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.
EZZA AHMED
I was running, the neighborhood / boy my secret guard. A cloud of dust and dirt / my shadow. // My stomach would hurt / from fresh cow’s milk, / a white film swimming to the top. // In a place of people who are / and aren’t, the kids are raised on cardamom milk / and kites. The rain trembles at who it’s about to touch.
JULIA TORO
Sitting around the white painted wood and metal table / that hosted the best dinners of my childhood / my uncle is sharing / his many theories of the world / the complexities of his thoughts are / reserved for Norwegian, with some words here and there / to keep his English-speaking audience engaged
DYLAN CARPENTER
I have heard the symptoms play upon world’s corroded lyre, / Pictured my Wallonia and seen the waterfall afire. // I have seen us pitifully surrender, one by one, the Wish, / Frowning at a technocrat who stammers—Hör auf, ich warne dich! // Footless footmen, goatless goatherds, songless sirens, to the last, Privately remark—
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