by McKenzie | Nov 14, 2015 | Reading
WHAT THEY DID YESTERDAY AFTERNOON they set my aunts house on fire i cried the way women on tv do folding at the middle like a five pound note. i called the boy who use to love me tried to ‘okay’ my voice i said hello he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s...
by McKenzie | Nov 7, 2015 | Reading
THE SNOW MAN One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and...
by McKenzie | Nov 3, 2015 | Reading
STORM DIALOGUE Storms turn on their stomachs and gain on us. Cloud decks smoke the windows. Beating cold. Rain comes in shifts and pisses. Moving west is the gesture; the skies shave the city gray. The eastern sky is filled hammocks, storms twin up like...
by McKenzie | Oct 21, 2015 | Reading
TO THE NEW MOON Come night. Come sirens and midnight babies born in the backseats of taxicabs. Come moon. You crazy weeping alcoholic, quit drinking yourself into nothingness. Someone’s trumpet has gone missing tonight. Someone is looking for you,...
by McKenzie | Apr 13, 2015 | Reading
CONTINENTAL We were sinking The windows were filling with cities as if poured into glasses No one was thinking of drowning No one thinking air ship but there we were submerging A captain turned off the cabin lights We folded our...
by McKenzie | Feb 8, 2015 | Literary Scene, Reading
SLEEPING WOMAN —after the painting by Richard Diebenkorn I’m walking east down Lovell in Kalamazoo in the middle of the afternoon, and it’s hot, July something, and there’s a man...
