Drinking egg creams, eating malt balls, she was solid Swedish stock—an athlete for the ages with a steak in her mouth, iron pills sized for cattle in her pockets. She called herself apprentice to the Protestant work horses, but only … Continued

The house doesn’t know of the termite. The body doesn’t know its cancer until too late. The upper part of the shoe doesn’t know that the sole is wearing. The garden isn’t sure why it was planted. The tree doesn’t … Continued

Rows of pines, planted years ago – so many, were you to count them on your fingers, you would give up past a hundred span; and pain doesn’t yet know about it, while lording over all other feeling. Must explain … Continued

Don’t fence me in, said my student just as the foil perforated his safety vest, slid straight around his vital organs, manufacturer’s defect, said the coach, fence denying blame. And haven’t the animals begun to watch, crows flapping up as … Continued

In a year of throwing voices into the hot wind Filling the road with blue and red sawhorses Blocking the street in a year of knowing the correct Word or where places were as I imagined them Growing dark like … Continued

All alone In the kitchen With the kids gone The wife gone The leaves gone The way walls disappear Into meadows The way knives Disappear Into marigolds Sunshine Into debris Of the spirit I’m all alone In the Kitchen I … Continued

Translated from Spanish by Curtis Bauer. Fernando and Alicia meet, like each other, and begin to date. She lives alone, he with his parents. One afternoon she asks him to walk home with her, because she needs to change clothes … Continued

It’s no one’s bed we’re lying in & from it we can hear the almost-ocean in the eaves of the house behind the other house There is the whisper intrusion makes There the four low steps Here Rest yourself before … Continued

Where will we root when we die? Root the trembling of the heart, fainting and swooning, and idle the worms in the belly? Bold into the gold sunflower, clockface. Bold into the drip paint river mist Jurassic. Bold into the … Continued

One condition of emergence is flight        like the inside of an inside joke       it’s a public private thing like property         or a golf widow gazing         into her glass of gin         where does the time go where the cardinal … Continued

Translated from Persian by Idra Novey and Ahmad Nadalizadeh Of the moon all that’s left is a stain upon the window Of all the waters in the world this single drop on your cheek And the borders have painted over … Continued

The clam grew depraved in the dark toe of a rubber boot, draped in fashion seaweed. I was a mermaid martyr who lusted after those boots. Then winter came. The black pond froze its black-eyed octopi, and I formed my … Continued

She was feeling zodiacal, but I was having none of it, carving runes in the dirt and telling time by trees. She had a palmful of constellations— a harp strung with lines from flesh to stars—but I was earth song, … Continued

Both of my parents are blue-eyed I worked as a housekeeper at 14 I never wanted blonde hair My first accomplishment was controlling my rage I learned to use chopsticks from the Hare Krishnas I’m allergic to grass I am … Continued

We were hard at work with the starving, a dozen white plates set out before us, one copper coin in the middle of each.   We had learned to love what wasn’t there, our last milk left out for feral … Continued

Have you seen cars in the past 10 years have you heard Voices followed them to the curb Left out bowls of milk Are you thirsty all the time How thirsty how encamped Your hair does it hurt How would … Continued

Translated from the Portuguese by Maryam Monalisa Gharavi   Just like someone who —agnostic, skeptical, sarcastic unbeliever— extends strings of garlic throughout the house, to ward off bad luck. Just like someone who plurifies the ferocity of the mind, watches over the … Continued