Poets are just whisperers, whispering the rose verse, Weaving words as a curse. They wander the groves In order to find doves. They wander the meadows, So they find adagios. They wander the streams, To find the crowns of queens. Poets are just whisperers, Who their lament makes ornate.[…]

The auction block still rides on the black backs of ghosts hurling themselves town to town […]

I want our childhood back to watch the ice break off at the shoreline and float away when the sun begins to warm the waters of Lake Superior early spring. Or spend whole Saturdays planting the pink and purple candy-striped petunias you loved in flower boxes and along the borders of our little sidewalk. […]

The children pick
the peeling yellow
paint from the bathroom
pipes and lick it
while Mama is gabbing
on the phone with
her sister. Papa returns
from work at four
and takes the yellow
plastic strap out of
the second dresser
drawer and whips
their thighs since
Mama has delegated
punishment for their
transgressions
during the day:
failure to put toys
away promptly,
picking at sausages
at lunch, plucking
the neighbor’s
lilies-of-the-valley
on their walk
to Jewel.

Tomorrow they’ll go
to Headstart and tell
the teacher the first
thing in the morning
they see is rets and
she’ll inquire, “Is
rets your dog?”

 

Jan Ball has had 285 poems published or accepted in journals across the globe in the Atlanta Review, Calyx, Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, Phoebe, and Verse Wisconsin. Her two chapbooks and first full length poetry book, I Wanted To Dance With My Father, were published by Finishing Line Press. When not writing, Jan likes to work in the garden at her farm and work out in Chicago at FFC with her personal trainer. She and her husband travel a lot but like to cook for friends when they are home.

mother

1. noun. presence, as in constant

ex: “the mother is here.” see also: mama, mommy

see the child cry out in fear, in loneliness

see the presence quiet the child

see presence beyond himself

 

2. verb. to rear, as in to create

ex: she mothers and mothers and mothers

until she is no more and the child is

overwhelmed. see also: to tend, to weed,

as in gardens, as in minds, as in impulses

 

3. noun (archaic). one, as in symbol

ex: the gravestone was engraved simply

mother, as in “she longed to be—”

as in “they longed for her to be—” see also:

blessed; see also: have mercy, mercy on us

 

Andrea L. Hackbarth lives in Palmer, AK, where she works as a piano technician and is a mother to a rambunctious boy. She holds a BA in English from Lawrence University and an MFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Some of her work can be found in Mezzo Cammin, Gravel, Measure, and other print and online journals. More information about her poetry can be found at www.thelostintent.com.

Triptych of the Adobe-Cotta Army

East Palo Alto, Circa 2000 AD

My fingers are desperate
to unearth the ruins
of my countrymen.

Only to find a Tesla
on the second floor
of our apartments

—now a parking garage.
The Amazon logo
smirks above me,
like a biblical cloud.

*

Out here, hooded saints
tore the covenant
of earthly silence.

Passed out Zig-Zag
leaflets, to preach
the gospel of skin.

Whirling dervishes
in long white tees,
bum-rushed me

at a bautizo. Pressed
against my lips,
the cholo chalice

kill it blood.

My chest flushed
at watching boys bronze
into adobe-cotta.

A driveway floodlight,
the barrio’s moon,
casted their bodies.

As they placed bets
against the armors they carried.
A fist tucked

inside a hoodie,
his knuckles spelling
the names of ex-lovers.

Each letter tatted
with a rusted clip.
Cocked belt-buckle

whose colors shouted
to the block
who he fucks with.

Until asphalt swallows
him again, and Marías
now mourn Jesús

outside a sagging fence.
Wreathe his chain-
link with lit candles,

cardboard signs saying
“We miss you.” Streamers
without the heated balloon

that promised flight.

*

Consider the clothesline as a bandolier

slung over weathered soldiers,
whose uniformes still clung
to apartment balconies.

Quien cedieron sus tierras
to raise the wrinkled flags
of blusas and neon vests.

Consider this Aztec sacrifice:
a father offers an empire
his daily flesh. Kneels

on the melted tar
of its tongue, winces
at the body turned legal (tender).

All to nurse the newborn
with this vision,
una vida mejor.

And so Father cradled my head
inside asphalt. Prayed
for our rite

to simply wade.

