I am unable to lead a life based on illusion.   --Eleanor Roosevelt   Blue eyes, lustrous hair and…

  A pox on _______ and the gerrymander he rode in on. Expel, export, exile him while we waft sage-smoke around. At this zero hour, as our wombs contract under…

tr. from the Portuguese by Calvin Olsen the beautiful journey--Konstandinos Kavafis For some the end of the earth is likely the end of the world. For others the end of…

tr. from the Portuguese by Calvin Olsen Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino   Wrapped in meters of linen in an urn of carved wood (inside a stone sarcophagus inside…

  Translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain   At high summer Lake Huai runs dry a few days, the bed revealed Where are the fish? I stretch my hand…

  It was hard to keep up— 6th Street, Beverly to University. Wet snow and wind stung my face, sidewalk too narrow, no shoulder— cars would’ve hit me if I’d…

              —Smith and Bybee Wetlands, Portland Oregon   November   and the brightest thing’s my neon blue slicker     I wish I knew if the pulsing in the soggy…

  Tell me again the story of the farmer who finds a golden axe in the river and must enter tribunal with a silver dragon.   Or the man whose…

  They said she hurt them and brought them the book & then they fell into fits. When Mary’s hands are clincht together they point, cry out—Look! Mercy Lewis’ hands…

                  ties upon ties upon ties upon go somewhere                           …

                    When lifted,   it surrenders                   like a whirling dervish    …

  What are we supposed to do tonight— fancy,       wondering.     I wanted to see the kind of     crazy      we celebrate.   For the time we’re here     locked up like pretty         …