Soon after he came home to Arkansas,
mother’s cousin Larry became a stone on a hill.
She tells of the monkey leashed
and taught to ride his shoulder
as he walked the couple blocks to Main
when they were young, …
Genre: Poetry
Poetry
It’s Like This I Told the Archangel; Fabulous Outrageous Termite Mounds; & Trees Line the Road Into
It’s Like This I Told the Archangel
who can’t swim—
crazy crowded under great waters
two hours from shore and so misleading dull vast gray not even blue if you
look from the boat a great nothing really except …
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Poetry
The Story; Xī’ān Nocturne with Jasmine and Pears; Demolished Landscape with Open Mouth; Memory in a Foreign Language; & Additionally, what freedoms have I been trained to deny myself?
Xī’ān Nocturne with Jasmine and Pears
I call my mother to tell her about a rare dream
in the first language:
the fruit vendor’s miniature green pears
the soft juice I crave
she pays but gets the wrong …
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Poetry
Self-Portrait of an Arizona Snowman; Letter to Antarctica as One Big Polaroid Slide Developing Spring; Small Talk of a Scarecrow; Self-Portrait of an Abominable Snowman in Ski Game; Sticky Note to the Moon; & These Leaders Are Here for You
Sticky Note to the Moon
What a dust bunny you are in space.
America hacked into you, put a flag on your face.
You are not the sun, duh.
You white twisty tie on a bagged day.
You …
Poetry
The Murmuring Grief of the Americas [You are on the ground] & The Murmuring Grief of the Americas [there are children crossing the river]
The Murmuring Grief of the Americas
You are on the ground, wrapped in a ratty blanket at the edge of the cage. The interpreter wedges her way into the corner. She sits on her knees, brings her head to …
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Poetry
Out of Nothingness; Harakiri; Treatise on Passion and Adulation; & Water Riddle, translated from the Arabic by Thoraya El-Rayyes
Harakiri
Yukio Mishima, why did you kill yourself like that? Why did you slowly plunge the sword into your insides and turn it? Why did you sit breathing in your slow death, watching your blood drain onto the floor—without …
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Verge
Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron
A prayer for daughters, for Myrto and Atalanta
τάς τε κόρας, Λιμνᾶτι, κόρᾳ κόρα, ὡς ἐπιεικές
Day-trip from Athens, on a day
Too fine for anyone to stay
Within the walls—and so we …
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Poetry
Giving Away the Dental Hygienist’s Idea for a Patent [2019 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize Winner]
Look, I said, I ’d love a revolver, love to bother the silence
with my aim: hole a target. It’s like bowling but with
a more fearful invention. It’s fun, haven’t you ever
shot one? This, my …
The first time I left home was before I was born.
I was barely formed. A scrap. A sample, at best.
I was more my mother than me, then,
I think. We can’t remember.
The plane lifted my mother’s
body …
