Poetry

  • (labyrinth)

    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.”

  • PENTECOST / Pentecostes

    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…

  • Still Wielding My Useless Shovel

    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…

  • From When the World Stopped Touching: Mothers’ Letters In Pandemic

    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?…

  • The Gift

    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…

  • Elsewhere

    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…

  • New gods

    Long agopeople made gods of palm datesand prayed to them.But once they got so hungry,they ate their gods—then wandered, still hungryand lonely, in search of succor.Finally, these peopleconceived the ideaof worshipping godsas ghosts in machines—inedible gods of metal,stainless, perfect, and tireless,except that when they run out of energy,they look around forhumans to consume.

  • By Chocolate

    I will die one day in this landand you will fly back a single bar of mepacked in dry ice.The airport dogs will sniff the carouselfor traces of live matterand the cacao-nutty smell  will send them whimpering.Make sure I’m conched right:neither too gritty nor too emulsified,tempered properlyso I’m not laced in sugar bloom. The departed will attend…