Poetry

As to the oboe it doesn’t need teeth, but a boot heel can’t play it, he tries to tell the guard, and feels for how many teeth he has left.  How will it help him to think his instrument’s older than Zyklon B, older than his neighbor soiling herself as she tumbled down the steps,

Glowing like a bride she glides as though mounted on a parade float, drawing all eyes to her: a bright blue topaz in miles of poufed organza scooped up to avoid a brush with McDonald’s floor, the jambs & kickplates, where dirty boots have shuffled & food scraps lie in ambush knowing that on this

A strange, soft creature rests tethered in my mouth, gentle aesthete, wet and bumpy, discerning shades of salt, sweet, bitter, sour beyond any practical necessity, understandably alarmed by the occasional taco de lengua, more so by the sharp incisors sharing its space, but still making its modest contribution to speech, not sibilants or fricatives, of

Not to go to bed but to stay the night there, we have to work out who gets which. Whose habit’s stronger decides, except in the happy case where bents agree. This is universal. Yet we have no common language for which is which. North or East won’t do, nearer the bathroom and beside the

I’ve been crawling out of darkness for years, one concerto at a time, prone to unraveling but continuing to climb. I was told to get tough quick, but that hardening only made the darkness deeper, so out of the cicada shell I squoze, shabby spirit amorphous yet intact. I have a hunch of going to

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

This piece is part of our Winter 2023 print issue, available for purchase here.          

after Enzo Silon Surin Some mother said to always wear a clean pair of underwear in case of emergencies in which EMTs need cut off your pants, and some other mother said dress like every outfit is your last as if the funeral walks in lockstep. I iron wrinkles from my jeans, shirts, and chinos.

This morning you’re thinking about shoes, of a painting your sister is trying to complete, socked feet of all those young men, her son’s friends come to make a shiva call, to visit a mother in shock, grieving, boys removing sneakers so as to not soil her carpet. Fifteen years later, she paints what she

or clatter them into the sink, I think of John Muir, suddenly blind by an awl snapped upward, piercing his eye. What remained? A hunger for holiness, like when I realize everything outside was made by someone’s hands—even the rats, boundless and loud, fat on trash. All of it, I fold into the suitcase of

-after So What, by Miles Davis complex kind of blue man in a silent way     kind of complicated man who birth coolness miles ahead his sounds    this kind of mellowness his groove flawed and loved and feared even though his nothing or all stance towards women the drugs and all that    within a world of

I To erect a greenhouse on a perennial farm: 1, 2, 3 group push of metal arches up to heirloom sun dipping underneath each metal line along the other side     rays peppering the eye we mourn spring eternal cycle: fingertips sweat along hot metal each ladder step             a tinny hymn, echoing edict of screw

I was told there’s a fairy tale where all the daughters heal their own wounds by completing their assignment before midnight. Every Wednesday, the daughters set fire to the village & everyone agrees the daughters should burn as the summer & just as welcome. Look! The warmth the daughters bring, an offering. I was told

She’s in her own little world, says one man to the other, as I walk by their front porch where they sit and drink beer with the front door wide open. Actually, I’m harvesting encounters: tiger lilies planted by a driveway, a bursting snowball bush, the curious way one tree’s branch turned ninety degrees to

in the dark museum taking the form of a little dragon burnt black, square-headed, crouching doggish at the angel’s feet the devil is so ugly-cute you want to take him home give him a cushion a little plaid blanket don’t you always make that mistake— what looked harmless enters the house begins to swell and

the sunflower aches her long neck under duress of a blue roof’s eave her seed draws evening’s edge thin lines of black and white pinstripe yearn for unity. wine poured out burns closer to the stem’s sacrifice. roots, unmentionable. deep seeking. whole as the hovered sea carried in. currents pull color in bright directions. cool

This is a desert scene. Imagine the cactus fever green hunger strewn across sands but we are driving 80 so Sonoran streams out the window. Morning moon shining white atop blue. Let’s call it cerulean. Imagine the eagles echo over fricative land. This is no Blood Meridian, this is a road trip pastoral where the

Sweet Samba Bellies touch in a full orbit, a navel and hip belt a Congo sphere a corner circle a Kikongo Semba, masemba from coast to coast and we move like two eager ocean waves lapping at each other conjuring up our old and new from Soyo to Bahia and ours is not for the

After the Overturn of Roe v. Wade, June 24th, 2022 New York Harbor has shoved itself inside me. Swallowed Emma Lazarus’ bronze words in reverse: I lift my lamp beside the golden door!… ..The wretched refuse of your teeming shore… …glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes command… …Mother of exiles, from her beacon hand… Tourists

on this 10th anniversary of your grandmothers’ deaths pack a suitcase, buy a one-way ticket to the motherland to the first place you called home leave the airport, pass the city, drive into the dusk open the door to the bungalow, breathe in the dust sit on the narrow bed, tenderly lay out your dresses

sometimes we forget that the connections for the batteries on our transistor radio corroded that the songs we wanted to listen to are in our heads that we remember them and sing as our feet travel a road not meant for the tires of trucks or cars just the soles of our shoes to visit

some mornings, after prayer, my mind wanders down to the darkness  of the lower decks, to women  packed in like dry goods upon a shelf hardly room to stretch their legs, their arms. I feel them there in the discomfort of womanhood—  moon phases passing through their bodies  during the long ship’s journey or pregnancy

