Framing Coals by Cori Bratby-Rudd

At my stairwell there’s an empty
glass shattered place where a fire

extinguisher should be, grey
shards line the little white

box like a painting hung on
someone else’s wall

and I laugh at a tool
used never replenished

at the left-

overs of my disaster

as I descend

into my home

I flip on the stove
put my hand over the flames

scramble some
eggs for breakfast.

Cori Bratby-Rudd is a queer LA-based writer and co-founder of Influx Collectiv(e)’s Queer Poetry Reading Series. She graduated Cum Laude from UCLA’s Gender Studies department, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She has been published in Ms. Magazine, The Gordian Review, Califragile, PANK Magazine, Entropy, Crab Fat Magazine, among others. She won the Editorial Choice Award for her research paper in Audeamus Academic Journaland was nominated as one of Lambda Literary’s 2018 Emerging Writers. Her manuscript Dis/owned: Confessions of a Frankgaybe is a semi-finalist for YesYes Book’s 2019 Pamet River Prize. You can find her at coribratbyrudd.com.

Disowned by Cori Bratby-Rudd

Cori Bratby-Rudd is a queer LA-based writer and co-founder of Influx Collectiv(e)’s Queer Poetry Reading Series. She graduated Cum Laude from UCLA’s Gender Studies department, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She has been published in Ms. Magazine, The Gordian Review, Califragile, PANK Magazine, Entropy, Crab Fat Magazine, among others. She won the Editorial Choice Award for her research paper in Audeamus Academic Journaland was nominated as one of Lambda Literary’s 2018 Emerging Writers. Her manuscript Dis/owned: Confessions of a Frankgaybe is a semi-finalist for YesYes Book’s 2019 Pamet River Prize. You can find her at coribratbyrudd.com.

Phones are blowing up the front door by Cori Bratby-Rudd

After Kaveh Akbar’s Orchids Are Sprouting From the Floorboards
The carpet is a phone and it’s ringing.
My wall’s vibration has a swipe to stop.
The curtains are little smart
tablets stacked with sunlight. Those creaks
are actually missed messages in the sidebar.
The puppy calendar is the reminder
ding of a birthday wherein I will not call you. The
painting of grass is a photograph on a device
of a place you once took me. I do not want
to remember that phone call and yet on my
bed there is the same cell phone
with that message I will never
delete. The one where
you called me and yelled:
have a good life.

Cori Bratby-Rudd is a queer LA-based writer and co-founder of Influx Collectiv(e)’s Queer Poetry Reading Series. She graduated Cum Laude from UCLA’s Gender Studies department, and received her MFA in Creative Writing from California Institute of the Arts. She has been published in Ms. Magazine, The Gordian Review, Califragile, PANK Magazine, Entropy, Crab Fat Magazine, among others. She won the Editorial Choice Award for her research paper in Audeamus Academic Journal and was nominated as one of Lambda Literary’s 2018 Emerging Writers. Her manuscript Dis/owned: Confessions of a Frankgaybe is a semi-finalist for YesYes Book’s 2019 Pamet River Prize. You can find her at coribratbyrudd.com.