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by Sergio Ortiz

July 1, 2018 Contributed By: Sergio Ortiz

There is a pain – so utter –
It swallows substance up –
Emily Dickinson, poem 599

 

The windows open
to the guardianship of the sun.

 

But there is distant smoke
in its presence, traces of an aftermath,

 

a landslide of fumes vacating
the shredded heart,

 

a porous sea, a sliding window
that gifts much more than a casual stare.

 

It accumulates truth
in a coffer of reasons.

 

The smoke is just a shortcut,
an empire of anxiety.

 

Windows resist
but they’re so lazy, they never close.

 

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 13 Summer 2018.

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Filed Under: Poetry Posted On: July 1, 2018

Further Reading

Painting to Empower: An Interview with Artist Harmonia Rosales
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The toxic, masculine white power displayed from the nation’s Capitol for the world to see started from a young age, within their families. Our homes are breeding grounds for this kind of white entitlement and violence. White people must investigate our complicity. Those who stormed the Capitol are regular, everyday, white people we greet on […]

Answer Yes Or No by Khairi Hamdan
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Answer the call of the flute—
the lost impulse of the absent poets,
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