Narrative Device
In every story the girl who doesn’t become a woman becomes a deer. A crystal. A column of salt. The state of her own sleep, stretched beyond the borders of logic. I too have tried to follow directions. Directives. I have tried not to ask what is the difference between, …
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Yet Another Poem at Solstice
. . . . so koukla, all is death + darkness . in this ravishing bright day. . …
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translations of an ancient text
. for Chris L. Butler in the new world we still say jawn . {n.} as in the spot, {n.} the lick, {n.} the good good, {n.} the what i need . . …
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-ing
cw: implications of sexual trauma clench clench clench clench clench clench clench the doctor says I have to stop holding my vagina like a fist. I tell him I am a young woman: I don’t fight, I don’t have fists. I am just pursing: purse, verb, very, ladylike. e.g.: …
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the first national anthem : the last elegy
and what is our national anthem if not an elegy? we no longer carry cardamom to house parties, instead we gift the front lawn with cloves, tumbleweeding from our hands. present the open veins of sprig leaves as a peace treatise. we question every invitation with invitation; no home is …
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SHE SHARK [HOW TO CIRCLE A TANK]
Some sharks must swim, constantly, in order to breathe. That’s why, when confined, she circles the tank like a madwoman. [I go to see the shark at the aquarium, I find I am unprepared for her sadness] [How to circle a tank? Asks the she-shark, asks the soldier] A shark …
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Isolation
in my parents’ basement pretending the desk is a bar top pouring-can-into-glass acting as the girls who work the taps who are kind and smile for tips and are fragile as falling glass, smash. here i chew my finger skin and drink until i sleep because my teenage mattress in …
Read Morephoto of my grandmother climbing a fence
she wears the sky because the sky knows the distance. it is a blue cascade, blue as grief, as drowning. her hands are emaciated brown, holding her up. over the fence. over and over again, dementia takes over my grandmother. over my grandmother, dementia takes and takes and takes and …
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Are They Lisianthus?
My eighty-year-old mother says no, no, I think they just are. She doesn’t remember names, what was. Roots sunk deep, she just is. I dream of gardens: boxwood labyrinths where I might lose myself. Some place where the planted surpasses the planned. Untended blossoms become brambles. Brambly thicket, her mind. …
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