I watch from the pool
as fire ants wander
up and down their mounds.
Apa sits inside, blank
in front of the black
television, cerveza sweating
in his hand. His rocking chair
creaks as he gets up and walks
to the fridge for another beer.
He waves at me through
the kitchen window. I wave
back. His son, my Uncle
Aniceto, died
diving into shallow
waters, skull smashed
on a rock. I eat salted fruit in Texas
and imagine ghosts
like chocolate,
darkly melting in the heat.
– Angelica Esquivel
…
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In the socket of a one-eyed skull, I
face the inner wall and weep, for water
is my only memory. Inside the lake
of fire gathering close behind me
and eclipsing the socket with red light,
is gomorrah’s flame- hissing and lisping
threats of salt and silence. In front of me
is my shadow, the half-echo of god’s
image- my eyeless contemporary
who’s always leaned into the other side.
I still face the wall and weep, for memory
is my water. Idle from the red light
……………glowing in this one-eyed skull, I only
………….. lean into the thick darkness where god is
– Kegan Swyers…
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There’s no way not to
Think of you
As I skin
The pink honey crisp
For my pie
It takes a half dozen
Apples remember
Two cups of flour
A pinch of soda
So much cold butter
I read today
Trauma can be
Passed down
To the face
Of a gene…
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With one glance, you knew
we were
people deficient in everything—gunpowder and gold,
naked as newborns. And it was true,
we were lacking
……………in dysentery and paranoia,
and we were terribly unadvanced
……………when it came to killing other humans. But we aren’t anymore.
So quickly you claimed us
like terra firma,
like the Earth that carries you, repaid only in boot-marks.
We saved you,
……………gave you
our corn and told you our names.
Mine is Samoet. You called me Isabella.
– Angelica Esquivel
…
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My head is underground
having its gray crystal day
knowing where a dark
is left on for all
the seeking. I can only stay
behind some holiness
and think of all those whose
forgiving hands I feel,
my ears close to the mycorrhizae
loving time. Even I came down here
looking for the kiss I wanted
and instead found the crying
stone that smelled me in its sleep,
I wanted to be known.
You who have suffered, I dig
my bones for you: scrawled
on calcium language a hard-
ness so gentle it eats rain
night after night so you don’t
have to. You have my blessing.
Just bring a firefly beauty to my
face sometime so I know
you were thinking of me.
– Lindsey Warren…
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I can’t begin to guess about how many years
it’s been since I’ve thought about my parents:
how my father swung his belt for small infractions.
I felt the leather but didn’t see myself as heroic—
I was a little boy, not Ornytus in The Aeneid,
but sometimes I couldn’t remember my name
the next day. I was a traveler on a treacherous journey,
a kid in a continuous crime scene, an angry victim.
Two damaged strangers owned the slowest part of my entire
life, and I think about something, something else I’ve told
myself: I wonder whether I’d have shined brighter if lovely
people had raised me in another family, earlier in the century,
if my sophisticated mother would have played vinyl Coltrane,
telling me, When you listen to him, your heart shatters. …
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We’ll never make it
to the end. Forget
James Bond and
Star Wars and
anything trying
to be forever. Scry
the stars to find
the finite. Indeed,
we could count
each one and one
day be complete,
ready for the next
distraction—the next
forever, smashed
into fathomable bits.
Keep my watch
in a drawer next
to the latest big
bang—their schemes
a cyclic reminder…
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