Light snow, bare branches.
It’s easier now to see
Deep into the woods,
Loss upon loss settling
Under a lattice of ice.
Phillis Levin is the author of six poetry collections, including An Anthology of Rain and Mr. Memory & Other Poems, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is the editor of The Penguin Book of the Sonnet.
ELIAS SADAQ
I serve out my conscription / sleep in a bunk bed / for four cold months / in the engineer regiment at Skive Garrison / in a room with three other men / I fuck the colonel / the only sign that time is passing / is a pile of snow outside the window / that grows smaller
PREETI VANGANI
With vignettes, I could plumb its narrative arc to become a force propelling the book forward. It also felt haunting yet warm that the mothers kept reappearing throughout the life of this grief. That repetition created a chorus of voices that angers and despairs, yet cradles the speaker.
ARIELLE HEBERT
Home again at the water’s edge, /
palms dancing in salt breeze. /
I take a too-deep breath /
and the air prickles my lungs /
like an unfiltered cigarette. /
Only the tourists are swimming, /
coughing through the algal bloom, /
eyes bloodshot and skin burning.
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