This Country Keeps Unearthing Grief from Me
& I swear, I tried to swallow it. Like a chasm, I pushed the memories of each carnage down my throat. But she keeps pulling them out— a stubborn unburial. All the names of the dead screeching as they slide off my teeth. & Lord, the abundance of …
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O Madonna
not that Madonna THE Madonna, the one with the white lacy bra ten too many fake-jewel bling-blings o honey baby lord and ladies help me when I leave home my hand sani and every bathroom from here to Chehalis is closed oh woe gah hear me as I grieve for …
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On the Garden Pond, in Boston
In Boston, two looping swans together on the Garden pond crawling with bush rats. The pond lazy with birds and Emerson students smoking weed by the pond and Tufts students hustling weed by the pond and lovers holding hands and taking selfies by the pond. Does anyone notice the swans …
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Sixteen
Throwing stones at street lamps for a laugh you cover my mouth & I scream when the glass shatters, night smell of tobacco on your fingers. At the bar you turn your back & I lose my place forget the rules, me behind you, elbows in the ashtray making promises …
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What the trees see to
We bring whatever it is we live inside Pto be looked over by the mechanics Mine is crisp chevy-blue with hot yellow seats PUchock-full of animals PUT_CHAsome are memories of animals PUT_CHAcompanions I hold into the night PUIt takes me from here to there holds everything I subsist on …
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Pastoral With Seven Kinds of No
Red flags on the lifeguard chairs: swim at your own risk; bacteria levels high today. Lili and I unpack our bags. We have takeout. We think out loud, fall silent. We laze. We’ve left our families at home. A crew of geese eyes us, moving down the empty beach with …
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Lodged beside my left ventricle, a little village on a blue volcano ringed with red clay paths
I sit in a plaza with a friend who is wearing a black felt bowler hat my wool cape clasped with a wrought metal brooch that could kill a man the table nods on the dirt floor the earth has never been perfectly round not even within and though I …
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Rue Paul Valéry
Written by Immanuel Mifsud Translated by Ruth Ward & Immanuel Mifsud You might get sleepy as you look at the throng gathering in the square, despite the band playing cheerful marches, making colorful merriment on this Sunday morn. When the parade is over, and people go back to sleep, …
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Architects, Please Try Harder
Build more homes that resemble ships. Put little doors in the backs of rooms, with tiny steps that lead into hidden chambers four or five feet below deck. Remember the salt box, the A-frame, and the foursquare, the disappearing vessels of our dreaming. Chair rails might establish a room’s horizons, …
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Postcards from Ursula
Ursula is the name given to the largest Customs and Border Patrol processing and detention center. It is located in McAllen, Texas; its conditions have been compared to torture facitilies by physicians and social workers. Their Eyes. I’m haunted by their eyes. —Toby Gialluca, Lawyer my body in the …
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