He Gives You Your Vision

Aaron Crippen

Excerpted from Warring States, Anomalous Press Chapbook Contest Notable

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He gives you your vision.
You give him your eyes.
He spreads his blanket across your jewels,
Then he falls on you.
What do you hear with his tongue in your ear?
Where is your vision now?

Listen . . . Colorless things in shapeless places
Clamor. Where the lantern dies.
What the stars mouth in the sky.
Through the cracks. Back of the grain.
I am the sound behind.
Open the door.
Open the door.

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.

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In This Issue

Mani Rao
...Sing to Me
...Monkey Puzzle
Steve Bradbury
translating Ye Mimi
...In the Mountains Near at Hand
Bradley Schmidt
translating Ulrike Almut Sandig
...was the table, was the chair
...solar eclipse
...when you're not here
Monika Zobel
...To Begin at Breath
...Monumental
...Der Immigrant sucht die unbenannten Länder
Michael Schorsch
translating Venantius Fortunatus
...from Fortunatus
Sarah Tourjee
...from Ghost
Janis Freegard
...Alice and the Personality Disorder
...Who is Alice
...Alice Waits
Becca Barniskis
...Xavier Box
...Mimi
...X
...M
Liat Berdugo
...Just the Heads
...When Some Things Fail
...All Men Equal
...There Might Have Been Some Mastication
Askold Melnyczuk
...Dad, Poet, 1954 ad nauseum
Laura McCullough
...Help for the Reality Challenged
...That's the Game, Boys
...Bowie My Hair Goddess Grow
Michael Gushue
...Pachinko Mouth, First Turn
...Pachinko Mouth, Second Turn
...A Valediction for When Words Fail
Aaron Crippen
...closing his eyes he
...fresh-stripped of skin
...He Gives You Your Vision
...the moon
...under your foot
Sandra Doller
translating Éric Suchère
...21
...22
Kendra Greene
...from Anatomy of a Museum
Mark Wunderlich
...Prayer in a Time of Sickness
Amber Ginsburg
...Edge