against the inside of my warm drunk fist. ⬦ now you cradle a child in the curve of your rugged arm.

Only chance made me come and find

where apples fall and find no funeral.

slow regret marbling a hope unflagging the morning

I’m really happy to announce that t’ai freedom ford’s poetry collection & more black won the 2020 LAMBDA Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry. It was a honor to publish t’ai’s book through my press Augury Books.

marked it up like a book, underlining, highlighting, writing in the margins, I was _here_.

tiny fires blur the sky

I play with an old boyfriend, to tease you out

I never asked her what she gave up to drive me, or how her day was before this chore.

There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy

So, we threw out a bunch of words and a phrase and a color, and all of us sat down to write. I think the color that day was gray or we could choose a color, I don’t remember. And I ended up writing “Ode to Grey.” So, it was written with her, side-by-side. ​ Writing is really just a matter of allowing them to believe they have something important to report to the world. Whether it’s looking out their window and telling us what they see, or looking inside themselves and telling us what they feel. What’s best, of course, is telling us what they feel about what they see.

the night sky into stars, the stars into patterns I make up

Poetry, perhaps more than any other literary art, is uniquely suited for giving voice to the deepest parts of ourselves. There is no reason that everyone shouldn’t have access to that experience.

I think flowers enjoy their solitude … I think sprinklers annoy them.

another thing I love about poetry: it’s ability to change meaning

My unmothered bird, dropped from the sky like a millstone. …the swell of new growth

let the person kiss the mask instead.

A crystal sheet Below, an enormous secret lake, like gladness. and worn by thousands and thousands of other women reminds you of yourself when you are not even sure what that is Mesh of thunder above. Soon I won’t be at arm’s length.

Yet it’s close. It feels like a new suit or sheet. You are good to everyone and you don't care. Knowing pillows of smoke and a yawn's opulence. I am happy for you. I wish you would go away. And recognize your dad, that tiny figure raking leaves. And hear me out. And hear me out. Listen. --- And recognize your dad, that tiny figure raking leaves. And hear me out. And hear me out. Listen.

…the dark makes you hear the water more.

…if the world will never stop expanding once helicopters are gone. …drops me a private year wrapped in plastic,

The first thing I learned was to look wide

The sky is open all the way. whose irrepressible birds can’t believe their luck this morning

a layer of birds when the beetles hurry through dry grass hiding pieces of light they have stolen

may also be because of the nature of poetry itself: since each poem is its own complete aesthetic experience, maybe readers feel less inclined to engage with poetry books, no matter how much they’ve enjoyed individual poems. ​ Our hope is that readers who like the prose we publish may discover, as they poke around our catalog, that they like the poetry too

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Inside the dodo bird is a forest, Inside the forest a peach analog, Inside the peach analog a woman, Inside the woman a lake of funerals, disappointed male lovers, scientists, Inside the lake a volcano of whale songs, Inside the volcano a language of naming, Inside the language an algorithm for de-extinction, Inside the algorithm blued dynamite to dissolve the colony's Sun, twinkle twinkle, I didn't mean to fall in love with failure, its molting rapture, I didn't mean to name myself from a necklace of silent vowels, I didn't go looking for the bird, I entered through the empty cage, hips first --- a lake of funerals to name myself from a necklace of silent vowels

To uncoil the wild little everything inside lungs throbbed by its own wings