Frank Learns to Juggle During Quarantine
Poetry
Shevaun Brannigan’s work has appeared in such journals as Best New Poets, AGNI, and Slice. She is a recipient of a Barbara J. Deming Fund grant and holds an MFA from Bennington College.
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Poetry
MEH is Matthew E. Henry, a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet. The author of Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020), he has recent and forthcoming works in The Amethyst Review,…
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Poetry
M. Drew Williams is from Western New York. His poems have appeared in publications such as Harpur Palate, Hobart, The New Territory, and Poetry South. He holds an MFA from Creighton University.
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Planting Camellias as an Act of Resistance
Poetry
Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. She's the author of five books of poetry: Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained…
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Poetry
Rita Mookerjee is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Iowa State University. Her poetry is featured in Juked, Cosmonauts Avenue, New Orleans Review, Sinister…
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Poetry
John Blair has published six books, the most recent of which is Playful Song Called Beautiful (U. of Iowa Press, 2016), which won the Iowa Poetry Prize, and he has a seventh book, The Art of…
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Poetry
Katherine Gekker is the author of In Search of Warm Breathing Things (Glass Lyre Press, 2019). Her poems have been published in Delmarva Review, Little Patuxent Review, Broadkill Review, Poetry South,…
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Poetry
Andrew Kozma’s poems have appeared in Blackbird, The Believer, Redactions, and Bennington Review. His first book of poems, City of Regret (Zone 3 Press, 2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award.
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Shevaun Brannigan
I.
His hands are pinball flippers.
We’re going crazy in here.
The juggling balls pop
from his palm to the air,
to palm, to palm.
I assign them their symbols.
One ball will be fear.
The second will be love.
The last, persistence.
The persistence of love,
the love of fear,
the fear of persistence,
the unknown, to be caught
or to catch, so much up in the air,
fear is in the air,
Frank holds love,
Frank holds persistence.
II.
I have dropped love,
woken up and found it
in bed beside me.
The beautiful face
he wears sleeping.
I have gripped fear, I have lost
persistence, saw it roll
under the couch and let it go.
The quarantine continues on
despite me.
I watch him juggle,
I watch him cope.
My love, tossing
an easy ball
caught neat in his palm.
I loop the mask around my ears.
III.
The beautiful face
he wears sleeping;
outdoors, he winks, mask-mouthed,
the fabric sucks in
as he holds his breath,
juggling for the little boy
who stands
so far away.
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