closing his eyes he

Aaron Crippen

Excerpted from Warring States, Anomalous Press Chapbook Contest Notable

click here to read about the full project

closing his eyes he
dreamt of everything at once
and did not know

opening his eyes
he rose with the mat weave
imprinted on his back

she kneels with the knife
he is above her, giving orders,
with as many mouths
                        as the rain

she can hear each drop
from the clouds, to the treetops,
to the roaring stream


Aaron Crippen is a writer and translator of Chinese.  He has won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the PEN Texas Literary Award for Poetry.  His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, VERSE, Mid-American Review, Nimrod and many other journals.