Kayleb Rae Candrilli
In the beginning, there was a boy
who touched me as he shouldn't have.

His hands around my ankles—claustrophobic—
a plot of cattails on the water's black silt.

We all have a story like this,
innocent in its setting, nefarious

how it stays spurred into our bones
as we grow.

I think I knew I was a boy
when the boy touched me.

I know this boy is now
a violent man

with a large collection of semi-
automatic rifles. Some things

are so absolute. The point
at which rain becomes snow. The way

fruit eventually spoils
even under unblemished skin.

If I make a metaphor of my body,
it's a desert. One part longing,

one part need, the rest withstanding. Of course
I would prefer to be thirsty

for nothing. I'd rather do so much
than be touched in this angry dark.

Violent men want me to be a violent man.
Or they want me dead.

What a privilege to have an option.
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Photograph portrait of Craig Santos Perez
Craig Santos Perez Wins Nautilus Book Award

"Craig Santos Perez, a CHamoru poet based in Hawaii, was awarded the gold medal Nautilus Book Award for his 2020 book, 'Habitat Threshold,' which showed that extreme warming is already upon the Pacific."

via PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
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Front cover of Tarfia Faizullah's book, "Registers of Illuminated Villages"
What Sparks Poetry:
Nina McConigley on Tarfia Faizullah's "Self-Portrait As Mango"


"Faizullah to me is a poet that speaks to in-betweenness and to the myths of model minorities. That night in Vermont, I felt electric when I heard the poem. Her anger was something I had been scared to ever utter."
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