eMerge Magazine

There Is No Grief In My Mother's House by Chidera Solomon Anikpe
Udoka often regards thoughts of death with the weight of uncertainty pressing into the corners of his mind; an unsure kind of sadness in his heart, a secondhand grief gathering in his throat. It might have been the nature of grief–the startling quality of sad wails and the dramatic flair with which people mourned–that caused him to think of death as an inherently malevolent thing, a thing worthy of being feared. Once, when he was seventeen and his mother had just received the call informing he

Winter 2024Issue 21: Winter 2024

Kindness in an L.A. Subway by Annie Klier Newcomer
4 million people call LA home. 4 million stories. 4 million voices… sometimes you just have to stop and listen to one, to hear something beautiful. LAPD HQ Pastel Grey Against the backdrop of the subway’s makeshift stage, her operatic voice blends into the walls of a busy day and exists but is taken for granted much like the avalanche of birds that descend, expected to be there in time to welcome the morning light. 'tho rarely thought worthy of stopping to feed, even as their songs feed the sp

Back on Earth: Winter Solstice by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
The shortest day folds in on itself, an origami of fog and freeze erasing all color except the red shirt on the clothesline, bird in the cedars barely moving in the cold the dirt swallows. Waxwings crescent over the roof, showing us all is not angles or the momentary constructs we make out of time. Light exhales, pauses as the air thaws, inhales more length toward spring, a hard-to-believe notion on this dark side of the wall. Back on earth, I dream of canals bordered by cherry blossoms, one b

New Orleans by Ron Wallace
(For Jane) You gave me this city thirty years ago bewitched me with iron-laced galleries above arcane streets, music and food drifting from French Quarter doorways. Every year since then, we have walked beneath antique oaks that witnessed duels fought over beauty such as yours. Here, I have seen the sky on fire above the Mississippi and often walked with your hand in mine the white light of a full moon pursuing us along black water waves as we stroll. But tonight we walk from the alley of pirat

There Is No Grief In My Mother's House by Chidera Solomon Anikpe
Udoka often regards thoughts of death with the weight of uncertainty pressing into the corners of his mind; an unsure kind of sadness in his heart, a secondhand grief gathering in his throat. It might have been the nature of grief–the startling quality of sad wails and the dramatic flair with which people mourned–that caused him to think of death as an inherently malevolent thing, a thing worthy of being feared. Once, when he was seventeen and his mother had just received the call informing he

Kindness in an L.A. Subway by Annie Klier Newcomer
4 million people call LA home. 4 million stories. 4 million voices… sometimes you just have to stop and listen to one, to hear something beautiful. LAPD HQ Pastel Grey Against the backdrop of the subway’s makeshift stage, her operatic voice blends into the walls of a busy day and exists but is taken for granted much like the avalanche of birds that descend, expected to be there in time to welcome the morning light. 'tho rarely thought worthy of stopping to feed, even as their songs feed the sp

Back on Earth: Winter Solstice by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
The shortest day folds in on itself, an origami of fog and freeze erasing all color except the red shirt on the clothesline, bird in the cedars barely moving in the cold the dirt swallows. Waxwings crescent over the roof, showing us all is not angles or the momentary constructs we make out of time. Light exhales, pauses as the air thaws, inhales more length toward spring, a hard-to-believe notion on this dark side of the wall. Back on earth, I dream of canals bordered by cherry blossoms, one b

New Orleans by Ron Wallace
(For Jane) You gave me this city thirty years ago bewitched me with iron-laced galleries above arcane streets, music and food drifting from French Quarter doorways. Every year since then, we have walked beneath antique oaks that witnessed duels fought over beauty such as yours. Here, I have seen the sky on fire above the Mississippi and often walked with your hand in mine the white light of a full moon pursuing us along black water waves as we stroll. But tonight we walk from the alley of pirat

There Is No Grief In My Mother's House by Chidera Solomon Anikpe
Udoka often regards thoughts of death with the weight of uncertainty pressing into the corners of his mind; an unsure kind of sadness in his heart, a secondhand grief gathering in his throat. It might have been the nature of grief–the startling quality of sad wails and the dramatic flair with which people mourned–that caused him to think of death as an inherently malevolent thing, a thing worthy of being feared. Once, when he was seventeen and his mother had just received the call informing he

Black Carnations

His Sign Asks for Water

Names I will learn soon/Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, ...

Two Men and a Truck

In the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden

This is Not a Symbolic Poem About Cicadas

Kindness in an L.A. Subway

A Poem for Ramadan

What is Life?

Back on Earth: Winter Solstice

Chicken and Fluffy Dumplings

Ella and the Unicorn

Loose Ends

Our Last Days

The Sixth Extinction

Lightfoot Lives On

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