A Quiet Root

I am proof
that our fears molt as we 

get older. Look at me now, waltzing. I ate the submissive genders
of myself and became a diadem.

Read it in Apogee

Translated by Fady Joudah

I loved you, my love,
there’s no doubt or denial,
no justification or synopsis,
there isn’t even a story.
It was a collision.

Read it in SWWIM

A werewolf
is a creature for whom language is binary:

howl vs. silence. The rest
is petty detail — crabgrass fur
and the sweatiest hunger, an ache

arching upward, away from the earth

Read it in Boiler

her husband stares at the screen
and takes a drink, looking up at the ceiling every once
in a while, his gaze almost wistful, as if listening
for angels, before lowering his head and going back
to his work.  What are the limits of marriage? The plot
is hilarious

Read it in Plume

I look at my mother as though she is
a burning building and I am tasked
to run inside grabbing as much
of her as I can before she is ash and
I am stepping on the singe of memory,

Read it in Blue Stem

we didn’t ask for this we asked 
you to remember us jutting out in front of loved ones

just before they walk into the street remember us thrown 
like seatbelts across the passenger side remember

us lifting lovers onto kitchen counters to let tongues
do their holy work 

Read it in West Trade Review

western tanagers migrate through the city.

As I bask in the heat of the afternoon,
I cannot say I had the courage
to march on a bridge for the right

to vote and be beaten;

Read it in Big Other