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Plaza Hospicio Cabañas (Guadalajara)

November 23, 2018/in Poetry, Poetry, Winter-Spring 2019 / by James K. Zimmerman

perched in a cricket cage
the canary waits to read
your life

you stand, sunbound
eating mamey, guanaba
favas con chile, pan dulce
drinking agua pura y piña

drop a few pesos in the guira
the marimba comes to life
two men like a wind-up toy
or well-trained spider monkeys
play Guadalajara, two mallets
in each hand, fingers spread
to catch mahagony notes
as they fly by

some buzz, some clunk
loose on the stand, worn
as the steps to the iglesia
shading the mercado

gaps between the brown
bars reflected in spaces
where teeth once shone

Arkansas Razorbacks
blares the shirt of the one
playing melody, New York
graces the other one’s hat

the guira hungry but no longer
fed, the song winds down

a moment of smile
wrinkles shadowed faces
before the return of cloud cover
as your hands come together
but your pockets stay closed

but give a peso, and
the canary will select
five slips of paper
to tell you who you are
where you will be
who you will marry
when you will die

brought out of her bamboo hut
put on its roof, feathers pale
on her head like stalks
of harvested corn, she chooses
her vision peck by peck, forgets
she knows how to fly

 

James K. Zimmerman is an award-winning poet and frequent Pushcart Prize nominee. His work appears in Pleiades, Chautauqua, American Life in Poetry, Reed, Miramar, and Nimrod, and among others. He is author of Little Miracles (Passager, 2015) and Family Cookout (Comstock, 2016), and winner of the Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Prize.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 Amanda Lopez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Amanda Lopez2018-11-23 11:30:502018-11-28 09:58:43Plaza Hospicio Cabañas (Guadalajara)

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

The Night I Want to Remember

December 16, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Sanaz Tamjidi
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From Paper to the Page

November 18, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Annie Bartos
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Confessions of a Birthday Person

November 4, 2022/in 2023ws-migration, Blog / Meghan McGuire
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Mending the Heart and Slowing Down: Reintroducing Myself to Mexican Cooking

October 7, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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The Worth of a Billionaire’s Words

September 23, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Kirby Chen Mages
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Abyssinia

August 26, 2022/in Midnight Snack / JP Goggin
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Still Life

October 31, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Daniel J. Rortvedt
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Litdish: Writing About Grief: An Interview with Jenn Koiter

October 24, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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Dawn from Buffy Learns About Climate Change

October 10, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Alyson Mosquera Dutemple
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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