POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
Babylon

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

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.

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

My Multiverses

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

Making Israeli Salad

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

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

Black Ghosts of Ponderosa on a Silhouette of Hill

Even as the sun warms the concrete
the long nights’ sensual cold lingers in my clothes.

Electric Eels, Finishing School, Teeth

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

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

Aging Punks

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

Me and Other Bodily Accessories

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Fallout Shelter

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

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.

appetites

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

things they won’t tell you but should:

love is a soggy tea stain on a grocery receipt

Soft Porn and Cuban Pine

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

heavy rain
The Plot

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