POETRY

Three amazing Poets grace our latest offering: Dana Crum, Yolanda Isabel Regueira Marin and Mariska Araba Taylor-Darko

Alain Ducasse

By

Dana Crum

With each bite of Halibut Duglere, I see

whores in El Salvador, bandits in Bangladesh;

I see a boy in Cité Soleil, squatting

in an aluminum shack. Made of dried

yellow dirt from Hinche, baked

on the brutal roof of Fort Dimanche,

cookies suck all moisture from his mouth

and puff his gut with lies. What the gut

believes the tongue denies.

What will I do? Dump my 401(k)

in the World Food Programme chest? Move

to Port-au-Prince, hand out rice sacks?

I’ll finish this fish and go feed my cat.

The First Eurasian Water War:
The Battle of London, 2031

By

Dana Crum

 Water promises to be to the 21st century

   what oil was to the 20th.

    —FORTUNE MAGAZINE

Behind us, our Georgian

            an orange-crayon sketch

on black paper. Ahead,

            below an El Greco sky,

infant hills crouched

            where the Gherkin and St. Paul’s

once stood. A molten

            MacScreen 4 in one hand,

my daughter’s blackened

            fingers in the other,

I tramped beside her

            across the flattened city.

Rubble bled,

            its breath rank, visible.

Doors without buildings. Squares

            no longer square.

As vampire jets flayed

            and staked Westminster,

a groan high in the air.

            In smashed hat

with cracked face

            Big Ben reeled—

’til his spine

            snapped. Then he fell.