New Work by Jamaal May

Jamaal May (poetry, ’11) is a featured poet on Poetry Daily:

Triage

A suture would be useless
and a tourniquet can’t choke off
blood when it spills
from this far up the inner thigh…

Read more online at Poetry Daily.

Four poems by Jamaal May also appear online in the PEN Poetry Series:

God of the Wood

The air in this world is thicker than I remember
from nights at camp, whacking fireflies with a fallen branch.
I wondered if the shadows, numbering in the hundreds, were all cast
by the same god I hung out with when I was little—his voice
is the silence I’ve been afraid to hear since.
I would smack the side of a tree and stand in the rust-red
shower of leaves until I felt stronger than god;
I could’ve cracked his moon in half
if I wanted to—if I swung my stick high and hard enough,
if I screamed loud enough. But I’m afraid
to know what happens when enough
is the sound of my staff splintering against heaven,
a shock up my arm—
more with every strike.   ….

Read more of “God of the Wood” and other poems online at PEN.org.