 

---

 

los frijoles ya se quemaron

voy
a tenderlos,
as suitcases chuckle
through our home.

sobres stashed
in gabinetes, cash
in chamarras.

mamá inside her black
mustang, rezando
bluetooth misteros
con cuñadas.

what’s changed,
i think
es que ahora,
la creo.

that in reno
or fresno, or
the broad shoulders
of a califas carretera

is her—

a fitted red dress,
botas de tacón,
freshly dyed hair

blushing—
at the nights
that paint
her face

con la misma fé

she once had
for these walls,

burgundy,
off white,
rosita.
that is to say,

i wish i’d been there
amá,
by your side
in the courtroom,

when apá buried
his face
inside the bench.

realizing then, he
wasn’t the sole owner
of this house

named grief.

cómo quisiera
levantar
su cara,
para que viera

the broken pieces
of me,
on car seats
& bedsides—

where the water broke
from your eyes,
birthed me

a man—

& see, the exact moment
i buried
my boyhood,

amá sabrá
que hacer.

 

---

 

Apology to Her Majesty, Queen Cardi B

Whereas Jimmy prolly can’t pronounce
your name; whereas that green mink’s

mad loud for primetime yuppies; whereas
pasty mugs quietly sipped the Bronx

in a canned Q&A; whereas tickle-me-
white, the color they blushed

after you hollered, Eyyuum!;
whereas was it with, or against you?

Whereas dey prolly ain’t ever seen
homegirls wreathe you
as their patron-saint—

lil’ Lauras wit dey laurels,
whose mouths run the block

searing chisme over hot concrete
and toe straps; whereas blessed b

the scented velas of acetone and plugged-in irons;

and still you trill
the hymns of jainas;

You who told the limelight,
Don’t get too close cuz I ain’t put

no lotion on my hand; whereas se ríen
as you explain your name, how Henny’s

the suture of Black and Brown hands
who killed a forty for each hour

on the job, who lick wounds
with liquor’s promise of numb;

whereas the smh tías who gawk
at the peacock tat running your thighs,

and sigh, cómo hemos caído; whereas
that part in “Motorsport,” where you bent

in front of butterfly doors, hollered,
I’m the trap Selena!; whereas the bark

that tickles my skin, as it does in the shade,
when me and the fellas untuck

the gaze we’ve longed to spliff all week;
whereas errtime I aimed homeboy’s head

like a slingshot, a young women-turned
pair-of-legs passing through the quad,

and eyes carve onto bare flesh;
whereas I chewed a human being

with a dangling mouth,
and called her redbone, feigned

to stare at the dead men
she hefted; whereas I respected

the spine of a book, the tattered
cloth of hardcover,

more than her own.
Whereas these temples of Hoteps

whet teeth with passed-down
stones, our crumbling masonry,

beret down plazas chanting
freedom, yet in dorm parties

bite off a brother’s tongue,
so he speaks nothing

but our worst hungers;
that snarl, who’s the lookout

today, as we try to outsmoke
each other, for the dogs we is.

May I catch the fang she spits
back, chew on my own question

No, are you with or against?
And I too am inside that studio,

clapping with them.
Therefore, be it resolved, Cardi,

Queen of the Bronx, this apology:
may the two-legged perros

claw this gangrene out,
so the tender vespers

that flock our word
not recite our catechisms.

May you, and all the women
who’ve guided my life,

never see the eyes
I once hawked.

 

Antonio López received his BA in global cultural studies and African-American studies from Duke University. He’s received scholarships to attend the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, the Home School, Tin House Summer Workshop, the Key West Literary Seminar, and the Vermont Studio Center. A proud Macondista (2018) and CantoMundo Fellow (2019), his nonfiction has been featured in PEN America and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Palette Poetry, BOAAT Press, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Acentos Review, Permafrost, Huizache, Tin House, and elsewhere. He received his master of fine arts in poetry at Rutgers University in Newark.

אמר רבי יודן Rabbi Yudan taught:
פעם אחת חזר על כל המניקותOnce, Mordekhai searched but
ולא מצא לאסתר לאלתר מיניקהcould find no wet nurse for Esther,
והיה מיניקה הואso he nursed her himself.

•

My breasts judge a handshake,
have five-o-clock shadow.
I know the proper verb
for a deal with God is   To Cut.

The first time my hair stuck
in her soft baby gum,
I simply extended downward
my morning shave.

I fondled the swelling
above my heart
and named it glory
instead of shame.

Only once, after she’d dozed off
I lodged her head
in the crook of my elbow
and stretched my neck down

tugging the nipple up
to lick a drop from the tip.
I regret knowing that I taste
nothing like a woman.

 

Joshua Sassoon Orol is a trans Jewish poet from Raleigh, NC, writing with the texts, tunes, and stories passed down from their mixed heritage family. Joshua completed an MFA at NC State University, and received an Academy of American Poets prize while at UNC Chapel Hill. Their poetry can be read in recent or forthcoming issues of Driftwood Press, Mud Season Review, Nimrod International Journal, and Storm Cellar.