STAGE 1: COLD SHOCK
THREAT NO.1: LOSS OF BREATHING CONTROL

Gasping

There are an average of seven drownings per year in the lake, most due 
to cold water shock, even among those who are capable swimmers. Or were 
before the water folded them into itself: 
                                                                           a pocket of failure, a slipped 
                            seam of darkness out of the summer 
                                                                                                       sun’s light. 

[…continue reading at Anomalous Press.]

Crone poem (we’re all gonna die)

and how could I have come
more than halfway and not know, I mean

I say it often enough. This is how
we talk tough, out here in the dark wood

where the direct way is lost though hey
it looks pretty clear to me, one-way trip

fire to fire. Even you, asshole,
the one with the big gun

on your shoulder, brandishing your right
to brandish your fear.

[…continue reading “Crone poem (we’re all gonna die)” at The Collagist.]

An excerpt from “Ode to Dalya’s Bald Spot” by Angel Nafis (poetry ’19), published by Poetry.

Ode to Dalya’s Bald Spot

my sister wraps the throw
around herself on the small
cream loveseat & i know
for sure that she is not
a speck of dirt on a pill.
she coughs & sniffs up all
the lucky air in the room
into her excellent nostrils,
which are endless
holy wells replenishing
the soft architecture of her guts.
not even the lupus can interrupt
this ritual of beholding.

[…continue reading at Poetry.]

Greenhousing

I’ll push against—
                what did you say—any
                                edge. An orchid cannot
impregnate it-
                self. Stamen & pistil sound
like dirty words, but they’re necessary.
                I know how
                                to push
                against the glass. I was a seed.

[…continue reading “Greenhousing” at Tupelo Quarterly.]