Sometimes you turn to poetry the way you turn to another country. Everything is better, more humane. You notice things you wouldn’t otherwise. You notice things. Watching gardeners trim branches for birds to fly through reminds you of … Continued
Translated from Spanish by Curtis Bauer I fell in love with a boy when I was seven years old. I could have fallen in love with a girl, but in my school the boys and girls were separated, so I … Continued
And later, in the empty room upstairs AAAAAAAAAAAthat will stay empty because it’s a lookout AAAAAAAAAAAJames and I are staring at a cardinal in a tree and I say AAAAAAAAAAAhe’s so red and James says … Continued
Of Senegambia and seven, she should have been of the not-to be-taken, the not-high price, for a not-prime boy’s a girl of the unsuitable labor (birth not work)—and that years away. (Some of the captured, their spirits: … Continued
It used to settle on the crowns of trees unevenly, so that gravity or a breeze could make a fringe fall down, the fluttering particles meeting their two- dimensional shadows, off- white occluding off-white. Children could … Continued
How much can you do with one piece of paper— creasing, tearing, adding volume with air? You can make a mythic sea monster toppling a tall ship in high, high seas, as my seatmate in 30C, in … Continued
The boats return Heavy from cities and distance. The crickets fall asleep. A child listens to the hollow of a conch. Perhaps it is the moment for another trip At the bow, for certain, the … Continued
i’m the little parakeet girl her caged and useless beat her flight of wings i’m the fire breathing kitten feather green and flame baby panther dragon scaly cat the way she purrs you back again i’m the … Continued
Caring is a disease passed on My grandpa stood here and my dad imagined him doing so, and I am here to pay my respects to the love my dad had for him Buy a tee shirt … Continued
you border crosser in this simulation you constantly slip and call one border by the other’s name the names aren’t straight inside of you and you conflate one with two because you still yearn for another border … Continued
The elocution lessons have been a great success! It is a matter of biting and swallowing. Clean bites and frequent sorrows. It’s so terrible—nothing is the god of me. I’m a grassy pit, I’m organized around nothing, a … Continued
The welcome arch read Only the Best Come North & my parents laughed tongue-in-cheek at another cross-country Air Force move. In fifth grade, I learned about America & the Dakotas & the Cold War & elections as Reagan … Continued
Brave Mrs. Kenley turns her back on the first grade, and like a grass fire, from raw blade to raw blade, enmity spreads. Mr. Hawkins twists paperclips around his knuckles. Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Hall sit at their … Continued
I saw the white deer in the clearing. I lowered my bow. That planets don’t collide on a more regular basis is one of the wonders of, say, sleeping through the night. The white deer bent its head, browsed … Continued
a poem from TLR’s Babel Fish issue by Matthew Rohrer: “All you need to make sense of this poem..”
If you get five out of six numbers correct in the lottery, you’re still a loser. –Fred Espenak, “Mr. Eclipse” 88% is a lot, nearly the whole xxxxthing. The black moon sliding over the sun like a manhole xxxxcover, a … Continued
The lamp in the borrowed room said, “This Is It!” We meant otherwise, and the room said no this is it. There are ways to code intensity on the brain like a map, like the lamp placed in the kiln, … Continued
Praise for this wending, this bearing beginning. The least stuck is groaning, the most has given in. Words a rotted barn, full of must and straw and animals sleeping. I want to dream with you the mountainsides, the beaches, the … Continued
A wooded, bloodied word, a dozing black daisy. Into you out of my head how many times, out of air and earthward, bird with no throat, bird unopened. Unencumbered of my desire, your arms free of the frozen stream. To … Continued
Pretty good work if you can get it, making paradises in abandoned banks stony exterior, marble interior, the registers like a failed carillon (toneless) striking all hours at all hours. Every noon the ghost attendants ghost-walk up to the kiosk, … Continued