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Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.

The Luthier

Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817-1892), Spanish guitar maker

Torres’ secret was
soundboard, made
like a corset: cypress

struts that narrowed
at the waist. After
his wife was buried

in pine, he locked
all doors but
one—landing’s

lead-up to roof,
where cut spruce
aged from bone

to honey. Window
was frame for sea’s
dull sawing, while

his good ear kept
time in waves. At noon
he called the boy,

taught him to slit
the sanded neck,
to hold a needle

still enough for rosette’s
slow ticking. Herringbone,
he showed him, is hardest

on old hands, for
only a precise grip
of dark veneer

can lay down
this ring, sign
without sound.

Portrait of Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers

Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers is the author of two poetry collections, The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons (Acre Books, 2020) and Chord Box (University of Arkansas Press, 2013), as well as Miss Southeast: Essays (Northwestern University Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in Poetry, Guernica, AGNI, The Missouri Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Asheville Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Chautauqua Literary Journal, StorySouth, Poetry Daily, The Best American Travel Writing, and elsewhere. A former Kenyon Review Fellow, she is assistant professor of creative writing at Oberlin College, where she leads the Writers in the Schools Program. She lives in Oberlin with her wife and two children. (updated 10/2024)

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