Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2021 i The American Poetry Review

Machete When they stareI know it is my skin they fear, this face,this hair so unlike theirs. I meet their eyesand make them sway like fields of cane.When they stiffen, I sharpen the edge of my smileand watch them fall. I love themin my cake, how they sink in the dark coffeewhere they give up the sweetnessthey make me take one slice at a time. Two Dolphins Because the instructionshad only pictures, I put the crib togetherin half the time. Have I told youhow lost I feel, how words confuse mewhen they sit limp like a water hose with no wateron a sheet of directions next to words? I’m sodisoriented right now by the imaginarysheet of words I just inventedthat six lines ago I wrote “next to words,”when what I…

You May Eat I’m leaving a set of vintage flatware in my shopping basketin the event no one else buys it and should I come by a windfallI can swoop back in and purchase it, and complete myself: We always had perfectly matching flatware in the housein which I grew up, even, I think, to introduce an errant forkwould have been blasphemous; in fact, I don’t think I could have birthed the idea myself; I have only, later in life, comeupon the idea by happenstance, because of the jumble that isthe drawer of cutlery, merged sets between two households: with five people at the table, you give up on coordinating. Myfather always sat at the head of the table, my mother and Iat his either side, and though he did…

Only Thirteen Blimps Remain on Earth for Lillian Matchett Blimps are the manatees of the sky:slow, fat, docile. A group of blimpsis called a fantasy. A wild blimp can traveltwo hundred miles a daywith help from kind winds. Only thirteen blimps remainon Earth. Surviving blimpslive alone, in captivity. Blimps seem unafraid of human contact.Blimps appear in the sky any time of year.A blimp’s largest organ is its one sac lung. A fantasy of blimps will never againgather in our sky. The moonis thought to be jealous of their spectacle. Blimps are not permitted to matewith other blimps; they livea monastic life. Humans and time are the blimp’s only predators. When a blimp dies, remaining blimpssense this loss and they, for a short time,refuse the sky. We cannot be sure if…

Books If This Is the Age We End Discoveryby Rosebud Ben-OniAlice James Books, 2020100 pp., $17.95 There are realms beyond our own. Rosebud Ben-Oni has seen them. There are few other explanations for the timeliness and clarity that exemplify her second collection, If This Is the Age We End Discovery (Alice James Books). Reader, I won’t lie, you will need to approach this book with your complete attention. This text is a cocoon of spectral realms, string theory, and lost souls. Take a walk, enjoy a cup of tea, then prepare to plunge your mind into poems that skillfully weave nihilism with nostalgia. To be clear, outer space freaks me out. I don’t like UFO prints or astronaut movies, and even a Windows default background of Saturn causes me to…

What runs through me could hardly be called piety.It’s not patience either, at least not by that name.The pasture’s dissolution into darkness,the cow gnawing obediently without notion of infinityand stars—God, you know all about them. Those evenings I was sure I’d die,you were teaching me to live; I see that now.And the gravity of all you did not saybut left me like a map for the intuiting.Slowly, I saw the world for what it was, or was it I who grew familiar, that longhabit of me? These were the painsI was granted in this life: my face in cold weather,a thrumming near the temples. And becausethese occasionally left me, all secondary anguish, I modeled on Yours: I swam in perpetualend of spring knowing no summer could come of it,used the…

Books The Art of Daring by Carl Phillips. Graywolf, 2 g 014. 142 pp. $14.00 (paper)Wild Is the Wind by Carl Phillips. FSG, 2018. 55 pp. $14.00 (paper)Pale Colors in a Tall Field by Carl Phillips. FSG, 2020. 55 pp. $23.00 (hardback) … borders are places of risk and we cross them at our peril. They are sacred,‘set apart’, defined precisely by division, which is the reason we hold theirdefense to be sacrosanct. We teach ourselves the limits of our lives by beatingthe bounds …—Frances Stonor Saunders Like Carl Phillips, John Milton was an ace at Latin. With Paradise Lost he endeavored to make the English epic work as much like Latin poetry as possible. Too Protestant, democratic, and press-oriented to write the thing in actual Latin, the would-be English…

