Books burning 3:39 a.m.
Chapter 6, Don Quixote.
Touch-me-nots
Wilting-in-progress.
Aspire à la Ashbery
Devote to the Impossible.
Darling, did you dry-
Clean my martini?
Proceed with caution:
Grief under repair.
R. Zamora Linmark’s new poetry collection is Pop Verite. He lives in Manila.
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL
Sometimes when they were young, I felt like / I was underwater and couldn’t make out sounds / or reason or rhyme, only coral clicks and distant / whale songs. A shiver of eel near my ankle. But /
trust me: one day you’ll surface. They start / walking, then running, and then they sit behind / a wheel.
ALAA ALQAISI
We stepped out with our eyes uncovered. / Gaza kept looking through them— / green tanks asleep on roofs, a stubborn gull, / water heavy with scales at dawn. // Nothing in us chose the hinges to slacken. / The latch turned without our hands. / Papers practiced the border’s breath.
EZZA AHMED
I was running, the neighborhood / boy my secret guard. A cloud of dust and dirt / my shadow. // My stomach would hurt / from fresh cow’s milk, / a white film swimming to the top. // In a place of people who are / and aren’t, the kids are raised on cardamom milk / and kites. The rain trembles at who it’s about to touch.
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