Waxwing

02/15/2022

We’re back and better than ever in Waxwing Issue XXVI! Thank you as always to our amazing contributors for trusting us to share their beautiful work. We can’t wait for you to take a look!

02/09/2022

"Your arms around me,
And beyond what either of us can see
This stream, steady and reliable,
Meets and pours into an ocean."

I Begin the Year Inside a River by Alfredo Aguilar

Your arms around me, / And beyond what either of us can see / This stream, steady and reliable ... ❡

01/29/2022

"in conjunction with memory, memory yielded.
a mule deer unseeable traced across the desert between there and night"

Retablos by Sara Lupita Olivares

in conjunction with memory, memory yielded. / a mule deer unseeable traced across the desert between there and night ... ❡

01/18/2022

"Where soil, water, and tending
Leads loquats, grapefruits, and persimmons to ripen —"

Returning by Alfredo Aguilar

Where soil, water, and tending / Leads loquats, grapefruits, and persimmons to ripen — ❡

01/16/2022

"Mother stopped talking after that morning of the eviction. She was crocheting doilies while Bartholomew was doing dishes and James was mopping the floor when the earth began rumbling, throwing off the photographs on the wall."

Madaraka Express by Gladwell Pamba

Mother stopped talking after that morning of the eviction. She was crocheting doilies while Bartholomew was doing dishes and James was mopping the floor when the earth began rumbling .... ❡

01/15/2022

"Tens of thousands of deaths ago
before we had the time
to start saying goodbye
every last body still counts the most"

As If to Ralph Angel by William Olsen

Tens of thousands of deaths ago / before we had the time / to start saying goodbye ... ❡

01/14/2022

"دھندلی رات کے دُکھیا سائے
جانے کِس پاتال سے آئے
دھیرے دھیرے چلتے جاتے
دل کے درد کے راگ سُناتے"

رات کے سائے
by Miraji and translated by Krupa Shandilya, Zara Khadeeja Majoka, and Adeeba Shahid Talukder

رات کے سائے Miraji دھندلی رات کے دُکھیا سائے           جانے کِس پاتال سے آئے دھیرے دھیرے چلتے جاتے           دل کے درد کے راگ سُناتے دھرتی کا سینہ سہلاتے           آنک...

01/13/2022

"On the windowsill I leave
Some old world seeds
Like the plucked eyes
Of the gilded statue-boy."

The Manifold, Marvelous Contraptions of the Toymaker by Andy Sia

Paracosm: there is a world in a world in a world. / Their names like a wet / ❡

01/12/2022

"it takes faith
to hurl stones at the moon, believing they land
in a place we can touch"

after swallowing a lightbulb by J. David

it takes faith / to hurl stones at the moon, believing they land / in a place we can touch ... ❡

01/11/2022

"my grandmother ran away from home in her early twenties because she opposed her mother’s remarriage. or, my grandmother ran away from home in her early twenties because she was her father’s daughter and no amount of death could erase that."

in this life by Weinong Teng

my grandmother ran away from home in her early twenties because she opposed her mother’s remarriage. or, my grandmother ran away from home in her early twenties because she was her father’s daughter and no amount of death could erase that. ❡

01/10/2022

"reads the sign lit in my high beams between Jupiter
and Mars Hill, NC. Next morning,
a Google search for Forks of Ivy yielded
no town hall, no website, not even a population
count. Labeled: an unincorporated community."

Forks of Ivy, 3/4 Mile by Brandon Amico

reads the sign lit in my high beams between Jupiter / and Mars Hill, NC. Next morning ... ❡

01/09/2022

"in their opacity, each hour eluded me. at the center
a dozen surfaces, the peonies without detail reflected."

Etched by Sara Lupita Olivares

in their opacity, each hour eluded me. at the center / a dozen surfaces, the peonies without detail reflected. ❡

01/08/2022

"For each sacrament, I focused my story on the fact that we went out to celebrate afterward at D’Angelo’s Summit, the only nice restaurant in the neighborhood."

1995 by Tom McAllister

Near the end of seventh grade, we had to complete a Sacraments of Initiation booklet, writing brief narratives about each of the sacraments we had received, tracing our personal transformation thanks to having been filled with God’s grace. ❡

01/07/2022

"There was no way back —
the birds had pecked our loaf to nothing
our small hearts in their beaks;
we wandered the dark, despairing."

Bedtime Story: Part 1 (Gretel) by Lauren K. Alleyne

There was no way back — / the birds had pecked our loaf to nothing ... ❡

12/26/2021

"Tucked away
On the back porch,
A mockingbird’s nest
Empty of egg and bird."

Tejano Nocturne by Alfredo Aguilar

a woman recalls the incident of the dusty moth wings that swole her eye shut like it’s the tavern shootout scene from her favorite western. ❡

12/19/2021

"unnavigable, the white sun will hover without pause.
neither slanted nor crooked, a false scope covering without pause."

Dialogue of Losses by Sara Lupita Olivares

unnavigable, the white sun will hover without pause. / neither slanted nor crooked, a false scope covering without pause. ❡

12/08/2021

"lets say our throats are green stalks now,
our last name aster"

Butterweed by Ashley Dailey

Ashley Dailey is a poet and multimedia artist from Sargent, Georgia. The recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and Bread Loaf Writers Conference scholarship, she has been published in Breakwater Review, New Delta Review, Plume Poetry, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. She is currently pur...

12/06/2021

"We had no ghosts or shadows, nothing to carry with us, so we claimed the apartment and made it ours."

Animal by Grace Q. Song

We lived in a small apartment on the highest floor. The rooms were small, the hallways long, and four windows faced the east. ❡