The first place I lived on my own was a studio apartment on 101st between Broadway and Amsterdam, with two windows that overlooked the street. The year was 1980, not long after I had graduated from college. In the late afternoon, when the sun fell slantwise on the buildings across the way, I could imagine…
Translated by Heather Green VI what do you know the air has come unstuck from us we are here without stars what do you know without money without fire a sweaty dog in his kennel and rain under the armpits what do you know about it the noise lies and dies with each…
Imagine yourself a sequoia, down to the roots, El Niño shaking the leaves. You want to say invade instead of shake, but that doesn’t feel safe. Roots like those, they stay in the earth: so keep your breath visual. Paint until it feels right, even if Oregon smoke floats across the Rockies to scent…
A horse, a horse, my dumb king for a horse. My brand-new horse —the naysaying centrist—for state senate. The suede backseat of my thousand-horsepower hearse for a spare 10,000 hours to practice basic survival, the fine art of making a slow exit look painless. My last supper for an everlasting grain of salt…
After John Donne You. Gone now—to a better place, you would say, not on the earth. You are on my screen. A photo Paul took in the doctor’s office, an hour before you passed, which I received in the security line. Writing now, in the air. Do not photograph…
Translated by Andrej Pleterski If I were to write she stood there, in a fast-food restaurant, ordering soft ice cream, with the nearby park in cherry blossoms, if I were to write her pink was more distinct, everywhere: the socks, the cape, the lips, the eyelids, an adorned tree with a lively past, if…
an ekphrastic golden mashup after Gwendolyn Brooks “We Real Cool” & Russell Lee’s April 13, 1941 photo “Negro Boys on Easter Morning” Carlos, Lee, Kendrick, Jaimey, me—oooooh, We pooled the marble money, nickel cokes Real cool. Southside breeze, brave now, we laugh, we groove, We freeze, we grit teeth, oooooh, Ms. Brooks knew,…
June 1900 Listen: water boils in a rusty pot Tonight we have rice Do you hear rain tapping the boarded-up well? Tonight I am water I am rain I am a clear brook I am washing Manuél’s hair of ants and twigs I am two hands dissolving death I…
Translated by Lars Gustaf Andersson and Carolyn Forché When I was about to leave, I was held back by the word “out.” I turned around, always prepared, in a labyrinth of my own. When I was about to enter I was held back by the word “in.”
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