i have lived to discover a city, an open road,
a bucket of milk, and two gentle doves.
i have discovered in myself
two frightened birds with miles of dirt road to fly.
in the forest hills spiders and black dogs clamoured.
in the corpses of yellow flowers
a rainbow spun across a darkened sky.
i lived in a street where girls with dark eyes sang,
birds with their wings welcomed a harsh rain.
Mxolisi Nyezwa is founder and editor of Kotaz, now in its fourteenth year.
HANNAH JANSEN
At the laundromat the whir of machines, / whorled & busy, the pleasure & difficulty / of stillness Waiting, sockless, I aspire to be / the cross-legged woman reading a magazine, / settled into her corner of time I like her gray braid, / the way her skin sings.
MARÍA NEGRONI
No—posthumous—inquiry will manage—never—to see what I wrote. What I lost each time—to / discover what a home is: stiff body inside the openness it has created. No one will know how / much I insisted, how much I demanded—and with no defenses.
ADAM CLAY
On / the Golden Record that’s out of the solar system / now, scientists deemed the sound of birds / important enough to include as a marker / of our planet. Listening this morning to a clip / of what someone or something might hear one day, / I can’t help but wonder.
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