The day belonged to the patrols and informants posing as early morning roosters, but the night was ours, distorted guitars bursting through cheap speakers, we were hummingbirds barely out of our cages, fearing to be arrested for the unlicensed nectar in our beaks, aware we’d be almost safe if we kept our humming to a

If I choose to be reborn, god build this world for me: Black and brown bodies cascading across the globe with black tresses and wild eyes. A riot of power that breaks white into red and red into deep red. Trees that shed leaves on our naked bodies and sun that folds into the hollows

from the Hebrew: to return, ask forgiveness, make amends A word lies buried at the bottom of the bluestone well,  obscured in gurgle and murk, holds a secret  and likes it that way— once this word called someplace home but it grew up  abandoned and feral, scissored its own hair,  with no wink back at

Little moon, little hilltop of the throat, little bloom— orchids petalled white, night-breeze like a silk dress. The queen peacock is fast asleep. Holes in the grass where crickets should be, but there are fireflies, star-flecks, a red, teeming planet. Keep it far. Keep it quiet. Keep mouth closed so the sun never rises. Light,

-after Kelli Russell Agodon in early morning’s quiet  rays murmur through the window warm lines on my thighs  my skin so in love with heat I’d kiss the sun if I could  how can we hold what we can’t grasp? at night in the valley  winter’s silence is shunned shadows rustle last year’s leaves  an

There is no longing for the dead, no remorse or regret of not having lived a fuller life—the Dead Sea does not wish to be ocean or river, a frozen finch perched under a tree is no more alive than the leaves that contain it. We are aware of this but are creatures of ceremony

Every fourth week, the floodgates unbuckle and part the sea. Blood eddies in a river dance and I find myself suddenly wildened, fifty milliliters rising to the moon’s pull. I sorrow fully, releasing my soul to the dappled pelt of the night sky. I am not with the waves, but I want to be. In

This deep ocean of melancholy waving through me, and all the doubts and suspicions snapping like little turtle neurons, flashing bulbs of insecurity and a truth I have come to slowly accept. These are the songs you hear from my body. You stretch and press your feet against my belly, the top of the fundus

Sleeping in the Dead Girl’s Room Cynthia Bargar Lily Poetry Review Books 2022, 76 pages, $18.00 “You know we are miracles, don’t you? Don’t you?/Are we? Are we?” questions the speaker in the poem “After Infinitely Polar Bear at the Coolidge Corner Cinema.” Are we worthy? Are we capable? What is the meaning of our

Betsy Sholl’s tenth poetry collection, As If a Song Could Save You, winner of the Four Lakes Prize in Poetry, is published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Robbie Gamble: I’m intrigued by the genesis of book titles, and your title, As If a Song Could Save You, draws me in because it encourages different readings.

All Things Are Born to Change Their Shapes by Jennifer Martelli Harbor Editions Harbor Publishing, 2023 61 pages Jennifer Martelli knows things: hidden truths she reveals through repeated images and themes in her latest book, All Things Are Born to Change Their Shapes. Many of these motifs have to do with violence perpetrated against women,

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

This piece is part of our Winter 2022 print issue, available for purchase here.

Her glassy muzzle beats back the salt squall to be here. She who in her time swallowed seal cub after seal cub, sets out from Iqaluit, sprints the Arctic platform from leeward ridge to longing, dividing sea from tundra. When pack-ice grows too thin, fishermen catch her like a ghost in the trawl. She rakes

While America is dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, we in Black America are dealing with the 1619 pandemic. – Benjamin Crump, attorney for the family of Dijon Kizzee (1991-2020), killed by LA County police deputies, CNN, 9/23/20   Dijon Kizzee loved anything on wheels – bike, go-kart, motorcycle    Family calls him Mama’s boy, broken by

The relationship between a photograph and reality is complicated …complicated at best. – Errol Morris   Offered up for discussion are two photos preserving a moment: one real, the other slightly less. When photography edged away from alchemy into science. The infamous firsts of war, an arranged image: hand-sized cannonballs like elephant shit riddling the

But there’s room for joy in the dark future growing wings. She believes this with resistance to life fading. [Believe this.] The war’s been long upon her. Is here to last. Is here to outlive the time few mattered more than passion. [The fruitless act of planting a seed in an open wound that won’t

Waganakising, Land of the Crooked Tree. Calm is your color. Chartreuse kernels perch atop blades of Little Bluestem, they pirouette. Ancestors sing out with color soaked hymns; paint my heart with sadness, yet calm. Spotted Fawn explores the pristine waters of Wycamp Creek — bearin witness to the memory of ebony cloaked strangers, white around

verb; untangle or unravel something; confuse or complicate (a question or situation); noun: a tangle, cluster or knot   Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. —Toni Morrison Here, it’s day. There, another sleepless vigil of a fraying burqa. By the time these billowy clouds reach the Hindu Kush,

