Category: Our Beautiful Reward
Law
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.
—William Blake
At first, laid down on clay tablets
like the footprints of a slender bird,
then, progressed through dried skins and pulp,
burgeoning past parchment
to a flood of writs so numerous
as to be incomprehensible—
mulled by the nine
in their archaic robes, . . .
Ghazal for freshwater – wai
Not so long ago, my baby floated in amniotic wai.
Oceans within oceans, and beneath them—wai.
Kunawai spring makes a way through concrete,
beneath streets, alongside apartments, burbling wai.
Double the word for water in Hawaiian and the sum
means: goods, value, worth, wealth, importance—waiwai.
At Red Hill, the US Navy stores 200 million gallons of fuel . . .
Navy says operator error was the cause of a May fuel leak from the Red Hill Storage Facility
fertile week
the peas are in the ground and maybe it’ll work
this time. I kiss your shoulders and crack jokes,
one day on, one day off, just like our doctor said,
and when the clock reads 11:11
our fingers twine, and we hold on so tight.
downborder, they’re stealing bodies: put her in the dirt
and chant the words, she’ll do your furtive will. a million
Murder Legendre brides reduced . . .
On This Day, and All Days, I Think About What I Have Lost
On the day my son is born, a summer thunderstorm stomps and slashes through San Diego. Pellets of hail hit the window four floors up as I lie in my hospital bed and hold my squirming pink infant.
My husband checks the radar on his phone, making little comments to himself about unprecedented weather patterns and hook formations. Our son’s face is a red, squishy orb, . . .
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 . . .
Vulva Monster
Editorial: Naming names, claiming days.
These are the Supreme Court Justices of the United States of America who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022.
John Roberts
Samuel Alito
Clarence Thomas
Neil Gorsuch
Amy Coney Barrett
Brett Kavanaugh
Five Justices had stated publicly in the past—sometimes the very recent past—that they regarded Roe v. Wade as settled law. (The sixth never acknowledged . . .