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In the Third Person

Daniel Poppick

‘Over an exit, and deeply dreaming / A guard brutally splayed’

Civilization Spurns the Leopard

Solmaz Sharif

‘To step out of my door and hope to see something like a life, something passably me.’

Force Visibility

Solmaz Sharif

‘Full or empty / was impossible to see.’

Two Poems

Caitlin Scarano

‘didn’t antlers grow from his head / whenever my mother’s back was turned?’

If You Were a Bluebird

Juliana Spahr

‘So the dolphins talks, talks, over thirty distinguishable sounds.’

From The Abstract Humanities

Sandra Simonds

‘let us / build the openwork fabric of our garden / on the fear in the body’

Model Reconstruction of Ancient Rome

Sandra Simonds

‘Here I am. Sephora, symbol of stolen work.’

Vinod Kumar Shukla: Two Poems

Vinod Kumar Shukla

‘The truth is, though no one says it, / They’re all worried about their children.’

The Afterlife of Trees and Their Lovers

Sumana Roy

‘It is difficult to imagine a history of trees / without man in it. Man as tree, Tree as tale.’

Origin Myth

Mary Ruefle

‘Life continually circled in cold inaccessible serenity around unhappy Earth’

Salad Days

Barbara Ras

‘nothing in those early evenings free / of care could have prepared you’

Citizen

Claudia Rankine

‘Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue’

Beyond Sunset

Mary Ruefle

‘Red sadness never appears sad . . . it appears in flashes of passion, anger, fear, inspiration and courage, in dark unsellable visions; it is an upside down penny concealed beneath a tea cosy.’