Reverent

from Cross River . Pick Lotus

9

 

How to describe sea

To someone who’s never seen it?

 

He lives to ninety-nine, he wants it, to see it

To walk on its glass surface, to blow the seven trumpets.

 

At this joyous moment gigantic angel wings

Write prophecy all over the sky. How can I tell him 

 

About sea storms, the chocking...

Zhang Er
1960

Praying Herd: For Safe Journey

Draw a line through our scattered bodies. The pattern of fallen calves in this meadow will mirror

the constellation above. Look up. We whip our tails to a silent song:

 

We sing to the moon, ask for wings to lift our flock to heaven;

We plead to the moon, since she will take pity;

We beg of the moon since she changes, as our circumstance must also...

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

From The First Water is the Body

2345*.

The river is my sister—I am its daughter.

It is my hands when I drink from it,

my own eye when I am weeping,

and my desire when I ache like a yucca bell

in the night. The river says, Open your mouth to me,

and I will make you more.

 

Because even a river can be lonely,

            ...

Natalie Diaz

On My Tongue

Bismillah is my first memory.

 

I became a bird in the Qur’an

at hardly eight years old.

 

I opened the dark green cover

and revealed the slippery

 

two hearts: Arabic

and its English translation.

 

On Saturdays, I learned to repeat

passages in Arabic,

 

to...

Alycia Pirmohamed

voyage, oh voyage!

voyage, oh voyage!

the final fire that ravages the air

unveils the soil on which

we walk aimlessly

and tirelessly

 

the hypocrisy of the strong protects us

from home. I prefer leaves

yellowed by the rain to false

victories

 

so I listen to the wind. It's good to live

where there's...

Etel Adnan
1925-

Filament

Always that spectral fragment. Filament of line cast back there.

Where open-mouthed fish rise to gulp down shiny lures.

 

I sang once in an auditorium to almost empty rows.

I looked for my people in the seats, under the seats, behind

the seats, but they weren’t there. I called the three people

who were there to come up and introduce...

Armand Garnet Ruffo

bhater mondo