Miriam Åkervall
Atoll
A skeleton is a kind of reef
where the dead dart like clownfish.
Pelvis, sternum, scapula
growing up toward the light. Like
trillium, like arrowleaf balsam-
root. On the mountain, I find a string
of vertebrae draped across the collarbone
of a snag. A rusted trailer on its four flat
tires, insulation spilling into the sink.
In the clearing, a Sunbeam grill
is choking on weeds and the faded
chorus of newsprint. The opinions of yarrow
and lamb’s ear, the penstemon report.
When the sun sets, I watch the windows
blink on in town, their naked cords pulled quickly
and invisibly. Even when the world darkens,
the dead are all around me.
Living with the News
Yesterday, I spread a blanket by the creek,
by the metal slide and the browning volleyball net.
An abandoned outhouse crouched in a bunker squat
at the base of a pine. I am teasing
a mist of contact between yesterday and today.
When the salt waters of history part,
what brings them back together again?
Sprinklers are drifting their crossfire onto
the sidewalk and no one can stop them. Not even
the man who flayed a yellow tire into the shape of a horse
for his children to swing on, or me, alone in my kitchen.
Golem
In the other world,
I stand in the shower
until my fingers prune.
The yellow cowhide work gloves
dry in their pile behind the door.
In my mouth, there are many
short-hand messages
scribbled on a folded piece of paper.
None of them are my name.
Still, I begin to move.
Miriam is a poet and translator. Their poetry appears in Colorado Review, Black Warrior Review, The Greensboro Review, and elsewhere. Their translation of Astrakanerna (The Garden of the Dead) by Marie Lundquist won an Honorable Mention in the 2024 Nadia Christensen Translation Prize and is forthcoming with Ugly Duckling Presse. Miriam’s writing has received support from the Vermont Studio Center and the American Literary Translators Association. They live in Moscow, Idaho where they serve as the 2025-2027 Moscow Poet Laureate.
Artwork: “Rush” by Daniel Lurie
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