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, Wepooled the marble money, nickel cokes Real cool. Southside breeze, brave now, we laugh, we groove, We freeze, we grit teeth, oooooh, Ms. Brooks knew, y’all Left school. We unplug-the-kitchen-phone worried, We(I-brought-you-in-this-world)…
June 1900 Listen: water boils in a rusty potTonight 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 am a necklace of nettles coaxed from…
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.”
Translated from the Brazilian Portuguese by Ellen Doré Watson I inherited this house,which has one room I avoid,paralyzed by its icy air.I keep to a smaller spacewhere virtues and laughter,even a few seeds of joy remainintact, retain some life.But when I behold the massive entryway,I stiffen—smiling devil fearhas me in his lap:“Child, you’re very sick,let…
Double golden shovel on a line from Vera Nazarian’s Dreams of the Compass Rose In the throes of my 41st fatherless Tuesday, I am strapped deep and down inthe gut of a turbulent Boeing—keyboarding, wrestling dactyls. I wonder if thedesert, a hundred grandiose death-drops below me, is still that celluloid desert,the gilt murderer, the only…
Dear L, It’s 3:19 a.m. I just fed the baby while my sonscreamed, I want to sleepin your bed! We don’t let him until the sun wakes up, that’s the rule. The sunis still in its bed, we explain. He counters, But I’ll be really quiet. I promise. His plea,I just want to hug Mama and Papa. Who wants to be alone in the dark, L?…
I loved an addict once & the tactile universe—sometimes my hands still shake uncontrollably. I would like to be inhabited at regular intervalsmeasured by sundials. Anyone can be a place in America: a moving target, a strip of glisteningsand, a clitoral appendage, a systematic reshuffling of parts. My own beauty mirrored in storefronts& flawed metaphors:…
I am a child of the seabut I’ve always lived by rivers they’re never the samewhen the moon is full I stop in wonder when winter comes I crawl in my caveI used to love the city its buildings and clamor now I’d rather walk in the woodsand bathe in the breath of trees the…
In Westwood, California, our professor,whose name was, he told us proudly,Yiddish for fucker, careened through Merrill.Goethehaus I pronounced ‘goathouse’and the professor’s modusoperandi was startled. Farnoosh scrawledit wasn’t meon our copies of ‘Lost in Translation.’Who is Gunmoll Jean? We were too shyto ask. But she did. Lee was all baseball.Every verb was nude, and every girl…
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