To Begin at Breath

Monika Zobel

Excerpted from On the Corner of Guilt and Ash, Anomalous Press Chapbook Contest Notable

click here to read about the full project

When words march into the city,
children are the first
to clap their hands:

a war fought with being
imported by the German
ich war, ich weiß. Was is

the most destructive
weapon, as in:
a leg was a terrible mistake.

When I climbed a tree
for the first time, nails
already curled in my coffin.

Wind cracked the porcelain
knuckles of fruit. How it drummed
in the heart of a root.

Trees are shelters and wounds—
The longest fall occurs
between leaf and leaving.

Monika Zobel's poems and translations have been published or are forthcoming in Redivider, DIAGRAM, Beloit Poetry Journal, Mid-American Review, Drunken Boat, Guernica Magazine, West Branch, Best New Poets 2010, and elsewhere. A Pushcart nominee, senior editor at The California Journal of Poetics, and Fulbright alumna, Monika lives in Vienna, Austria.

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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