The Good Old Boys Learn a Thing or Two about Digging and in the Meanwhile Aristotle Calls Some Bullshit “Aether” or Maybe “Quintessence”
The boys follow the moon still hanging early morning and don’t even acknowledge it. Seems sometimes the crows will shake up the cornstalks and John’s not stuffed with straw.…
Our School Colors
Logan, you took your glass eye out for me. It wasn’t the taking out that I needed to see, but…
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…