Identified by Unique Manicure Author’s Note: this poem was written in response to this image—created by Oana Maria Cajal—which is both about the war in Ukraine and part of a collaboration project titled “Shattered.” Neptune Beach, 315 miles from Odesa Broken, butterflied, and sliveredsnails, shells, and rocks, sanded and
We met under the octopus, tentacles suspended over us,gathering us in. I will return here over and overafter the war has separated us, the basementhas separated us, the dead dog in the streethas separated us. I will return here, I will turn my face upward as I dreamt of doingwhile
Clocks will still mark time. Only speechesby the president under siege will sound true. Bombedcities that refuse to fall will be decimated. Spring will stallas if waiting for war to end before it can arrive.Monuments will stand, protected by sandbags,as children cry. Soldiers will kill volunteersbringing food to abandoned dogs
It’s everywhere today; the wildfire of helicopter blades, what you hearwhen the furnace kicks on, a beggingvoice and an airstrike of unholy smiles.But it’s not something you could tell your sisteras she accidentally pours raspberry iced tea over your hands; the black and red of it, like motor oil mixed
for Dan Ryan After we spoke of the dead at Giờ Linh and Cồn Thiên, I thought of the bird that came to nest ina dead tree; the deep rhythm, melody as she built it stick by stick, bringing mud and wet leavesand bits of paper to mortar it into
―with Uche Ezenwa-Ohaeto Something sits on my heart like night sits on day:A verdant lush too heavy to pass through my throat.In one night, rivers redden where bone-rubble, limbs float.Here, mother is a name for a woman whose children do not return home after nightfall.And stories grow inside mouths as
Now that you have decided to stayaway, I have given up finding the quietgestures that lie behind us. What matterscannot just be found in corners of what wasonce your home. I have muted your imprintin the last photograph we took as the plumeof dawn washed over us and what you
silent under her gray-swept wingsthe wrinkled sands slide. over qalats, wadis,waters, all the brown earth she slips, waiting to go kinetic. in her belly the missile lies primed, dreaming its dream of falling death. through the impossible steel peaksof the sky-stabbing Hindu Kush she weaves, distant-glinting. at night she blots
Scene of Achilles tending to Patroclus We are so proud and excited to publish WIDOWS, a new long poem by Tom Sleigh, which appears in full for the first time here at Consequence Forum. At Consequence, our focus is literature and art that examines the culture and consequences of
In the years and months preceding the coronavirus pandemic, David Ferry could often be heard reading from his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid to audiences in and around Boston. Ferry always gave special attention to lines 241-289 of his Book XI, pointing out that this evocation of the dawn following the
—after a photo of mannequins awaiting the 1953 atomic bomb test blast If it weren’t for the monochrome, we would know if her hair is white or blonde. We’re left to speculate. She could be his mother, but her skin tells no stories, smooth as plaster. Sitting beside the
To create a battlefield, draw a line. then send renewable boys into stitch it down. Band, tourniquet:which half is supposed to die? Blood falling in, the earthonly more dark. Then green, green –as belt, ribbon, scar, strictly held spineaching down the center. Big menrefuse the lesson: you lose control of
