KHÔRA's Heat Issue 🔥 | Blood Sullied by the Sovereign Will by Isra Hassan

• “Blood Sullied by the Sovereign Will” by Isra Hassan

• Issue 53 Heat Issue Highlights

• “They Set the Building on Fire Again” by Sarah Joseph-Alexandre (revisiting a KHÔRA favorite)

• Artists and Writers! We want you.

SUBJECTS

I wore a cardigan to hide my excavated heart, forced
to make way for a diorama, one that stores pride

for an America I lured people to think I believed in.
Cardboard sky and sanctioned shelter held me in

a cardamom gloom. Halt bombs from ballooning;
begin with pledging your allegiance to this cynical nation.

As such, be well. God
bless our breached home. Standing

among a citizenry that hates itself, we are
a family on the verge of a cavity divorce….

Read Blood Sullied by the Sovereign Will.

Isra Hassan is Somali-American poet from Minneapolis, MN. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and can be found in DMQ Review, Poetry Wales, Poet Lore, Logic(s) Magazine, New Orleans Review, and elsewhere.

• The Things I Would Do If You Walked Through That Door by AD Nolan

• Appalachia by Beth Uzwiak

• Blue Lollypop Ritual by Melissa Leto

• Blood Sullied by the Sovereign Will by Isra Hassan

• Incisor by Bess Fernandez

• Dancing Girl by Kelly Thompson

the heat rises up the stairs, but then it stops.
if there ever were a fire, i’d find out last.
the flames would lick the doors so soft,
i’d imagine the sound to be kissing,
and i would stay in bed, mind drifting,
gently, towards the past. don’t call once
the weather gets past eighty, i can’t pick up,
i am sleeping summer away all while
other people are kissing.

• We welcome emerging and established voices: poetry, short prose (under 1800 words), hybrid forms, visual art, video, and unclassifiable experiments.

• Previously unpublished work only, please. Simultaneous submissions are fine—just keep us in the loop if your piece has been accepted by another publication when we reach out.

• We have a strict no-AI policy for all submissions.

Writers, send us your words

Artists, send us your links

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