by Karla Marrufo Huchim
Translated from the Spanish by Allison A. deFreese

i never knew her name
but i watched her die in the clearest instant
heard her body
open, the crack of bones
at the end of her agony,

by María Negroni
Translated from the Spanish by Allison A. deFreese

When I return to my castle of origin, I will write a nocturne with a clair de lune and call it My Poetic Astronomy. I will imbue it with the excitement of the night, as it has been recorded over centuries--with its priestesses, its crimes, its waters that cross the borders of the world and disappear into nothing.

by Teodora Taneva
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva

They remain silent
for they don’t want to share a common language
with their enemies.
They remain silent in their thoughts, silent with their eyes, their hands, their souls,
they even breathe silently, like flowers

by Georgi Atanassov
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva

Sixty years ago
In Lom they were killing all crows.
They’d sign a paper
to get a handgun
with an ammo box.

by Vania Valkova
Translated from the Bulgarian by Elitza Kotzeva

The new slaves are abundantly obedient
Socialize politely in slow-tedious style, yet
Always have their nails exquisitely done 
and well charged robots full of smiles to don. 

by Vladislav Davidzon

If broken, a law of mesira
is a mortifying plume
writing denunciations is no art
high incidence of illiterates
involved in
regressed resplendence
bony spinster's joints

by Diana Manole

What else do you want? The crisis centres’ phone numbers already blink
on oversized billboards
at both ends of the bridges
above six-lane highways crossing cities to prevent traffic delays
during rush hours.

by Stephan Roll
Translated from the Romanian by Henry Finch

In the moonlight your eye lacks a pupil
But flowers you lead by hand
Inverse praying to the consecrated saints
Like the taste of the fountain’s black stones

by Zita Izsó 
Translated from the Hungarian by Timea Balogh

We lay with our faces in the sand. 
For a long time, we dare not believe this is the shore.
We don’t know how many of us made it,
how many we lost.

by Tanja Maljartschuk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins

do the stooped stoop
do the blind squint
do those who love fall in love
would mothers have borne their mothers
had they the choice
can you stop a war with war

by Iryna Tsilyk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Vitaly Chernetsky
feat. the photography of Ruslan Hruschak

Be as it may,
every year begins and ends with
Christmas.
You will be standing somewhere on the porch
of your multi-apartment homeland
looking out for the first star
above the dark eyes of nervous cars

by Ondřej Hanus
Translated from the Czech by Nathan Fields

the first verse decides
through Holešovice underpass back into Mother
airtight sleep of narration spawns flaring micronarratives
a thing is the ekphrasis of essence and essence is the ekphrasis of God
that is the last use of matter

by Petr Hruška
Translated from the Czech by Jonathan Bolton

That’s him.
It happens.
Selective mutism,
as learned people call it,
the sudden loss of speech.

by Pavel Kolmačka
Translated from the Czech by Nathan Fields

LIVING IN HARMONY
even with blossoming trees.
We shout, we laugh,
we carry, we lift,
we load hives, lids, pedestals,
we tighten straps
and drive in wedges.

by Olena Jennings

I remembered the scene when her lover got trampled
by an elephant.  She lifted herself above the despair.
Last time I went dancing I was at the level of sky.
I felt my body unfold because I was so close
to getting what I wanted and then it folded again

by John LaPine

The Girl with No Tail has no balance.
She teeters on the brink,
eclipses precipice. Threat of falling does not
thump hard in her chest, does not live
in her throat, her tiny black throat.
She lives like danger becomes her.
She lets herself wobble against
wind, a branchless tree: thin.

by Wanda Deglane

You’re crouched outside the car, limbs folded 
like a broken sun chair, spluttering and vomiting 
against rocks that gut your hands like first-century nails.
I’m gripping the seat, picturing the world about to go 
tumbling, frozen by gravity that wasn’t there minutes ago. 
The music explodes through the speakers, tries to drown 
out the sounds of your shuddering, your gasping for air, 
your downhill battles that shred the still night in two.

by Slavick Ciganec
Translated from the Ukrainian by Olena Jennings

in her eyes a sign should read “swimming prohibited”
no one knows how many of those who ignored it drowned 
one day you’ll want to try it 
but there is one tiny problem
you must dive to the very bottom
and come face to face with the heavenly
or martyrs

by Sergey Lebedev
Translated from the Russian by Dmytro Kyyan

They could arrest the garden gnomes,
exterminate swallows and spiders,
roll a granite pavement in asphalt,
take out to the East
the porcelain figurines from a chest of drawers
that peeped through the window,
replace the human souls
with an overcoat cloth

by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler

Meticulous Demeter’s revenge was slow but vicious;
she bred innumerable souls to choke the underworld
and laced them with her own ethos; her triumphs
sickened its entombed monarch, and soon he was impotent