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Poetry

Audio: Read by the author.

 

Judith beheads Holofernes.
O the mind, mind has mountains.
Dante ascends imitation marble stairs,
from a season of heat to a season of cold.
Beginning and beginning again,
the eye opens to see the border

of its galaxy and finds there a snake.
Opening hour, birds in the eaves.
Behold the grand fountain where
Eli broke a tooth, where Sylvie gave
birth, where Fátima and Abe learned
to dance, brought here dismantled,

from Ohio, in a trailer pulled behind
a 2003 Kenworth T800 driven
by Dave, who was named after
the musical shepherd who killed
a giant, became king, conquered
Jerusalem, did bad things, and fled,

then returned to rule once more
a kingdom of crystals at the sea’s edge.
O the mind, mind has mountains.
Judith beheads the Jadeite Cabbage,
the Berlin Green Head, and the artist’s
portrait of his father, also greenish.

 

 


Joshua Edwards’s books include The Double Lamp of Solitude (forthcoming from Rising Tide Projects), Imperial Nostalgias (Ugly Duckling), and a translation of María Baranda’s Ficticia (Shearsman). He teaches at Pratt Institute and Columbia University.

 

 

 

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