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Poetry
Poetry
This Call Is from an Inmate at a Federal Prison
They say you eventually get desperate / enough to call a stranger, someone / who’s added her number to a database / for the incarcerated, someone who’s / even more alone than you.
November 2024Poetry
Driving Upstate with My Father
Driving upstate with my father / at the end of a bad year. Trees begin / to outnumber houses. Rain turns to snow / as fields hang like paintings. / Dad fills his lip with chew, talks.
November 2024
Poetry
Bring Me a Horse
Instead of bending spoons with our thoughts, we broke / popsicle sticks with our fists. We didn’t have beards yet, / so we slathered our faces in mayo and shaved / with butter knives. This was called tasting the world / with our skin, and this was called happiness times ten.
October 2024Poetry
Grandpa’s Gavel
I take it into my hand, and / it’s now 1959 and I’m in the room: NAACP gathered, / Grandpa pounding the sounding block to call / order—here, big decisions get made; here, activism // happens, ingrained into mallet and memory
October 2024Poetry
The Dream
In the small, trembling room of my longing, A., / Last night—summer wearing the walls, autumn / Spread in orange colors on the floor, upon which / We lay, two quiet pianos, soul music pouring / Over the hidden grass—we touched, my face to the mirror of yours.
September 2024Poetry
Extrication Day
It is easy to forget your own body with a patient under your hands. In training we learned how to call the air ambulance—how to say the right words on the radio, hand off our patient to the flight crew, and keep our heads beneath the spinning helicopter blades.
September 2024
Poetry
I Make Jokes When I’m Devastated
If you walk the stations of the cross, most tour guides / will politely point out the spot where they think Jesus / may have fallen or the spot where / he may have met his mother.
September 2024Poetry
August at Forty-Three
For six years we’ve taken no precautions / and my body has made no / third baby, nor have we plotted / to create another life, content / to let nature do what it would
August 2024Poetry
Better Yet
Wanting to go beyond where I’ve already been: / Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing to do? / Then why would I rather go all the way back to the day / before I was born?
August 2024Poetry
Why I Respect the Dog
The dog weighs twelve pounds / and uses them as she pleases. / The king-size bed is not big enough. / Sleep enabler, stretch-monger, / when she wants to be touched, / she offers up the narrow white arc / of her belly. When a loud face / crowds her, she growls. Or, depending / on the weather, the time, the face, /she doesn’t.
July 2024
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