Picture this: on a planet at the edge of a spiral arm, a kid brother leaves an apartment. And never comes back. As if the apartment door opened onto the pull of space, and he fluttered … Continued
My mother’s eyes—a green sometimes blue, or gray— my father studied them the way he studied light with his camera lens constantly, there was a sadness, Slavic and cloud-like. My … Continued
Translated from the ancient Chinese Book of Odes (Seventh Century BCE) The kudzu vine has spread to the middle of the gorge, heavy with leaves! Orioles fly by to gather in the bushes and practice … Continued
Though it happened. When I threw the plant across the kitchen counter, I never meant to crush its unstraight stalk crude with green sureness, cracking pottery chips across the tile floor. I meant to scoop handfuls of … Continued
Translated from Hebrew by Tal Nitzan and Ilya Kaminsky. It’s not a green bench in the children’s room It’s a crocodile It’s not a crocodile It’s the future: here’s the slow shift of his eyes here’s … Continued
Written in Polish by Jerzy Ficowski. Translated by Jennifer Grotz and Piotr Sommer. where the green snake at the bottom of a dark cellar under the mossy cover of rumbling and wood rolled around itself and unrolled … Continued
Written in Japanese by Hiromi Itō. The first time I ever heard about coyotes Was in a book called (in Japanese) Setons’ Animals for Boys and Girls There I encountered Lobo the Wolf King, bighorn sheep, a … Continued
You remind me of the Underground Railroad. I’ve learned to watch for the kerosene lamp aglare in your distance. Past the fuel and wick at the far end of your forest, there’s a mud basement, a soot-slick coal cellar with … Continued
We thank you for your interest, an urge from within, a special something. A sea of metaphysical books before they amounted to clairvoyance. An ether inside a higher ether. Two sensitivities to one whole and a dimension of your dormant … Continued
I wandered like a white girl. Oversized backpack, a money belt full of sports bar tips, and a penchant for men with guitars. A fissure in my heart and bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t afford Europe so I … Continued
—FL, our nation’s oldest city When my father saw her sunbathing her lean body that would one day push me from it, over and over,maybe he knew in an instanthis bohemian life had ended. Knew from the string-tied birdsfastened around … Continued
If I could look through one of the many boarded-up windows around me, I might be able to see the enemy hiding somewhere nearby—amidst the skewed about debris and dry, desert dust. They’re waiting patiently for our movement with machine-gun … Continued
1. Follow the mentor across a street, a jaywalk to rare steak and talk of pepper. Crosswalk denied again upon return. My hesitation about headlights, but mentor goes. I do. Other side. Then we hear a crack. Car halt. Follow … Continued
There’s a spring-loaded Red Rider leaning next to the glass of my back door. It’s the same gun I used as a child to snap little holes in empty Coke cans. Light shone through, casting stars to the ground … Continued
A tea stain can be removed, I’ve heard, by pouring boiling water from three feet up. This is how rivers began, with a sound like infamy, like bantam waves in a backyard canal. I am not safe for fabrics. I … Continued
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
after Brassai You’ll find me at Pont des Arts where water remains water till it moves between tolling bells while your light feet carry speed, you chase after disappearing bistros, then find me at Pont des Arts. In my bed … 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