Issue > Poetry
CD Eskilson

CD Eskilson

CD Eskilson is a nonbinary poet, editor, and bookseller. Their work appears or is forthcoming in Teen Vogue, Yes Poetry, The Cardiff Review, and Butter, among others. CD is an associate editor for Exposition Review and past editor for Foothill. They live in Los Angeles.

Obscura


I never held a camera.
Never held a camera but carry the scene with me.

The scene is a wheat field, its autumn
stalks crookfingered, reentering
the ground as if grasping buried cloth.  

          The scene is fingers
crooked in the ground when you take me
to a park bench
on astroturf behind your house;

transmutation of a wing bone into door hinge.

When you take me a block past my house
afterwards and ask
to diagnose roiling off your tongue.
                         Where I twist
you against the sidewalk with my palms,
refract want through alarm glass.

     Flaked to my lips
want masts a victory flag.

If utterance is existence I screech birds:
     if afterwards is pointing to a street sign,
     pointing to black teeth
and wondering how to string them in a necklace.

Never held a camera
though film wills itself a dream for matches,

arc of nitrate ghosts to guard
a spot on the wall where space screams.

Until a wheat field gathers us,
wraps us in cloth pulled from the earth.
Earth that won't escape you.

Poetry

Hayden Saunier

Hayden Saunier
Kitchen Table

Poetry

Christopher Bakken

Christopher Bakken
Days Of 1993

Poetry

David Groff

David Groff
You're In My Light