Your Great Busyness
I am unable to lead a life based on illusion. --Eleanor Roosevelt Blue eyes, lustrous hair and…
All-purpose Spell for Banishment
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…
The Argonauts in Oia
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…
The Quotidian Life of the Soul
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…
Dry Season
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…
Acte de Naissance
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…
Village Folklore
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…
Mary Easty: Hanged September 22, 1692
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…
A Strand of Hair Curled Like a Nautilus on a Page of Rumi
When lifted, it surrenders like a whirling dervish …
The queen is supposed to have an escort.
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 …