woken up, hungover
with my head turned
just so
no service here
the buntings, oblivious,
calling each other close
oh god, I never meant to be
jealous of a bird
of the way
the wind lifts
and holds each call
pulling it through
the cabin window
past the pale moon,
the water tupelo half-
submerged and treading
time, past the tangled
passionflower vines
still, whole
seasons away from
blossom. Eyes closed
I picture
her face, open
my mouth
______
I am most drawn to Minnie Bruce Pratt’s river poems. A river ecology is a disorderly ecology in that multiple elements meet: air and water, human and more-than-human. Each element is powerful and resistant; it becomes more itself and also adjusts and melds.
In this poem, I have tried to adopt Pratt’s river poetics, embracing surprise, adaptability, and willingness to concede control. As with poetic form, humans have tried for millennia to tame rivers—building dams, locks, spillways, and more—yet the water always resists.
I hope this, too, is a poem of resistance. They are of queer love and being in-between, embracing the urge to catalog objects rooted firmly in a specific wild southern landscape while longing for another world. —S.B.
Memento Mori by Alexa Garvoille
Fimmene, Fimmene by Jessica Rae Bergamino
Bayou La Terre by Stacey Balkun
Become, or whatever marriage is equal to is not nearly enough by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Never the Devil’s Advocate by Margaret Randall
