Akoloute (Sequi Me)

By ELIZABETH L. HODGES

Tracing dusty footprints, you can be led
to fornix, to tombs, the circus and bars,
to my lupan, my cell, my earthen bed;
what waits is not secret—see what I are?
I’m not a barmaid, an actor or slave;
I’m not being cursed because I had sinned—
I’m earning my keep in this grisly trade.
For that I am traif, but come along in.
I’ll lead you to places you’ve never had;
to hell in a basket: one bloody as.

Elizabeth L. Hodges was legal counsel for the New Hampshire Judiciary for fourteen years. She founded St. Petersburg Review, an independent international review of contemporary literature, in 2007. Blood Sonnets will be published in November. She lives in New Hampshire.

[Purchase Issue 28 here.] 

Akoloute (Sequi Me)

Related Posts

cover of "Civilians"

On Civilians: Victoria Kelly Interviews Jehanne Dubrow

JEHANNE DUBROW
Now we live in North Texas, hours away from the nearest shore. And yet, the massive amounts of open space—all the prairie, marsh, and plains that we have here—started to feel like another kind of vast water, another great expanse of distance and isolation.

Lizard perched on a piece of wood.

Poems in Tutunakú and Spanish by Cruz Alejandra Lucas Juárez

CRUZ ALEJANDRA LUCAS JUÁREZ
Before learning to walk / and before I’d fallen upon the wet earth / already my heart hummed in three tones. / Even when my steps were still clumsy, / I already held three consciousnesses. // Long before my baptism, / already my three nahuals were running

Michael David Lukas's headshot next to the cover of The Common Issue 28.

Podcast: Michael David Lukas on “More to the Story”

MICHAEL DAVID LUKAS
Michael David Lukas speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his Issue 28 essay, “More to the Story.” Michael talks about his writing process for the essay, which began when a dark family mystery moved him to research a side of his family he’d never learned much about.