Current
Issue
Fall 2026 / Volume 13.1
moriel rothman
—
INFERNO ARIA
I leaned against the entryway
to one of the half-rooms in the back,
past the maze and the leather hammock.
One of my arms was propped up
against the awning and I could smell
the petrol and cumin of my left armpit,
a smell I was embarrassed of during
the latter years of my marriage, and
before. I was wearing only frayed
pink shorts, which meant I was more
modestly dressed than most of the other men.
In the room, on a bed-thing—I can’t
really describe the furniture, unless I fictionalize,
I wasn’t looking so closely, and for once
I want to tell things really like they were—two men
lay languidly kissing, stroking one another’s
penises. One of them opened his eyes,
and saw me watching and I blushed.
He whispered something to his curly-haired
companion, who nodded, and then he,
the man with long blond hair, walked over to me.
He asked, so gently, polite, so unlike
how I’d imagined men might speak in such
a space, May I kiss you, and I nodded,
blushed again. His lips were soft, and his penis
was soft under my palm, as mine was in his,
and we both grew harder, then, these strange
vanes of our bodies signaling a change
in internal weather, as two older men stood watching us,
both smiling wistfully, I think, and others moved quickly
around us, and I wondered who by
Ketamine, who by Molly, who there was sober,
who there was sad, who was out, who was not,
or not quite, like me, he asked if he could put me
in his mouth, and I told him, No thank you, sweetheart,
not now. I preferred to flit a bit more around the darkened
synagogue, where men, in full-and three-quarters undress
kneeled and moved their hips, mouths filled with
song and sweat and semen and sweetness, god
damn sweetness, so much sweetness there
inside this american miklat, this refuge.
-Elul 5782
DANCE-FLOOR INSIGHT 2/3 WHILE OUT WITH 'PEMI AND JAMES AND CHANCE AT THE 700 IN PHILLY IN EARLY APRIL 2026
through the fog of my sunglasses
i saw a man flailing
and i thought i would remove
my glasses to get
a better look
until a voice - from within
but also not, you know? -
said: Uh uh.
You are not permitted
to look upon his face
unless you are
looking with love.
so i kept my sunglasses on
until i was ready.
moriel rothman (they/them) is the author of two novels, Before All the World, which was named an NPR Best Book of 2022, and which moriel is currently adapting into a play, and Sadness Is a White Bird, which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, among other honors. Moriel's debut poetry collection, I Still Won’t Have Known, is forthcoming from BOA Editions in 2028, and their work has been published in The American Poetry Review, Barrelhouse, the Colorado Review, the Common, Jewish Currents, Lit Hub, The New York Times, the Paris Review's Daily, Poetry Daily, Zyzzyva and elsewhere. A National Book Foundation ‘5 Under 35’ Honoree, a MacDowell fellow, and a recipient of the Mandel Institute’s Cultural Leadership Program Fellowship (Cohort II, 2026-2028), moriel received their MFA in Poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and teaches creative writing at Swarthmore College. They live in Philadelphia.
