In semblance of brittleness it stands
still
unbowed, dry
reedy rod rising
to burry crown revealing nothing
even to breezes that demand
it speak forth its cadence of parched crackles
still it stands
confronting crisp winter
staring in its bleak eye the season
bent on bringing down lesser, larger limbs
unfit to bear the strain of snow
still rigid
unhostile in plain acceptance—
this is being
this is nothing more than being—
its implied dare
reach, seize, snap
hints at the plunderer’s fate
the bloodied hands
forced open in the attack
– Katy Scrogin
Author’s Note: The poem emerged out of a workshop sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and Chicago’s Lurie Garden. We were studying how the garden changed over the course of the year, and I was taken in by the plant know as the rattlesnake master.…
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I mean you encase my head in your marble, wishing you could uncarve me back into you. I don’t get the same maydays the birds do. By the time the canary is up, you are the cracking of eggshell against the dome of our asphyxiating house. You become your name. A burning tar-colored voice fills my eyes, my ears. Your aneurysm. My altar, barely courage-high, wedges itself between you and your striking. I tell her to run. I always tell her to run.
– Auden Eagerton…
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Dear Suki, Carmel, April 23rd, 68′,
I visited you in California when I
missed us from that postcard to no
where here. It began that way, noon
lent itself into the footsteps of two
thousand miles set there by waters,
I crunched of gravel with long shot
to the sea in your embrace so tight.
Dearest girl, I hoped to say what I
want when the road turned to sand,
when I liked things simple from all
the ways you had done and scented
back, surfacing me. Decades still
would find me there, in the quiet of
your mint vexing mouth, giving for
what we have been without missing
us gently through handshakes and
apologies, making relief of our ghosts.
– Lana Bella…
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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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