If There Was a Way 
 
to know how the ant became stuck in an ice cube, 
it would mean a night of occupation; 
tonight the moon will become sightless 
until the sun decides its end of demise, 
and the stars have already flanked like asteroids - 
tiny from a distant, sparkling like fire- 
stones. If I knew why the ant crawled  
into the water inside the cube, I would 
know why my arms feel the way they feel 
when in some nights they hold darkness  
like an earth-lotus, blooming without water. 
I would know that curious minds are not 
the only ones that renounce fear for break- 
through; the desire to experience pain 
is probably what drives stars to incarnate 
cyclically; is probably what made the ant 
want to be frozen. It isn't considered 
death. The mind finds a sterile axis, stops 
the rotation of churning, curdling to thickness 
until the only form that remains is gel; water  
is gel, in the inanimate way you enter  
the realm of dreams, in the steadfast 
manner you become home to the constricted. 
But, I don't crawl like the ant into self- 
picked spaces. I bloat like a pustule on burn, 
find my own water in which to entrap  
and cover the over-skin with glitter of relief. 
The night will throb the moon on its frontal lobe; 
the blind dawn will freeze in cataracts of light, 
and nobody will know how I died a thousand hours 
to watch the sun rise from its own. 
 

​Sew 
 
He sews under the needle of numbness, 
electrons cheering-on magnum opus of the dead 
 
cells. There will never be dearth of spectators, 
this is how he will always see, bright conjunctions  
 
meant to slip him under a dreamless spell. 
Some minds skull out of their forms -  
 
disseminating like a torn letter - thinning paper 
under a solvent of nerves. He sews like a vein 
 
ready to receive; the exclusion of the external 
like the red dots he would swallow for sleep. 
 
It must feel like the universe has expanded  
on a shrinking platform, and the ebon fills 
 
in fast litres his jug of resistance. It is always  
day when under; he sews a thatch to roof 
 
his eyes as he dreams of hammocks 
that don't feel like wired enclosures under  
 
his skin, that sound of cooing waves of a lazy ocean, 
that taste of lobsters, glossy red like giant pills. 
 
When his jaw vibrates, he eats his teeth. He sews 
under fluids that are chemically stable. And then 
 
when he wakes, the white fluorescence 
turns blue. His mind tells him he's an active dart 
 
ready to shoot for target, his body sewing  
his burning, fading memories of his sleep. 

( Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her work appears in a variety of literary venues, more about which can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com)

​Third Generation
 
There are some silences which annihilate the landscape.
I was brought up with them, learnt the topography of them
across the kitchen table. Fatherless girls fall in love
 
with the ghosts of their fathers. How many times
have I had to remind myself of this? But I’ve learned
not to look back in anger and not to confuse servitude
 
with solitude or vice versa. You know how it is,
that feeling of standing still in space, with every
double entendre, every double-bladed sword
 
sinking into the back of someone’s neck
while you watch, completely stunned?
The fire consumes a histrionic,
 
blisters them with jealousy,
turns ordinary women into furies.
I watched my grandmother pour gin
 
and vermouth down her throat,
as if that could somehow drown the flames,
but she passed out by 7 pm every night.
 
Momma would go upstairs to get stoned.
I’d play with my Barbies in the closet,
left numb, wondering why everything can’t be
 
straight forward. And if some things
just weren’t nice, you should never speak
of them again. But it is almost winter,
 
and I am myself ever, and God
is nowhere to be found. I watched
my grandmother recede in dementia
 
and my mother beaten into an invalid
by a stroke. She used to call me a changeling,
a wicked child. I came into her life
 
during a storm. I brewed secret poisons in
holes I dug, filled with rainwater and little
toads I caught behind the house.
 
Can I write myself into being?
Give me some matchsticks
and a cold and desolate patch of rock.
 
Give me some dead branches
under the twisting ribbon of night.
I’d fly through it; I’d fly straight
 
home.


( Robin DeFrance is a writer and activist who worked many years as a caregiver. Currently, she resides in Kane, PA with her partner and cats. She finds poetry to be the best mouthpiece for communicating traumatic experiences such as isolation, abuse, sorrow, love, or remorse.)