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"Flora Fauna Marta" by Nam Das

Walking Maple Hill by Abbie Kiefer

He asks again about the words on the rocks.
                Twice I’ve explained from behind the stroller

and he’s understood                                      my boy is bright

                but he wants to hear the strangeness resaid:
that bodies stop being
                                                               that we bring them here.
--

I brought him here
                for cracked macadam that rarely carries cars
               
                for the sun-shelter of trees         thick
                as a hundred years
                                                                                  but I regret it now.

This stroller rolls so easily.
I’ve walked us to the middle of acres and acres.

--

My bright boy loves letters                       wants to know
                                                             the names:
Jeremiah            Elizabeth
                 Naomi soft with moss

Esther
                 Samuel rough fissure running through

Sarah beloved of Edward                Wentworth obelisk
                                                                    sharp as a spade
Judith two Sharons three rows apart
                                                Steven Barbara burst
                                                                                 of geraniums
Mark his widow Mary the hill
tries to take the stroller from my hands
                                                                                                   Cam ragged
teddy bear wind-bullied balloon half-circle of silver pinwheels
clicking
clicking                                                 throwing light in wild shards.

Abbie Kiefer’s poems are forthcoming or have appeared in The Cortland Review, Booth, december, The Penn Review, and other publications. Find her online at abbiekieferpoet.com.

​Nam Das (Filipino, b. 1989) creates open-ended visual stories by arranging figurative elements into an assemblage forming a central idea, an idea that plays around Jungian archetypes of the collective unconscious or mythologems observed throughout history. He uses a limited palette of four colors in his oil paintings. Also called the Zorn palette, it's composed of: Titanium White, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre and Ivory Black. Nam began working as a full-time painter in 2019.
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