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      Always and Everywhere after Wislawa Szymborska God may have been abolished but politics is everywhere and always. Your arrival on and departure from Earth are political. Even if you don’t die of it, though many do, politics is present at your last...

      Nude, smoking, in the dawn doorway he stands, or leans against the door frame, light spills around him, haloing as he moons me. The husband, inhales smoke, exhales smoke, takes deep breaths surveys his terraced territory: newly-cut trees, soil...

      The Wine of the Rainbow The sunshine wrote a line of words in the snow told you that the door of the vault of heaven was opening new interstellar cities would come illuminate human eyes submerged by the sea. When the giants returns from outer...

      Pine Sun-consuming needle- Leaf cluster crowned A sheath of rough wrinkle Bark that treasures red Pushing light wooded Works resinous squeeze Out of adverse climate Clenched fist of a tree     Martin Potter...

      Aftermath Dark as ink this fig on your outstretched hand what kind of offering is it please verify I can’t figure out what to do with the slumped weight of it though your voice is persuasive enough to return me to blossom could I place it with...

      Echo Chamber Women are bleeding in the back alleys, alcoves, covering their breasts and babies’ heads, working extra shifts for taxed Tampax and school vests. They smoke to forget, smoke for an excuse to leave the room, they are laughing, weeping...

      Looking An easy work of love taking minds to new vistas, easy work and simple things -- say "you are beautiful" then remixing it to a new medium -- a thing more plastic. My language is mostly verbs; it's liberal, and easy to work into its moulds...

      How to Escape and Other Theories For Mary My sister sings me to sleep from half a world beyond, and I sink into the pool of night with an earful of song. Outside, this foreign city closes and I travel to Dundalk – the Green Church, Castletown Road...

      Holy Days I took you to see churches in hot countries. You admired the architecture, peeked inside the giant ribcage but found no heart, only empty pews for empty people. Sometimes, you strolled majestically up the spine towards the altar, like a...

      Quite Contrary This was the only place she felt at peace, our Mary, in her haphazard back garden. She loved to tend it, plant things to grow, fashioned a path like rosary from stones. She rubbed slate together trying for sparks but found instead...

      Tri Jablana There’s a walk I do alongside a bank of the Kupa from Dubovac to Gaza then curve out into open country where before you get to the mental health institution there are three poplars - tri jablana - three poplars in a field in a lot of...

      Taxi i need t hustle i need t score i need a drink & then a few more i need a hand t get t my feet i need an elbow t cross th street i need a hug baby i need a kiss i need t skip th preliminaries i need a proxy an adult toy i need a girl...

      Night Owl In the worrisome hours before dawn you’d be up quartering the house for silent chores. Never an easy relationship, you’d send letters or cards I treasured. Four-thirty, I’ve just finished ironing. You hated fluorescent tubes, preferred...

      The Bones Since no one’s left to pad out the story, these are the bones of it: Saturday evening, an RAF base (south Yorkshire, most likely), the last weeks of World War Two. The lads fix to meet at a hotel in town – they might not be here next...

      Eagle After Kathryn O’ Driscoll Wasn’t my heart a finch bird? Wasn’t it the yellow-joy chirp overheard on the dawn walk to work –a reminder of the things in this life that are delicate and made of more than the hollow-boned expanses between their...

      On the edge of the Arctic If the light were to leave our world, what of it? We would gather with fire under sturdy roof. We would share spirits and stories, songs, laughter. We would sleep soft in warmth of ourselves. If the light stuck up above,...