Donika Questions the Oracle Who hid my dad in the mountain,impoverished, where he would remain,invisible and rationed, not on milk and honey,but on bologna and saltines, until he grewstrong enough to kill the father? Which father? Do I mean his daddy, exiled for the restof his diabetic days to a closetin a house with no power, no water,where my dad—his sisters and his brotherscaught for a time by the crack rock and the pipe,lighting up in the dark—lived? Surely not his daddy, oracle, surely not. How long was he the youngest? How longwas he a child? What god swallowed himwhole? The god, perhaps, who splithis mother in two? Or took his brotherwith a bullet from another father’s gunin the sunlight in the afternoon? Did he really hold his dying brother’s…

Moon of hunger, moon of hope, moon of cold nightsand telescopes. Hunter’s moon, low-slung and bloodorange,moon of fruit and moon of thorn. Mother mooncharming a fussy child, werewolf moon fightingan urge to go wild. Pale thumbprint sugaringthe afternoon’s pale blue, neon moon electrifyingall the night through. Full bellied moon, pregnantwith luck or disaster, moon of witch-chant, halo, antler.Watercolor moon, soft brushstrokes, wet on wet indigo.Moon inside me, shifting tides. Moon with thumb outhitching rides. Witch moon bright behind a clawof dark branches, skinny-dipping moon, back seats,taking chances. Up-all-night moon, drinker’s moon,moon of worry and moon of deathbed. Holy moon,traveler’s moon, money tucked in a sock, a combin its pocket. Moon we aim for with our rockets.Crossroads moon where the devil plays his tricks,junky moon, a sweet stargazer fix. Bake-my-miseryin-butter-and-brown-sugar moon.…

The Big White American Segregation Machine The moment I realized I was part of the big white American segregation machinehappened when I was having coffee with Nadia.We were talking about private education.She said, I felt exhausted all the time in high schoolbecause I am Black and I went to classes with too many skinny white girls.I said, Private education sucks.Then I realized I was a teacher.Not that I was a teacher.That I was a teacher in a private school.I took a sip of my iced tea.Nadia took a sip of her coffeeand I got bummed out.I think she was already bummed out.The clouds had started to disappear and the rainbow-colored paintedpicnic tablewhere we sat was still wet from last night’s rain.She nodded when I said, I am part of the…

It faces groundhog daytoasts bread while dictating feedbackinto phones cradled, between shoulder and earfills overflowing mugs, tugs the first graderout of the tub, spells T-E-N-D-E-Rinstead of T-E-N-U-R-E in dreamsfrayed like nerves. These, the slender splendorsof life spilling over the daily calendar. Carestuffs a child still damp into her pants, zoomsinto Zooms, zooms between roomssoon, it thinks, breakfast, maybe?no, the Chair is in your bedroom. So Careprops up the tropical scene to coverthe laundry piled to the glass ceiling, to patchthe boundary between the student’s bedand your kitchen, where you are, therein your third-day sweatshirt, threadbare,swatting away the puppy and the parrotand the small people at the iPad. Carecarries the deadline like an infant, swaddlesthe apologies as it walks into the meeting late,again, toddler trailing, pulling us off a screenwhere the…

Standing in the Forest of Being Alive I stand in the forest of being alive:in one hand, a cheap aluminum potof chicken stock and in the other,a heavy book of titles. O once, walking througha cemetery I became terribly lost and could notspeak (no one living knows the grammar).No one could direct me to the grave,so I looked at every name.Madness hung out over the gravel paths,swaying like laundry. A heavy bird flapped its wings over someone’ssepulcher. Some of us are still putzesin death, catching birdshit on our headstones.Some of us never find what we’re looking for, prayingit doesn’t pour before we find our names; certainwe’re headed in the right direction, a drizzle begins,and what’s nameless inside our veinsfluoresces, fluoresces in the rain. Marriage, an Exercise Marriageis an exercisein watching…

