Poetry
Animals
One by one the animals disappeared
either shot or destroying each other
or owned by banks or the military,
the short dog, the eagle mean
and not giving over,
the terrible melancholic deer.
I admired their efforts in the face of apocalypse
and so lined up my inner animals
in a similar formation:
the happy stupid one, the cheater,
the practicing intellectual,
the yogini, the softball champion—
They looked pretty good together,
a nice cross-section of society
so I fixed myself a scotch
and smoked cigars Washington-style
and laughed from deep under my pubic bones
where my phantom penis nervously waited.
Once gathered this way
they acted like union officials
out back on their breaks
cigarettes burning
in solidarity with the sunset: one by one
they raised their hands over their hearts—
I grew up with animals, you know.
I always needed to rescue something.
I never liked lace
the troubling gaps masquerading as completions,
and I never liked spring branches,
that dripped with rain
then became dry—
There must be order.
Fold clothes neatly
and put them in drawers.
Use make-up, mow the lawn.
Eat right.
The body gracious as a butler—
As if nothing had happened
someone put out her cigarette
and sad as a Chihuahua
said, "Heavy rustling of needles. Uplifted branches—
their shapes offer them up
but then they struggle against their shape—"
no—
—no one speaks like that
I turned away.
When I looked back
she was gone
like the animals. No!
wait—
"When I looked back she was laughing,"
Yes, like that,
as though she actually
saw something in the trees
like a sign fortune tellers had posted
giving up their charade:
be prepared for no answer
or maybe,
be prepared for I.V.s and a crowd in the ward
an approximation
of a conclusion—
a body’s knowledge here and there
then changed into
anything else—
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Ann Craven: Animals Birds Flowers Moons
By David RhodesAPRIL 2021 | ArtSeen
Something seems to have changed between Ann Cravens last Karma exhibition in 2018 and Animals Birds Flowers Moons, the current exhibition. Individual works now advance a particularly estranging form of romanticism with even more boldness and adventure than before.
from Soft Apocalypse
By Leah NieboerFEB 2023 | Poetry
Leah Nieboer grew up in Iowa. She is poet, deep listener, interdisciplinary scholar, graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, and PhD candidate in English at the University of Denver. Her first book, SOFT APOCALYPSE, was selected by Andrew Zawacki as the winner of the 2021 Georgia Poetry Prize and will be published in March 2023 (UGA Press).
Late Humans and Other Animals
By Jason MorrisOCT 2021 | Poetry
Jason Morris was born and raised in Vermont. He is the author of Low Life (Bird & Beckett Books, 2021), Different Darknesses (FMSBW, 2019), and Levon Helm (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018), as well as five other books of poems / other. He lives in San Francisco.
Hong Sang-Soo’s In Front of Your Face
By Minh TranJUL-AUG 2022 | Film
In Front of Your Face offers insights about appreciating life in the presence of death that are new and more optimistic assertions for a filmmaker who represents typically male characters at their most desperate.