Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Reading Spicer’s After Lorca Thinking About Jonas and Wieners
in Boston
it doesn’t snow the way it used to
January nothing
day after dirty gray day
damp worse than freezing
sentences spoken drone
tired lips wounded
street any body stumbles
down raw-knuckled
among rubble a dream-bird
posts a sign on a rusty wrought-iron fence
reads WINTER: Everyone Welcome
to skate on thin black ice
barefoot, knife through my tongue
drown
come back snow flake—
purposeful grave
unchained senses coax
chilled-landscape late-night-walk-talk
snow’s perishable bank
naked cold
warmed by open fire
Joseph Torra edits lift. His recent chapbook is titled 16 Paintings. His poems have appeared in various magazines, including Talisman and NRG. (1992)