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Waorani Legend (With Appropriation)

December 4, 2019/ Lauren Brazeal

In throngs of roots around sangre        de drago trees sleep bones       of girls bagged inland,
drugged, & brought downstream to sell       & buy again in Coca. Their glow       beneath a full
moon spells       the rainy season & they rise like clotted                  cream, mushroomed from
prayer circles.

The woman, bone-skinned       & Canadian paid a team of mud-fleshed men to paddle her per
diem       to these little graves. Hammocked on a sheet, grunts       swung her to the open air
resort where gasoline fueled fans brushed jungle air into a poetry       of salamander-grey
mosquito nets. She slid       her silvery fat-soft land fish hands       between the map’s blue legs,
opened unclasped money clips—green as selva paste       flown in from Gringolandia.
She bartered cigarettes & rum for her quaint acquisitions: artisania from our shop
amid tacked posters under jaundiced glass of  horse-shouldered grandmothers       orphan
spider monkeys, marmosets, & sloths in smoke       hut common houses—it’s open to turistas
every Sunday.

We heard       her party tramping sweat & flattening       a hunting ditty used to hammer
out the night. She stabbed       a spoon into the earth & fished clean teeth       from under
roots. She ate the leaf-clod dirt.       She stuck a knife into a tree & cleaved       white jaws
from root. She cranked the blade,       shaved knuckles from our girls right at their finger’s foot.
She knifed a girl with root-dark fingers,       ate raw bone, left on foot. She fingered roots
& walked into the river, sheet in hand. She walked       a bag of bone chips to the shore. A
bag of bone chips       in her hand to bless her, bless your       bones. Absolve       your worries
in our shop.

She came here broken, ate our bones, & walked.

Lauren Brazeal’s first full-length collection of poetry Gutter was published by Yes Yes Books in 2018, and her individual poems and fiction have appeared in journals such as Verse Daily, Smartish Pace, Barrelhouse & Diagram. She is currently working on her second full-length collection of poetry, written at the behest of the Waorani people (an indigenous tribe in Amazonian Ecuador that she has worked with for the past 15 years).

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Point Break & Top Gun Are More Than Homoerotic Action Movies

March 3, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Michaela Emerson
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Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Litdish: Ten Questions with Lise Quintana

March 31, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

March 17, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Jemma Leigh Roe
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/JLR.jpeg 1204 1042 Jemma Leigh Roe https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Jemma Leigh Roe2023-03-17 11:55:192023-03-20 12:27:25On Such a Full Sea Are We Now

The Russian Train

February 24, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Cammy Thomas
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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