Author: Linda Cooper

Linda Cooper lives in Ronald, Washington and teaches creative writing at Washington Outdoor School. She completed her MFA at Eastern Washington University and her poems have been published in Verse Daily, Hayden’s Ferry Review, West Branch, Many Mountains Moving, Willow Springs, Third Coast, Tupelo Quarterly, Los Angeles Review, Permafrost, Hubbub, Elixir, Diner, Pontoon, and many more. She also won the 2015 Orlando Prize for Poetry and the 2022 Allied Arts Foundation Prize.

After the Ban

*left eye* the moon/chewed and spit across the sky

 

*right eye* a slender girl/leaning on a lamppost/her body newly claimed

 

*neck* hands/uninvited/ !

 

*nose* seven starlings wheel across the sky/bear her weight

 

*hair* wild horses/meandering attention/the half-life of respect

 

*lips* curl of waves/a flag/or a siren

 

*ears* silence packs its bags and disappears/the time to listen

 

*chin* she is becoming a hawk/comet/wall of fire