by Danielle Deulen | Nov 11, 2018 | Lit from the Basement
Drift by Brenda Shaughnessy I’ll go anywhere to leave you but come with me. All the cities are like you anyway. Windows darken when I get close enough to see. Any place we want to stay’s polluted, the good spots taken already by those who ruin them. And...
by Danielle Deulen | Nov 5, 2018 | Lit from the Basement
Door by Dana Levin And then an uprush of air— And then the cellar doors banging back, the strong dusk light falling in like a stanchion, a gold nail hammered through the blackened trees— Can you see it? You, psyche, burden, friend? This is the first time I can...
by Danielle Deulen | Oct 28, 2018 | Lit from the Basement
Ghazal of Dark Death by Federico García Lorca [translated by Catherine Brown] I want to sleep the sleep of apples, far away from the uproar of cemeteries. I want to sleep the sleep of that child who wanted to cut his heart out on the sea. I don’t want to hear that the...
by Danielle Deulen | Oct 21, 2018 | Lit from the Basement
Departure by Ocean Vuong Dawn cracks: a lightning bolt carving slowly through the clouds. All night I listened to your breath. Even tasted your lips when the moon turned you pale as a corpse. I haven’t killed a thing since the morning we followed gunshots into a field...
by Danielle Deulen | Oct 14, 2018 | Lit from the Basement
Wishbone by Richard Siken You saved my life he says. I owe you everything. You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just get gone, but he’s relentless, keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood, you must...
by Danielle Deulen | Oct 7, 2018 | Lit from the Basement
Rodin’s Fallen Caryatid by Lindsay Bernal She’s collapsing under her big stone: woe, love, whatever. Vase, urn, bowl, the cup made of hands at the brook ––what holds is hollow. Does a child ever recover from losing the vessel who bore her, pushed her out of one...
