The owls in the vault of your mouth confess their grieving silence to the chapel of the dead when a tarantula uplifts a ruined man& washes him clean of every ectopic morpheme refusing to ripen into a wet independent clause outside the night’s womb. Rudely tucked into your voice box, the owls brawl for harmonious hoots with the choir of the living. The loneliness of …
Tower of Owls, by Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan Keep Reading »
(for Jean-Pierre Adams, in coma for almost four decades before his passing) What landscapes emerge when the spirit goesfor a walk? I ask because I do not knowwhat fragment of you was anchored here.To be happy, I should say you were happy,but I keep standing by a windowoverlooking the world, holding backthe birds in your …
It is the Day of the Dead, and I smile knowing my ancestors and my guides have never been more alive.Papi and Wela Virginiahave never left my side, but today—Today we rejoicein companionable silenceWe speak through our eyesKompa, Rasin, y La Sonora Ponceña boomJodia, I celebrate Fet Gedé communing with my spiritual ancestros, mis guías, …
“Wake up and ache for your life.” — Natalie Diaz I do not assure you the ligament protruding from your rib cageis an act of kindness. say, you were born a leakage of skin &rotten suspense,with no ache to salve the blood. a sacrilege of meat—fiddlingyour bone marrow. growing up, I fed slowly on damnation,& …
after the flood we grew carnivore pumpkins,fed on flood fish—silver fish, too small for species,unlucky—they had died in the mud of the road,where the brook had leapt up,had its loud tantrum,and then sucked away,exhausted,a little ashamed after the summer we harvested pumpkins,child-sized, glossy-skinned pumpkins,apricot-gold.were they exceptional?were they sweeter, or fatter?shouldn’t they have been?how else would …
in the beginning, everything shape-shifts into grace, into harmony. all the prayers made on my bodybecame roses sprouting on my fingertips, on my palms. you see, my twin told this story first. before everythingtransformed into doom—but in this poem, there is no grief at all, just an illusion of grievances. sometimes, i wonder what …
After the killing of cows and herdsman in Enugu Prelude: [In the storm / the brief branches of lightning / stretch like the jagged edges / of a torn map / over a country / the storm thickens into night / the night fizzles into day / the day blossoms into tomorrow.] Somewhere, sprawled on …
In the Storm, a Country, by Omodero David Oghenekaro Keep Reading »
In the bitter of November, the inside of the house waited.A knock: a visitor, leather jacket hung with motor oil and amber. —how’s my favorite brother —you just missed him An embrace, tears. A huge bag swallows the father, its zipper like his brother’s leather jacket,if the track were drawn out for seven feet, plus …
Eight Synonyms for Shroud, by Laura McPherson Keep Reading »
the same way I hold wounded things,the bird with the clipped wing,the dazed moth,scalded in search of light—I run my hands on fraying walls,curled fingers like a handle to clasp;ghosts, I findare always feeling through the darkthey fold into embraces,all deadweight and dragging,like they’ve forgotten how to be held. Catheryne Gagnon lives in Tiohtià ke/Montreal …
I Hold Ghosts in My Hands, by Catheryne Gagnon Keep Reading »
In fields corn is blooming, embers burning, gilded sea of spun glass. My father points out the car windowto rattle off a folktale or maybe urban legend about haunted crops, vengeful farmers, and our own relativeswho came over to find nothing after leaving nothing. The radio cuts out. The Midwest sits between transmission zones,memory and …
Driving in Lake County, Illinois, by Morgan L. Ventura Keep Reading »
