My Story

by Leeladhar Jagoori, translated by Sarabjeet Garcha

My story
is the story
of a hoe wearing thin
of a factory becoming a ruin
of a road falling out of repair

my story
is the story
of stone
turning …

Battleground

by Gerrit Achterberg, translated by Thomas McGuire

Listen to Thomas McGuire’s introduction and recitation of the poem in Dutch.

 

The gloaming falls like ground.
In Holland lopes a hound.
A hound with yellow teeth.
He roves throughout the …

PUNISHMENT

by Boris Khersonsky, Translated by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky

All animals were once human, but then
they sinned—
and God flooded our Earth
and Noah smuggled all those former humans in pairs. Each of them
was wicked, deceitful. And …

Postcard

by Ananda Lima

you speak to a mountain
by becoming
it your body in her
language of minerals
a whisper a humming
bird’s fluttering wings
since I became
a mother nearly a decade

How We Teach Them

by Melissa Dickey

in a café I watch a boy
maybe five years old

hit his sister again and again
till his mom gives him a phone

on which to watch videos of boys
shooting …

Wanda Vibing

by Margaret Ray

Wanda has moved beyond collisions and is looking
   for vibrations. The lab’s cat makes too much static,

so they nudge him gently past the door.
   Wanda thinks about what cats are …

Nursing

by Jessica Cuello

The midwife kneeled beside me
and when she stroked my thigh

on the toilet seat I noticed the image
of a baby tree, wavering in the deep-

rust stain of the clawfoot …

To The First Speaker

by Derek Mong

You—who are kin to all clans;

You—who called the rain       we’ve been drowning in for eons;

      did you flinch to find   a shard …

The House at Christmas

by Maureen Boyle

Its wide dark eyes–
the picture windows of a 60s bungalow –
reflect rooms in black lakes
cold and mirrored as though slick
with tears and ice.

Early, before the day …

Blue Sky MRI

by Julie Morrissy

they leave me in a lino-cubicle
another bargain blue basket
for my bra and jeans
I pace behind the curtain
let the liquid settle

the doctor tells me to …

On the Tallest Horse in the World

By Stephen Sexton

Mirrors are not occult with bedsheets,
no communion of pipes and tobacco:

there is nothing— farewell Big Jake, alas—
nothing here approaching a wake.

I thought of him over …

Losing ‘Great White Egret’

by Moyra Donaldson

My memory’s erratic and tonight
I can’t locate your name – four syllables
just out of sight, hiding amongst the reeds

Bird out of place, you were a wonder.
I watched …