Review: Eros Rex, poems by Haley Hodges, Orison Books. Brimming over with desire, Haley Hodges’ collection Eros Rex reverberates ‘like the plucked string of a lute’ (‘Innocence’) with stark, sensuous questions about Christliness and control. Hodges’ poems insist upon the reader’s attention in much the same way as the poetic voice demands attention from those … Read more
It’s very possible that Renee Nicole Good reasoned, as I would’ve, that her whiteness would protect her when she put her Honda Pilot, dog in tow, in the path of ICE vehicles on a Minneapolis street less than a mile from where George Floyd’s last words were, just six years before, “I can’t breathe.” Unfortunately … Read more
JACK GILBERT WAS TOO HORNY TO BE A METAPHYSICAL POET not that sex and metaphysics cancel each other out— his was good news for Linda Gregg, until it wasn’t. Interviewer: Did you and Linda ever collaborate? JG: We were intertwined. We read each other’s poetry, appreciated each other’s poetry, discarded each other’s poetry. (Quick shout-out … Read more
And Me Naked for you, beneath some moon somewhere, which sounds like an ending, unless you begin with it. White as a page, as a unicorn’s horn, some skin—all of mine. So stare down—star-down is how I want to lay with you. Come further up. Go further in. Night is falling with us. Night, the … Read more
TEACHER I know I’ve made a christ of you the way I gather up the crumbs beneath your table, the way I bathe your feet with my hair. But this blind worship won’t do, and I must take and eat new prayer. Teacher! It was not given me to sit at your right hand or … Read more
Like most of us, I spent the past week in a state of deep reflection over our collective national fate. Like some of us, I mourned. The American political sphere seems to have reached an anti-zenith, one culminating in some dystopian rhetorical Babel tower built and sustained by hatred. What have I seen in my … Read more
Calling All Angels Leaves fall like secret prayers— calling all angels September’s having her best orgasm in a century. Everything lingers in climax, the character of the light, earthy fragrances, a whole heaving calendar week with an arched spine. Here’s how I know the world is ill and absurd: a dead fawn stares up from … Read more
And Not Your Garments Lord, Lord this my heart full of secrets, seeds I know you did not send—Lord, I cannot rend. If I am choked, therefore, by weeds, I will not ask for a mended garden, I won’t beg your holy pardon at scythe’s end. These were difficult to bury, so little loam left … Read more
No Record of Wrongs Love does keep a record of some things— your solitary walks in Coln Saint Aldwyn’s, a precise curl of Virginia Creeper tendrils, vermillion in autumn, the way you carefully smelled horses’ necks beneath the mane back home, velveteen crushes of cornhusks lashed to lampposts Love notes you’ve yet to find a … Read more
Faking It When Cleopatra rolled Out of the rug, she thought: Don’t worry! Even if I do not enjoy your performance, You will enjoy mine—a lot. I’d like to credit myself As an actress, but the truth About men is: I’ve yet To meet one unwilling To believe he is a singularly Exceptional lover—yeah, baby. … Read more