Lee Upton

Maurice Kilwein Guevara

Adriana DiGennaro

Elizabeth Volpe

Lyn Lifshin

Simon Perchik

Gary Charles Wilkens

Dorianne Laux

At Sunrise, Oaxaca

Scat-brown the coyote with teats clamps the rooster's limp
neck and peeks at Ernesto who in a few moments
a half mile down the road is picking berries
that will dye the thread for the tapete's crown,
three spheres of blood over the white chest of feathers.

Against Metaphor

Chair is not Mine Sweeper
Chives not Tympani
Sweet Potato not Chimes
Tortoise-shell not the Vast Harbors of Philadelphia at Quitting Time
I not the Grandson of Carlos Guevara Moreno
Frame not Bolivia with Lavender Mountains
Barrel Hoop not the Acrobatic Girl with Pinned Braids
Dark Moth on the Kitchen Windowsill not Syllable of Julia de Burgos
Walt Whitman not Esprit d'Escalier
Ruana not Memory of Birth
Clarinet with Reed not Dolphin in Underwater Cavern
Poems not Iron Lung not Kidney Transplantation not Faith Healing
Truth not Unpainted Back Door Half-Open near Cooper's Rock, West Virginia
Swallow not Dry Axle
6 and 496 not Perfect Pitch
Beads of Rainwater Rolling down Pale Leaves of Broccoli not Ellipsis

How then should I explain to you the Undetonated Woman at once on the banks of Lake Michigan and Texcoco who is my Sailing Ship and White Bird and Kiss and Blowing Huipil Embroidered with Orange and Lime Threads?

Maurice Kilwein Guevara was born in Belencito, Colombia and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The above poems come from a collection-in-progress entitled POEMA. Kilwein Guevara is a Professor of English in the doctoral creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

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