- Their wallets whistle solo in breezy gazebos. On the table, clusters of Arak Saggi in beaded bottles. They have no cares for tomorrow, no worries, nor work to be done. Brown bodies in dervish dresses flutter in rhythm to citars and tombaks, their mysteries rattle in hips and bone. Expats watch through glassy eyes; they might own a piece of some god as a birth rite. They might, themselves, be deities. Their only thoughts are of throbbing, what is mysterious and taboo, and the throttle of power surging through them, not a word, but something pre-lingual, base, a groining. They sit in their baggy white suits and fedoras, occupying the night, those gods, deciding which body to take home.
- Clever and quiet, he burgeons in the freedom of extinction. The Caspian tiger bides in rumor. Undetected, he creeps along the greens near the edge of the patio, intrigued by the pale, white-suited men who somehow eclipse the event with their glare. Soon one would stumble through the gate, unsuspecting, their defenses dulled by drink… He would be swift. The trick of this hunt is to snap the neck and leave no remains. The gods here come and go. Some are hardly noticed.
The Expatriates
Koss
Koss (she/they/them) is a mixed-race, queer poet, writer, and artist with publications in Chiron Review, Michigan Quarterly (Mixtapes), MER, Cincinnati Review (miCro), Spillway, diode poetry, Five Points, Petrichor, Moonpark Review, BULL, Beaver Mag, Sage Cigarettes, Amethyst Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, MoonPark Review, Gone Lawn, Harpy Hybrid, Variant Lit, Sugar Sugar Salt Lit, Harpy Hybrid Review, Hyacinth Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Red Ogre Review, San Pedro River Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Roi Fainéant Press, Anvil Tongue, Bending Genres, Variant Lit, Bulb Culture Collective, Prelude Magazine, and many others. They have work forthcoming in Reckon Review, Midway Journal, and Mythic Picnic. Anthologies include Best Small Fictions 2020, Get Bent, Ovation, Beyond the Frame, The Dead of Winter III, Querencia’s Winter ’24 Anthology, Duets, Bonemilk II, Secrets in the Garden, Punk, and others. They’ve received numerous award nominations (Best of the Net and Pushcart) and won the 2021 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry contest. Their chapbook, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is coming from Diode Editions in '24. Find links to their work at: https://koss-works.com. Connect on Twitter @Koss51209969.