In this episode of The Common’s Contributors in Conversation podcast, Issue 06 contributors Oliver de la Paz and L. S. Klatt read and discuss their poems “Labyrinth 76” and “Apple.”
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL
One of the marvels of my life— / an alphabet. A whole green and mossy / world can be made and remade / from just twenty-six dark curlicues. / Here’s more dark: sometimes birds sleep / tucked under a giraffe’s dusky armpit / and sometimes fungi fatten only at night.
FATIMAH ASGHAR
i plead, come help free me from me. what an overworked god / the policemen’s gun turning towards the sand, the ocean’s azaadi / crashing blue wave after blue into the fishing boat, thieving / life from its water. everything is a freedom song, i hear azaadi / in the wind & in the flood
LAUREN DELAPENHA
For example, the last time I asked God / to kill me I was among the lemons, remembering // the preacher saying, God is a God who is able / to hunger. I wonder, // aren’t we all here for that fast / communion of a stranger reaching // for the same hydroponic melon?
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