Rae Gouirand
In the dream, matter was mine.
The muscle, the teeth, the breath rushing

out of burned throat and through
those teeth into air, where it became

indistinguishable. On my legs, I raced,
the machinery of my animal syncing

lift and drop between front and back,
the pairs oddly right, as though

I've had them in waking, as though I've
known a horse's run from inside.

But that wasn't the plot. Just
as I knew I was that, just as I could

hold it in my mind at the same time
I could simultaneously express

I was born to move like this,
I felt concrete beneath

my landings, and the approaching
vibration of metal wheels faster

than I could make my mind
my legs, and those, those red roads

under me, those fine bones under
the balance of my animal, entered

the field of what could undo them,
were subject to what could undo them,

and their running turned—and
there was my heart, racing for

the red cave where I had lived,
no longer a place I could rest

my word for myself. There are
rwo ways a horse can run: from

accord, and from will. One is
the way a living thing runs.
from the book LITTLE HOUR  / Swan Scythe Press 
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Color head-and-shoulders illustration of Morgan Parker
Morgan Parker: "Poetry Is Under Everything"

"The truth is that poetry is under everything. It’s the lyric and sensory backbone. It’s what drives the sound, pace and imagery. (Everyone knows the best prose writers write and read poetry.) But while a poem strives for precision of language, the essay strives for precision of thought, even argument."

via THE NEW YORK TIMES
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Cover image of Poetry Magazine, December 2023, in which this translation first appeared
What Sparks Poetry:
Daniela Danz on [Come wilderness into our homes] 

With our ever-increasing distance from nature, alongside our excessive extractive practices, the idea of wilderness has become a topos of longing; nevertheless, wilderness still harbors the potential to undo the cultural achievements that are the basis of human civilization. Prior to the Enlightenment, European thought regarded wilderness as a threat, if also a source of fascination; in the Enlightenment’s wake, wilderness was rebranded as an Edenic original condition.
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