love love love thud of the old plunger
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—Samuel Beckett identifies the problem.
Without a cigarette habit, no way to exit a room, now Rorschached with oil spots that at some point in the night were faces. Outside the bar I can answer the question Are you in love? I AM IN LOVE floats like skywriting over the dilapidated smoke of Camel Blues. A Chihuahua licks my boots like a servant, grossly abased. A man walks up and says Do you two know each other? The dog and I have an ill-defined intimacy, but I love him or her, or them. |
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Before the Apocalypse
Tonight the water-bearers
pour wine & the music-
makers bestow on a quiet populace
the sole instrument
known to survive fires
as elsewhere the stars
stoke their revenge &
the earthquake rehearses
a new sound
for daybreak; & breaks; & breaks
loose.
pour wine & the music-
makers bestow on a quiet populace
the sole instrument
known to survive fires
as elsewhere the stars
stoke their revenge &
the earthquake rehearses
a new sound
for daybreak; & breaks; & breaks
loose.
Elisa Gonzalez is a queer Puerto Rican writer raised in the Midwest. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appears in Barrow Street, the Lambda Literary Poetry Spotlight, Mississippi Review, Narrative, Prelude, Tin House Open Bar, and elsewhere. A graduate of Yale University and the New York University creative writing program, she has received support for her work from the Norman Mailer Foundation and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a Fulbright Scholar in creative writing and lives in Warsaw, Poland.
Yolanda del Amo is a Spanish-born, New York based artist whose work uses photographic composition to illuminate the influences that shape us as individuals and as social beings. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. She has received multiple awards and grants, such as a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant (2017) and a commendation at the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition (2009) organized by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. Yolanda is currently an Associate Professor for Photography and Digital Media at Ramapo College of New Jersey.