I do my best, reverent with remedies, warm hands, picture of a bear with cub. I make up stories as if the perfect character will cure your suffering. Driving at night, headlights on the painted lines, I try to remember signs from any deities, owl lifting from a shadow, lamp in a stranger’s window. An […]
Arlene Naganawa
Arlene Naganawa's full-length collection is I Dream a Nest of Foil (Kelson Books, 2024). Her chapbooks include Private Graveyard (Gribble Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks), The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press), and We Were Talking About When We Had Bodies (Ravenna Press). Her work appears in Thimble, The Inflectionist Review, Waxwing, La Piccioletta Barca, Calyx, and other. She has been awarded several grants from CityArts (Seatlle) and Artist Trust. She has been a Writer in the Schools, Hugo House instructor, and poetry mentor for incarcerated youth.
Sweetness
I see Sweetness on the sidewalk with her friend, both of them barefoot and in little skirts, blue and yellow, the t-shirts with writing on them and printed plastic raincoats because it is raining. Their bare feet feel good in the rain, cool on the pavement, and their faces are serious, lips set in lines, […]