Those months of your rehab I played your Gram Parsons CDon repeat and thought deeply on the “calico bonnet,”which I saw each time not as the textile, but the coatsof certain female cats with the burnt orange patch,whose gene of mutation can be traced back to Mediterranean port cities,some of which line the pilgrimage to the shrine of the apostleSaint James the Great in northwestern Spain—the route is knownas the Camino de Santiago, which, if completed, promises full removalof the punishment due for one’s earthly sins and though I am not oneto usually consider sins, mine range from ranch dressing on pizzato admitting we’d had a few piña coladas when the cops pulled you overon El Camino Real and Weezer’s “Undone: The Sweater Song” was slurringfrom our windows, which was…

The Animal Kingdom When Owen was bornI was afraid, like all newfathers are afraid, that I would drophim and break his head, stillshaped like a cone, the shape his headtook so smartly to slip outof his mother’s body and pierce the world.Soon I had endless dreams where the skybroke and the soul of the sky slippedout and moved like a giant pink squid abovethe back porch, the street, the grass.When I woke I would go to himand lift him up and rock him and movemy fingers along his new spinelike a harp. I had what you would callanxiety. I kept thinking about what would happenif I stepped on him, on his head as he layon the wool baby blanket,how my foot would feel coming down and throughhim, his baby-skin, his…

A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon Gwendolyn Brooks (1958) From the first it had been like aBallad. It had the beat inevitable. It had the blood.A wildness cut up, and tied in little bunches,Like the four-line stanzas of the ballads she had never quiteUnderstood—the ballads they had set her to, in school.Herself: the milk-white maid, the “maid mild”Of the ballad. PursuedBy the Dark Villain. Rescued by the Fine Prince.The Happiness-Ever-After.That was worth anything.It was good to be a “maid mild.”That made the breath go fast. Her bacon burned. SheHastened to hide it in the step-on can, andDrew more strips from the meat case. The eggs and sour-milk biscuitsDid well. She set out a jarOf her new quince preserve. … But there was something about…

Influence At the top of my gameI was paid modestly to place riddlesabout ruination in the pagesof the glossies read by thousands,perhaps hundreds— to be a twee ghostsome might say— while suicidal influencers“blew up” in the neighborhoods. Cheating 1 I want to give you the questions in advance.This will seem silly, but listen.There isn’t much time.Everything depends on it. What is the same?What is different? This may be extra hardfor twins. Which is larger?Which is more important? What does the cat in the picture know? Is he sad because the frog is gone? 2 As you go on, the questionswill become more challenging. Do you really love the sameinflatable black cat? Why that one? Who loved it first? Terms of Service 1 The bottom of the oceanhas little to do…

Bad Daughter It’s my own motherI think of whenin the hot car ithurts me to watchmy painstaking girlreturn from thewater ice kioskbalancing three lemonices in a four-holetray, plastic spoonsfanned in her fist, wadof napkins wedgedbetween the ices,when a gust makesthe napkins riffle thengambolling lift off,like and unlikeones that went before,fair girls in festivaldresses dancingup the street, leavingher at the curbin flipflops and sweatshortslooking through the car windowto see if I’m mad. Goats at Work On the farm school slope, goats work atcropping brush and grubby weeds—nannies and billies, I think, or wethers—the castrated ones—I look it up—maybe pygmies, maybe buff-colored kids,and glossy brown, I don’t know, black oneswith gray-white patches on their bellies—all seem satisfied with their job, their routof nettles, their nibbles at bark, but stillthere’s this one doesn’t…

Still Wife It didn’t happen in time It didn’t happen this time Sound like a party Old bylaws A child is approaching You put the book back on the shelf There are thousands of children The book is used for this More than that I didn’t see it coming Not the way it had I had bled a while in a civil way No crime Fill it up then empty it Sound like they are behind the door No, it’s a border Sky is sloughing in Red for no child Months go by like that Throw the book at it but it’s Salt marks where I wanted it Call this one pink It’s young Give them each a silver blanket Under this our metal sky No touch Stop touching One…

Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Partyby Chessy Normile, winner of the 2020 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, is available at APR’s website, www.aprweb.org, and at other outlets. Great Exodus, Great Wall, Great Party was chosen by guest judge Li-Young Lee. Chessy Normile received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at University of Texas Austin, where she was awarded an Academy of American Poets University Prize in 2018. She lives in New York and edits a zine series called Girl Blood Info…

the-in-between-of-class-warfare-when-i-worked-atsf’s-downtown-alternative-high-school-the-kids-at-risk-wrote-pieces-about-their-hardships-and-were-asked-to-perform-them-at-a.c.t.-theater-afterwards-ina-reflection-circle-teachers-said-they-were-inspiredby-the-connections-made-and-the-deep-work-art-can-do-while-theyprocessed-with-students-audience-members-stole-the-mics-the-audio-and-lighting-equipment-the-computers-the-placewas-cleared-outand-looking-back-that-was-the-end-of-act-three the-in-between-of-the-women-on-the-radio-one-said-until-white-women-mourn-likewe-do-when-another-black-man-is-murdered-in-the-streets-until-then-we-will-not-have-any-justice-a-woman-responded-i-don’t-think-they-can-i-do-not-think-it’s-possible-do-you-and-grit-in-her-voice-the-older-woman-said-yes-i-do-otherwisewhy-would-i-be-on-the-damn-radio-a-third-woman-sat-quietly-maybe maybea-white-womanwho-did-not-sayanything-listened-made-to-weigh-the-loss-and-comfortability-in-her-own-human-heart- the-in-between-of-a-broken-system-a.k.a.-anything-based-on-a-factory-model-line-them-up-and-stack-them-deep-theworst-way-to-teach-anyone-anything-is-to-try-and-teach-them-something-inane-phrases-like-standards-based-grading-look-into-a-child’s-eyes-see-thesong-or-sadness-alive-there-thensay-inappropriate-i’ve-a-memory-of-getting-fingerprinted-at-the-police-station-the-man-said-you’re-new-to-the-profession-aren’t-you-i-asked-how-he-knew-he-said-your-fingerprints-haven’t-washed-off-yet- the-in-between-of-betrayal-when-i-met-his-holiness-the-14th-dalai-lama-at-the-ritz-carlton-i-was-well-aware-of-religion’s-misogyny-pemachödrön’s-yearning-for-accountability-also-in-any-line-up-of-apostles-and-as-i-sat-by-my-porn-addicted-husband-whowas-being-honor ed-as-a-hero-of-compassion-i-thought-of-siddhartha-the-father-realizing-his-son-no-longer-dwelt-with-him-that-he-had-already-left-part-ofme-had-gone-too-there’s-a-photoof-that-day-the-dalai-lama-is-low-fiving-me-and-weare-both-smiling the-in-between-of-wokeness-a-lotof-us-post-our-politics-or-craft-our-conversations-tomatch-our-levelsof-awareness-we-look-around-and-point-to-the-problem-and-say-there-it-is-i-see-it-doyou-say-systemic-endemic-structural-foundational-shaking-our-heads-strong-cases-have-been-made-for-reparations-which-many-see-as-impossible-butthey’re-beginning-to-happen-when-we-bought-our-home-in-a-vacation-place-i-felt-lucky-to-lie-in-bed-and-listen-to-the-pacific-somehow-sleeping-soundlymost-nights- Dana Teen Lomax’s books include _____ Is Not Goodbye (dusie kollektiv), Disclosure (Black Radish Books), Unpublishable Manuscript #43 (UbuWeb Editions), Curren¢y (Palm Press), and Room (a+bend press); with Jennifer Firestone, she edited Letters to Poets: Conversations About Poetics, Politics, and Community (Saturnalia). Her editorial project, Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children, won the 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press Prize for Excellence in North American Poetry. Dana lives in northern California and serves as the Human Rights and Equity Chair for her Teacher’s Union.…

We had sushi that was so fresh we blushed. Every seventeen years the cicadas rasped a kind of warning, showedus with increasing urgency the need to leave our old bodies behind. I thought I could make some kind of difference. I thought I couldmemorize enough facts to stay composed in debates and not cryafter one glass of wine when my brother says we can all just goto Mars. I thought what I did was forgivable, in the grand scheme of things.That your love was an inexhaustible resource. Terrible people made terrible decisions. Good people made terribledecisions. Which was I? It depended on the color of the light in thebathroom, the angle at which I held my face to the mirror. I lived in a city at sea level. See, levelheaded…