“… It’s the 29?? […], a cicada droning
on the sill and a plague on TV and the kid going on and on,
but it feels good to sit here buzzing inside myself watching
TV at the odd end of Florida, […] a cicada moaning
on the sill and a plague on, and the kid going on and on,
so I go on debating with myself whether it’d be better
to die of the plague or to die of anything other than
the plague during a plague”
The Plague on TV, Jaswinder Bolina
“It takes more time than I expected
for death to be over,
I tell my brother. And he, a hunter, says, Yeah
in the tone that means, Of course.
The Night Before I Leave Home, Elisa Gonzalez
“… I racked up habitual sins. I desired, desire
such knowledge from this world that if age one day empties my mind
I sometimes think I’d be grateful. Imagination, too,
is old habit, assiduously maintained
despite consequences.
[…]
I learned you can separate pleasure from disgrace, though
it’s hard to make a habit of pure happiness, when there’s so much to know.
“Epistemology of the Shower,” Elisa Gonzalez, American Chordata, Fall 2021.
