New poems by our contributors.
Table of Contents:
POLINA BARSKOVA | Joy (translated by Valzhyna Mort, appears in both Russian and English)
ALDO AMPARÁN | Parable of the Haunted Cloak
TOM SLEIGH | A Dictator Walks into a Bar
MICHAEL DUMANIS | Ordeal
By TOM SLEIGH
“Life is not a walk across a field…”—Pasternak
For ten years, Hannah, the world convinced me
that thorn trees, desert, Land Rovers tricked out
with CB radios, machine guns and armor plate,
grew more real the harder it became
to fulfill my nightly promise to rebar and rubble
that some final vowel would reverse time
By TOM SLEIGH
After the explosions, the big one of the Big Bang,
the little one of the firecrackers set by some kid
By TOM SLEIGH
1.
Many desires, many secrets—that’s what the book said.
And it brought me to attention, watching the interior
branches of the pine trees swaying in a paranoid
whisper that reminded me of you standing over
me, your hand in my hand, your mind
not right but your whispering rebelling against
that hissing shhhh of what I couldn’t understand—
By TOM SLEIGH
At Show and Tell, in front of the whole class,
the cubs’ jaws yawned wider than the boa constrictor’s
that bolted down the lethargic, pink-eyed mouse—
how they’d nuzzle and lean into our stroking…
But when genetics took over, their cells didn’t care
if they grew up in someone’s basement or were teething
By TOM SLEIGH
for Tayeb Salih and Binyavanga Wainana
Heat lightning flicking between head and heart
and throat makes me hesitate: I could see
in the rear view one part of the story
while up ahead the crowd breaking into riot