Poems from Translations From the Human Language by Terry Ehret
Thirst This year I’ve felt the push of antlers thrusting out of my head. I’ve leaned my head many times toward the grass, stretching my neck to drink. This year I’ve awoken from the catacombs of sleep, my cheeks wet with spring water, my heart beating like a river sprung from rock. Sometimes in…Read More
Poems from The World Is God’s Language by Dane Cervine
Breast It was in some obscure motel room, cheap, and I was young. But there it was, luminous orb falling from my mother’s bra as she changed clothes in close quarters. I had no memory of infant days—swell of milk, suckle of nipple—no glimpse of the days yet to come. All I knew, in one…Read More
Poems from difficult news by Valerie Berry
the fallen caryatids: Rodin Close to Orpheus, their backs to the Gates of Hell, they balance their burdens in a slow, bronze falling. Supple as trees these women fold into themselves, assuming the unborn shape left long ago for the difficult work of their straightening. Now weight breaks the symmetry of shoulders in graceful collapse….Read More
Poems from Alkali Sink by Stella Beratlis
Mustard Greens, Interstate 580 With enough olive oil and lemon juice, it was easy for her to overlook the occasional woody stem, their bitter tang: roadside mustard, dandelion greens, right there at the freeway’s side— first a bag, then the entire trunk stuffed full. She came to carry a knife in the glove box to…Read More
Poems from Mapmaker of Absences by Maria M. Benet
Trees at Dawn for Simone Weil In the vaulted spaces that bracketed the trees, I saw her body’s hollow, shaft to thread of light that bolts her to the firmament— Trees, she once wrote, are rooted in the sky, seeing how they live by light— Behold the brilliance, its chiseled periphery, a halo that obliterates…Read More