Sunday Best
he blows dandelions for his babies in the corner store parking lotin their Sunday best, following this morning's sermontheir wishes scatter across the...
Quarry
The sun looks higher here by the quarry
Daylight savings a forgotten grumblefor the sleep-deprived days of yestermonth.
The time is truly 6:49, but soon thebiddies...
Beat
An amniotic lake within meand you, floating
then the deafening silence,static nothingness where I
expected sound.
For a week I am a shipwrecknot split open on rocky...
Late in the Game
We sleep peacefully,side-by-side,except, by chance,when she or I turn outward, to the edgeof our plush and well-shaped bed.
Never inward, it would...
I Cannot Be Your Quiet
All my years of blustery men and mewishing they’d stop whistling, cutting me off,tightening the tessitura of my voice.I never...
Folklore
Y’all heard the one where the Africans flewoff the plantation?
Ever bed-and-breakfast at Chesapeake Bay, ghostwalk Greenbriar Swamp to hear tale of “Big Liz,”the “heavyset”...
Modern Prometheus
“I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my imagination...
Plyzhnik’s Farewell
When a kiss is more than goodbyeto coffee and the office morningthe tender parting of husband and wife,when the cell that awaits youcalls...
Tyrant-Poem
IWe will shake our bodies like animals abandoned in the forest,and the moon will sing lullabies for thedead;the dead who were mine and did...
The following poem was translated from Zarpamos, a selection ofpoems by the Oaxacan poet Guadalupe Ángela, translated from Spanishinto English by Yael Kiken. This...
Ode to Mama’s Mac and Cheese
A recipe passed downfrom her Mamawhen she was twenty-fourand hungry.
Some kind of tomatoes,whatever noodles you can find,and any cheese...
Last Supper in Baltimore
An impressive murder of crowsdoes not makenational headlinesnor does the murder of young TaiBlack, trans, beautifulin an alley just down Lafayette
above...
