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Portrait of a Guy

May 7, 2021

after T.S. Eliot I The fog horn wakes me up in February. The night leaves snow on the docks but morning grays it, sends rivers running down the bare cooper beech. Rose Island is shrouded by fog. … Continued

Tug (Into the Market)

May 5, 2021

Daniel Wolff

The screw of a tug stirs the night, thrums the chest like a heart in blood. Does it fight? Yes. Its iron mass displaces fear if fear is a kind of tide. Inside its cabin, a … Continued

The Psychologist at Her Operating Table

May 3, 2021

Paco Márquez

Splayed before the white plastic table two hearts an orifice several ears a hue & a small cloud all a mess and amiss like a lava lamp. Through the eye of a golden needle she sees the sun … Continued

The Comma

May 3, 2021

Paco Márquez

On the bottom floor of the modern Bibliothèque nationale de France, stack #368, row K, reference #p33189787272, page 368, the first comma of paragraph three is feeling a little lonely today. No one has glanced at it for … Continued

Mostly Healthy, Always Sick

April 30, 2021

Neta Alexander

When practicing Crow, the elbows must be carefully bent at ninety degrees to support one’s body weight. It is a tricky yoga pose. Like most other poses, it looks easier than it really is. When I squeeze my … Continued

Mediated Experience

April 28, 2021

Gabrielle Bates

The painter wants to say she was the speechless grass obscuring the doe’s tangle of ankles, but she was not grass. She’d forced certain realities into being; for instance, the fawn. She’d refused to paint it as … Continued

“Person” Comes From “Mask”

April 28, 2021

Gabrielle Bates

Complete focus can resemble utter distraction, just like there’s a point where my lover begins to look like a stranger and large things begin to look small. When the squirrel twitching in the dirt becomes, upon closer … Continued

Review: Cars on Fire by Mónica Ramón Ríos

April 26, 2021

Megin Jiménez

TRANSLATED BY ROBIN MYERS (Rochester, NY: Open Letter Books, 2020) “My pen is also a gun that wants to blow up the monovocal, monotonous realities imposed on us by capitalism. I don’t think it’s worth living a life like that; … Continued

Pressure Lights

April 23, 2021

Kornélia Deres

Translated from Hungarian by Timea Sipos This tunnel is underwater. It doesn’t matter whose it is. You’ve never seen anything like it: I hold the spheres of my life below sea level like a virtuoso. An inherited or learned reflex? … Continued

The Hero’s Triumphant Exodus

April 23, 2021

Kornélia Deres

Translated from Hungarian by Timea Sipos Climb up onto my chariot, sweetheart. I’ll take you free of charge. The sharks planes are flying lower than ever. We have to hurry. My body is stubborn under metal. I burst forth. My … Continued

Schubertiana

April 21, 2021

Tomas Tranströmer

Translated from Swedish by Patty Crane I In the evening darkness at a place outside New York, an overlook where in a single glance you can take in the homes of eight million people. The giant city over … Continued

Review: Nemerov’s Door by Robert Wrigley

April 19, 2021

Francesca Moroney

(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2021) I was first introduced to the brilliance of Robert Wrigley’s work through his poem “Ode to My Boots,” from Anatomy of Melancholy and Other Poems. In this poem, Wrigley’s narrator draws on a long … Continued

Son of Wine

April 16, 2021

Daniel Elkind

Thereupon R. Joshua, son of Karhah, sent word to him, “Vinegar, son of wine!* How long will you deliver up the people of our God for slaughter!” Back came the reply: “I weed out thorns from the vineyard.” Whereupon … Continued

Rosalia

April 14, 2021

Sara Kearns

When I was a child I was pixie dust. That’s only part of the story. The other parts are the boys from New England. How they put their mouths to my neck, a river on the moon. I … Continued

