He was as calm as his family wanted,
managing a laugh each day of his life
and washing the traces away
with soap and water
Jeffrey Clapp
JEFFREY CLAPP'S poems, stories and translations have appeared in Samovar, North American Review, Blue Unicorn, Dalhousie Review, Arkansas Review, Sycamore Review, and many others. He is a past recipient of the Daniel Morin Poetry Prize at UNH and the Indiana Fiction Prize from Purdue. His work has been anthologized in Best of Blueline and Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America. He currently lives in South Portland, ME USA.
Standing at the Empty Mouth
We Will Survive
by Rolla Barraq, translated from the Arabic by Muntather Alsawad and Jeffrey Clapp
Death was passing through the pores of waiting / like fresh messages from the sky
