It’s consensual—don’t worry—the garden getting fucked by rain. We had all asked for it, begged for it, prayed. And, after, again: may “grow” not be lost as a verb. The storm was an unethical doctor, sharing with us the sky’s own ephemeral x-ray. We needed to see it. We needed to project our own bones […]
Kristi Maxwell
Kristi Maxwell: Glance
You can put your hand on a familiar tree and say, “hello, tree,” and claim your tear as the sap of you, desperate to be identified as tree-like, seasoned, with little thought of not lasting through the year, the decade, the decades. We are not fossils—we are not still enough to become this land’s keepsakes. […]
Kristi Maxwell: Swarm
Nothing is sleeping near me. The swarm is daylight wadding up the dark construction paper of night. The swarm is pointillist, is paint-by-numbers moved before drying. Continuous drip. Swarms remind me of poets and my country folk announcing on a hot day their assessment: ‘s’warm. The last swarm I saw was of locusts, duh, charring […]
Kristi Maxwell
Kristi Maxwell is the author of seven books of poems, including My My (Saturnalia Books, 2020); Realm Sixty-four, editor’s choice for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series; Hush Sessions, editor’s choice for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; and Re-, finalist for the National Poetry Series. She’s an associate professor of […]