- Letter from the Other Side of Silence — Stephanie L. Harper
- Because The Deacon Couldn’t Sleep — Dina Friedman
- One Day At A Time– Kavita Ratna
- YOU ARE– Mahvash Mohtadullah
- Gypsy Woman– George Bakola
- For Angie– Rachel Ikins
- Rise And Fall– Lynn White
- Canary’s Plea– Agaigbe Uhembansha
- The Lost Pages– Sabreen Ahmed
- VOICES: Three Haikus by Daiypayan Nair
- Lipstick– Kalpana Singh Chitnis
- She Rides The Bus– Marianne Tefft
- There Is A Desire– Trijita Mukherjee
- My Inner Voice– Shailja Sharma
Lipstick— Kalpana Singh Chitnis
Remember the day I had put on
lipstick for the first time?
Not red, not pink; a brown lipstick
suited to the color of my skin.
No one would have noticed,
but you did and thought
I had found love. Or at least
I was looking for it.
You were worried that
the day I would find love,
it would stain your reputation.
You were told love isn’t found.
It is cultivated or negotiated.
You protested against me.
I wasn’t good as my sisters and cousins,
who never had the audacity to do such a thing.
Years later, you came to me
and looked for lipstick in my vanity case.
You preferred red. If not, a brighter shade of brown
will do. But I didn’t carry lipstick anymore.
You insisted I buy one,
put it on, and go out to live a little.
But you didn’t realize, Mother, it was too late to find love.
Kalpna Singh-Chitnis is a Pushcart Prize nominated, award-winning Indian-American poet, writer, filmmaker, and actor. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Life and Legends and Translation Editor of IHRAF Literary in New York. She has published four books of poetry, and her works have appeared in notable journals like World Literature Today, Columbia Journal, California Quarterly, Indian Literature, Silk Routes Project (The University of Iowa), Life in Quarantine (Stanford University), etc. Her full-length poetry collection, Bare Soul, was awarded the 2017 “Naji Naaman Literary Prize for Creativity.”
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