Down through a forested gouge in the earth, we took the trail under tall firs and cedars toward our secret lookout. We wanted to take in the distances over our inland sea. Off that water an icy wind infiltrated our slice of woods—old conifers shifted, moaned like live sirens. Ferns thrived on those moss-curtained towers—countless

—after Psalm 105 lines 28-33 Flower-thin darkness came down around you, genius of things that fit into things—my ghost child fit fish into water, blood into fish, pale into blue. Flower-thin darkness came down around you, crowding things into your hungry heart until you crowded yourself out. Frictioning leafless and wild, flower-thin darkness came down

When the waters have finally receded, night falls. None of them are used to such darkness (……………Obsidian……………) so black they cannot see their hands before their tear-stained faces. None of them have ever been without human light, without electrons, miraculously harnessed, without the power of the universe to obliterate ancient shadows. (……………The extraordinary dedication of

in fifth grade I realized salvation wasn’t for me I didn’t think I’d make the cut and what did it really mean to be saved from something I’m not sure what and Catholic school had taught me all it really could plus my dad was about to be ordained a deacon and I figured that

I try to reinvent you. A white gravestone in a field of white gravestones: I conjure this image instead of you. When you died, I was asked to write an elegy for the funeral. I didn’t know how to make you from the blank page, another cavity for the body you inhabited to fill. Even

after Airea D. Matthews   because my parents liked a filmmaker or so I’m told pulp fiction means blood splatter spells marvin’s brain on the rear windshield  means quentin tarantino my parents would spell Q-U-I-N-T-I-N their own magic  transformation but still fits in mouths when teachers roll call or for job interviews  but still quentins

For Laura Henriksen & the Secret Feminist Book Club Months after Fiona Apple’s voice fills my apartment every day for weeks, I find one of her lines straying repeatedly into my head. I too used to want him to be proud of me / And then I just wanted him to make amends. It’s a

Once, my time was valueless because I lived somewhere very cheap. After that, in a new town, I was unable to secure enough paid work, and my time remained untethered from cash economies. In the first town, I learned many small luxuries: seventy-five cent beers at the bar on weeknights; weeding at the organic farm

If you love the ducks, don’t feed them bread. If you’re brown af, don’t feed them tortillas. She didn’t teach me the second bit, but to be fair, she was like *maybe* seven. We don’t expect sevens to be smarter than us, but here she was, chasing down a clearly sad middle-aged man and his

plums melt on linens washed just yesterday the stain is shaped like her face she thinks a fan moves the air but she has no desire to rise she cannot tell her daughter about her bed about her cold pillow & sweat- drenched sheets or how figs are the only food worth eating in august

I. At night, I move among the beds. In this city, the streets are corridors branching into alleys that run between bodies wrapped in gauze. I speak this language native to wounds: friable, purulent, granulating, necrotic. We say serous and mean straw-colored. We agree this drainage indicates healing. Serosanguinous, still a fine rosé. At the

The vows hover like smoke and glitter, his mind clichéd with memory: faces, hands, and smoke of New Years’ night, his search for empty.  His find was her. They ran on beaches, talked and joked as in a novel, first kiss taken, thunder and lightning, roses, whole nine yards.  Six Flags, the Sky Coaster.  He

     1. Gdansk. My father in a pram. That’s his older brother Moshe standing like a soldier, his cap pushing out his ears. Grandmother and grandfather on the settee wear borrowed clothing from the photographer: grandfather a black frock coat over a high-collared shirt, grandmother some dusty, Edwardian straight jacket. They’re not smiling.  The occasion is

I was trying to inhale the dry air of America by videotelephony. I thought I had nothing to contribute. “All I can think of is smell, because I made a pie and I had some essential oil burning to get rid of the smell but all I can really smell behind the oil is the

Let me take you into the room where I slept in a stranger’s house. Let me take you into the darkened room by the amber glow of one small lamp— into the musty room of the two-story where I slept the untroubled sleep of an innocent; then opened my eyes to see, as if in

For Faith Paulsen At midnight in a quiet house I hold up blue spheres cut from cold press rag paper because a friend requested a cover for new book, Cyanometer, named for an invention of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, 18th -century explorer, who gauged weather by the sky’s color. This helped when climbing Mont Blanc and

  The other night as I was watching Rocky 3 for the millionth time I believe, I cried when Mickey died in Rocky’s arms his anguish as real as mine I felt it within me welling up, the tears pouring down like the Dollar Store wine I drink nightly the weeks of holding it all

none of our mothers believed they were dead they peeled things, boiled things, bled, bled, bled they worried over the price of meat, wore red none of us believed we were born of wounds we have our feet our bantiki our books our capital letters & our dreamed battlegrounds you see how I cannot decide