POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
I could, even now, go down to the water

Even from this distance I could go out
the door it would bang shut and crumble

REVENGE SCENE

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

The Body is a Sin

The sin is existing.

An Interview with Dylan Krieger

Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.

First

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

Aging Punks

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

On the Night Row-Houses Across the Street Catch Fire

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

Letter To a Young Poet

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

AUTOPSY REVEALS LASTING MARRIAGES MOSTLY COMPOSED OF SHARP METAL IN A THEORETICAL VACUUM

it’s touch-and-go with me and weddings

Poem in Collaboration with a Broken iPhone

I’msorry I‘ll see what happens iLife

Going Broke

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

Observer of the Patient

Her brown eyes,
how a fig
considers itself.

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

Millions of Americans have been affected by identity theft. It’s probably the greenhouse gases.

3:17 AM as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

Part of being a good sad person
is always painting the shadows
in the right direction and knowing
what sorrow to art with.

heavy rain
The Plot

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

Babylon

If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

The Kotel in Jerusalem is Filled with Cracks

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

Willpower

Live the rest of your life
from one worst case to another.

Dis Place Ment

People have always coped with flooding, and they learned to cope with death.