Review: Ghost Hour by Laura Cronk

April 12, 2021

Michael Quinn

(New York: Persea Books, 2020) By middle-age, youth is a private letter tucked inside an envelope. No matter what emotions it stirs by looking back over it, the very fact of its presence makes one thing clear: We each … Continued

When the Season Is Fitting

April 9, 2021

Jessie van Eerden

for Diane Gilliam …there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes … Continued

Six Haikus

April 7, 2021

Willie Perdomo

11. One sneeze can kill you Church bells ring seven futures Blackbirds flex sunlight 100. Blunt-rolling squirrels A crow rocks an evergreen The cupola smiles 23. A dog on Front Street … Continued

Review: Music for Exile by Nehassaiu deGannes

April 5, 2021

Shannon Nakai

(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2021) In her stunning debut collection, Music for Exile, Nehassaiu deGannes acts as a symphonic or choral conductor, deftly incorporating a multitude of voices, themes, and structures from Kamau Brathwaite, Jay Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, the … Continued

Girl in Tow

April 2, 2021

Joseph Levens

At 3:02 in the afternoon of a summer Wednesday, a man in soiled red hiking boots approaches the summit of Mount Katahdin having traveled the entirety of the Appalachian Trail by foot. At the moment he reaches the … Continued

Lament

March 31, 2021

Lucas Hirsch

translated from Dutch by Donna Spruijt-Metz in memoriam Derk Wiersum Having had to absorb a lot of life lately I learned through so much pain that being dead doesn’t seem so bad It is up … Continued

Necropolis

March 31, 2021

Lucas Hirsch

translated from Dutch by Donna Spruijt-Metz in memoriam Joost Zwagerman Woken up in a hut on the Bay of Baratti under a blood moon Barking dogs on hilltops ripped silence to pieces held the dead … Continued

Review: Shane McCrae

March 29, 2021

PK Eriksson

Books discussed in this review: The Language of My Captor (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017) Sometimes I Never Suffered (New York: FSG, 2020) The Gilded Auction Block (New York: FSG, 2019) As a first-generation white American, I have … Continued

Policarpa

March 26, 2021

María Ospina

Translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary Not being devoured is the most perfect of feelings. Not being devoured is the secret goal of an entire life. —Clarice Lispector, “The Smallest Woman in the World” (tr. Katrina Dodson) She scratches … Continued

Still Life with Insufficient iCloud Storage

March 24, 2021

Julia Guez

And here we are— sewing secrets we have wanted in some form to keep, sewing … Continued

On the Occasion of Our Tenth Anniversary

March 24, 2021

Julia Guez

Sea-green eyes, skin the color of dust, I come from a long line of fire signs. We seed the open field … Continued

Turning Points and Revolution

March 23, 2021

Minna Zallman Proctor

This is a revolutionary moment in that everything is changing. But it’s not a revolution, because most of the forces we’re all reacting to (pandemic, injustice, a massive failure to find common moral ground) are not forces put into … Continued

Review: The Part That Burns by Jeannine Ouellette

March 22, 2021

Francesca Moroney

(Wyncote, PA: Split/Lip Press, 2021) A glance down the table of contents of The Part That Burns: A Memoir in Fragments, by Jeannine Ouellette, immediately shows the reader how Ouellette has chosen to organize her work. Here we see … Continued

Review: Dark Horse and In the Room of Persistent Sorry by Kristina Marie Darling

March 15, 2021

Karin Falcone Krieger

(Winston-Salem, NC: C&R Press) “Why would anyone find the train schedules interesting when it is possible to learn about astronomy.” – Kristina Marie Darling, “Orpheus Really Loved that Girl,” Dark Horse Kristina Marie Darling’s collection In the Room of Persistent … Continued

Dance of the Hours

March 12, 2021

Margaret Hermes

“Divorce her,” Nicole pleaded to her husband. “You’ve divorced the two mothers of your children. Breaking away from Sally should be easy by comparison. You deserve a little peace.” “She’s old.” Adam fiddled with his wedding ring, removing … Continued

Turning Points and Revolution

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