"[A Crumb in the Cobblestone—Tell Me This Landscape Darkened Without You]" by Jerika Marchan

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 14, 2018   [A Crumb in the Cobblestone—Tell Me This Landscape Darkened Without You]   Jerika Marchan

Say despite all the churches with their unlocked doors and outstretched strangers' palmskin, I hungered still   —squandered when, fell through like a crumb, I sat waiting for discovery or disintegration—something marvelous teething at the surface—a crumb, devotional, religious ecstatic closer to being worthy   Desire me ruthless and naked but still in my Sunday dress you opened the window—we humid and slept open into dreaming, yes, conduit. Conduit or nothing. Conduit or bust. Nothing or busted. Hug the breakwater's edge   more the grit, my fingers—whorl, the inches of all concrete make miles of this low, walled city.    Pretend expansive with me like ocean.   River.   Lake.   Bodies.                Copyright © 2018 Jerika Marchan. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "Strange agitation happens in a New Orleans summer—a body feels restless, heavy, pressed. The heat can feel like a cage that forces a person into a hyperawareness of the limitations of their body and situation. This poem is about the desire to be transformed into something larger and more meaningful than what one is. After feeling the weight of life, feeling stuck or trapped, it's a balm to imagine oneself as better, faithful, gracious, heroic—all those aspirational things that might fall beyond our grasp." —Jerika Marchan   Jerika Marchan is the author of SWOLE (Futurepoem, 2018), her debut book. She was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in the American South. A graduate of Louisiana State University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.   Photo credit: Dane Cooper and Jen Hayes Poetry by Marchan   SWOLE (Futurepoem, 2018) "Blood Argument" by April Bernard "How to Prepare the Mind for Lightning" by Brynn Saito "After the Grand Perhaps" by Lucie Brock-Broido June Guest Editor: D. A. Powell   Thanks to D. A. Powell, author of Repast: Tea, Lunch, Cocktails (Graywolf Press, 2014), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Powell and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038