Donate

Spring 2011

All Men Want You

by Wally Swist

Text Size

A Decrease font size. A Reset font size. A Increase font size.

after Federico Garcia Lorca

All men want you.

Your hand on my thigh.

The candle flickering.

The curtains billowing full,

Breathing yellow shadows.

Your hair cascading

In fields, perfume, and silk.

Long, brown.

All men want you.

In your eyes there are the miles

I will travel someday.

Smokey, far.

I will travel distant countries

Following routes my kisses

Have traced over maps of your body.

All men want you.

In the evenings,

You put on sunsets of garments.

Purple clouds, new moon.

You ballet petals of light.

Golden tassels, brushstrokes of sky.

There are birds and trees.

The sing and sway in the morning.

There are miracles and wind.

All men want you.

Your breasts, your lips, your eyes.

Your hand on my thigh.

There are the miles

I will travel someday.

Breathe softly beside me.

Evenings, mornings.

All men want you.

Wally Swist

Wally Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), Awakening & Visitation, and Evanescence: Selected Poems (2020), with Shanti Arts. His translations have been and/or will be published in Chiron Review, Ezra: An Online Journal of Translation, Transference: Literary Journal Featuring the Art & Process of Translation, and Woven Tale Press. His latest book of essays, A Writer’s Statements on Beauty: New & Selected Essays & Reviews will be published in 2021 by Shanti Arts.

View profile

After the Burning

by Jeff Friedman

We held each other as our bodies turned to smoke and rose above the burning leaves. Hawks plunged through us, carrying bits of us in their beaks. We settled on roofs, clung to nests and nets. We drifted and drifted like cirrus clouds, like long tongues licking the sky, like glittery trails. Below, mounds of

Spring 2020

Deeds

by Jeff Friedman

This piece is part of our Fall 2019 print issue.

Fall 2019 Print Issue

Advice to girls who want to –

by Ellen Hagan

after Nikky Finney Be reckless when it matters most. Messy incomplete. Belly laugh. Languish language. Be butterfly stroke in a pool of freestylers. Fast & loose. You don’t need all the right moves all the time. You just need limbs wild. Be equator. Lava. Ocean floor, the neon of plankton. Be unexpected. The rope they

Summer 2018

Browse More

SUPPORT 
DIVERSE VOICES
IN LITERATURE

If you enjoy our magazine’s print and online issues and believe in our mission of promoting diverse voices, please consider donating so we can continue to publish such relevant and distinctive work here at Solstice.

Make a donation