falling on pistachio shells sound ready to compost the time echo tastes cold air turned hot like when you pee after iceskating when I sing for the boa the kittens trill why do I peel the tape off the book spine leaving it so sticky I have to retape

Summer 2023Issue 19: Summer 2023

Today by Woody Barlow
Today, And every day since Vietnam I see the brown eyes Of a ten year old boy Staring through me… He was not crying Or blinking After we killed most of his Three generation family I couldn’t explain to him About mistakes… Or the fog of war As we carried dead family members Past where he sat He continued to stare Showing no emotion Fifty years later I wonder Where he is And if he has healed I have not.

Two Spotify Walks After Patient Transport, July 16th, 2020 by Laurence Foshee
Part I. Dusk—Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here,” 1975 I grabbed Gatorade on a sunbaked return home to gawk groundward in a cloth chili pepper mask— and not toward Tulsa’s shrapnel within paling skyline, not to co-opt it for the sake of longing any longer. I stumbled over my doorstep’s first Amazon Solzhenitsyn novel— A Day in The Life of Anybody Not Doing All This, where if “You” just had to be somewhere, then not “Here” or even there, but away from all this, was all I’d “Wish” for still— but i

The “Post” in Postcolonialism by Khadidja Bouchellia
Google search: I no longer speak to myself in my mother tongue. Google search: I no longer think in my mother tongue. Google search: I no longer dream in my mother tongue. Google search: How do I mourn the death [word deleted] the loss of my identity? Google search: Meditation for trauma Google search: Quran cleanse for anxiety and grief Google search: Did Algeria open its borders? Google search: When will Algeria open its borders? Google search: Covid cases in Algeria Google search: I have Covi

How to Get Lost by Louise Krug
1. Nick, the kids, and I were invited to a birthday party for the father of my daughter’s friend. They lived far out in the country on a ranch, in an old stone house. We wanted to go because they are nice people, but Nick was out of town so I had to drive. This was a problem, but could be overcome, if we planned carefully (I don’t drive on the highway because I have double vision, a result of a brain surgery I had in my early twenties). After breakfast, Nick and I peered at our phon

Delta Summer by Diane Wiener
Delta summer plays possum with Buddhist Sisyphus lessons a stray cat evening thunderstorm slows thoughts flash flood warnings notice sensations deep weather pushes Wednesday’s speechless noise do not drive unless it’s an emergency cherry pits falling on pistachio shells sound ready to compost the time echo tastes cold air turned hot like when you pee after iceskating when I sing for the boa the kittens trill why do I peel the tape off the book spine leaving it so sticky I have to retape