Blood, Sweat, Tears
Fiction by Neera Kashyap: ‘“My friends say this is dirty blood,” she said. “That’s why nobody talks about it, not even our mothers. Not even when there is pain. My mother says not to eat this and that, says I have to be careful now, dress modestly, not talk to boys.”’
Poetry by John Copley Alter: ‘In the proximity / of other gods—other sutras— / we muttered our creed—you // pecking / away at your manual typewriter— / carbon copies of personal letters / home—to the diaspora—we // noodling on the keyboard of happiness’