After Jennifer S. Cheng 1: the sea captured in a glass 2: a homophone for having enough for leftovers, a synonym for abundance 3: the fish, who have already forgotten you. It’s not personal 4: where memory fails, there’s still imagining 5: you. Not as an ocean but outside 6: glass and/or acrylic
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What separates us from our lives / is a see-through thing. / Jellyfish membrane, fragrant flower sealed / in wax, its smell kept secret.
After 100 days learning German on Duolingo.com Your cow is pretty. I
Brandon Downing’s collections of poetry include The Shirt Weapon (2002), Dark Brandon
After 100 days learning German on Duolingo.com Your cow is pretty. I like your shoes. Do you like me? I bring strawberries and wine. The garden is not beautiful. I eat the potato because
There’s this game we used to play. I don’t think we ever came up with a name for it. In the aboveground pool, we became synchronized swimmers, twirling in tight circles, eyes to the blinding sky,
What separates us from our lives / is a see-through thing. / Jellyfish membrane, fragrant flower sealed / in wax, its smell kept secret.
The sound is a woman standing in the pleats / of the mountain’s summer skirts, her throat / haunted by sister-elders calling back / a hundred seasons, a hundred more.
Echo who always answered among rocks, spilled / In cairns, in ice caves. I did not / Leave you. Even now I can't keep from
Endings always start the same way—stellar / nurseries clouded with beginnings / in the form of hydrogen, newborn specks / of bright, birthed in the recesses of nowhere. / They stumble and
These rainbow worlds of swirling nebulae / arrest you as you thumb / past smug celebrities, vacation shots / and selfies hoping to inflame an ex. / Golden discs of galaxies are
My body hair / Like barbed wire / Prickly tumbleweed / Thorns in soft cotton / A high desert grave / This land is mine / This dust / These bones /
She heats up a bowl of rice drizzled with pork fat. She adds a splash of soy sauce to the steaming heap and squats down on a foot stool in the kitchen to
I find her asleep in bed, still dreaming her dream that summoned me here. I switch on the small glowing halo of her make-up mirror, study my face awhile before climbing onto