An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: culture

Family Dinner #3

Poetry by Grace Huynh

you look around
seeing the people you love
and suddenly,
you feel like you know nothing at all.

you want to hear them speak
about everything they know
you want to wash the cigarette smell from your hair with their words
you want to rinse your hands with their research

hoping that their knowledge on
art, poetry, palestine
and the berlin club scene

will somehow find its way
through your ears
into your brain
and out your fingertips
to build a monument
with everything you know

from times fueled by arak and fifa
and late night drives through abdoun
break-ins to your apartment from your balcony
and neighbors throwing rocks at you from their roof
or when you had to wake her up for university
and how you felt when they had to leave

but maybe i don’t need to build them a monument
because my tribute to them is me.


Grace Huynh is a writer originally from Orange County, California. She gathers inspiration from California, the Middle East and her heritage roots in Vietnam. Her poetry was exhibited through a one-month residency at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. Contact her at [email protected] or on Instagram @homeherewriting.

In the Department Store

Poetry by Juanita Rey

Don’t be put off
by brown eyes, brown face,
and the times my tongue stumbles,
flips an English phrase backward.

I am new here
and, though my colors won’t change,
words will one day come out of my mouth
without a detour via the islands.

I wish to buy this dress.
It matches my olive skin.
And I have a credit card in my purse,
ID to prove it belongs to me.

Yes, I expect assumptions, suspicions,
from those behind department store counters.
But I’m looking in a full-length mirror.
I have myself convinced.


Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in this country five years. Her work has been published in Pennsylvania English, Opiate Journal, Petrichor Machine and Porter Gulch Review.

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