Chilean Poet: A Novel by Alejandro Zambra (2020), translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (2022)

II. Step-PoetGonzalo wanted her to stay. And he wanted, at least, to touch her. To touch her shoulder, her hair, maybe, but it seemed impossible to get close to her. Because she was in a hurry, but not only that: Carla had quickly constructed a ( Read more... )

bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward (2017)

artichokesUntil you have been the last ones ( Read more... )

I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems by Eileen Myles (2015)

THE IRONY OF THE LEASH (1978)

The Irony of the LeashLife is a plot to make me move ( Read more... )

Corazón: Poems by Yesika Salgado (2017)

Faith

I am not a religious woman
but I remember
the first time
I made you laugh

all the air around me
became a gown
the white of your teeth
something to walk
down an aisle for

I needed to find your God
and ask him to forgive me
for trying to love
anyone else
before you

RottingI imagine you in her home ( Read more... )

Autopsy (Button Poetry) by Donte Collins (2017)

If you aren’t able to describe it, you will not be able to survive it.
- JAMES BALDWIN, THE CROSS OF REDEMPTION: UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS

Don’t Tell Your Uber Driver You’re Going to an Orgy (excerpt ( Read more... )

Hermosa by Yesika Salgado (2019)

The Jacaranda TreeI just want my own place / somewhere to burn sage / I want to play music loud / have it sweet the floors for me / want mangos and avocadoes on my table / walls the color of ripe fruit / couches soft as a lover's belly / I want to keep the door open / a small garden outside / a jacaranda tree just ( Read more... )

Equatorial Sunshine: Poems by Su Ann Wong (2020)

QUESTIONS

At the close of beautiful things I always wonder
i. How they can be gone
When I've never let them go?

ii. Is it possible to
Fall for someone new
When I'm still so not quite
Over you?

iii. Can Love return
When it never went away?

YOU ARE THE PHOTOGRAPH I COULD NOT TAKE

Why do we take ( Read more... )

The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen (2021) translated from the Danish by Tiina Nunnally (1985) and Michael Favala Goldman (2019)

Childhood (first published as 'Barndom' in 1967)
Chapter 3 When we enter the building, which seems completely empty, a sharp smell strikes my nose. I recognize it and my heart stiffens because it’s the already well- ( Read more... )

Chelsea Girls: A Novel by Eileen Myles (1994)

Bread and WaterUsually I steal vitamins. I tuck them inside my suede jacket or I slip them in the pocket of my dirty white jacket. Once I had a bag of grapes and stood there munching them in the drugstore and dropped in a bottle of Es when the woman at the cosmetic counter turned. Thievery is a split ( Read more... )

Space Struck: Poems by Paige Lewis (2019)

II.
You Be You, and
I’ll Be Busy

chewing five sticks of Juicy Fruit,
turning my jaw into a clicking, pain-

pricked mess and reaching for
another pack because hard work

is defined by a body’s wreckage, and I
want you to know I’m hard at work

writing my presidential acceptance
speech: A ( Read more... )