Kevin McLellan
The Killing Jar
an entomologist says in / a larva
says out / larvae say out / you
consider fences / do you keep
yourself in or out? / questions
are fences / can’t stop asking /
you consider glass / separation
relevant or irrelevant? / memory
not reliable / though you vividly
remember rain / also the sun
/ that day feeling was a fence
Staying
indoors just after the breaking
point / the
language of exposure at first
toothy then uric / you admire
the unflinching
openness of the oxalis / yet
question which ways you can
give safely
/ must ask if you are ready? /
must bathe the forager and
these collected
shapes/ but in the crisper
leave these dislocated ones
for later / yes
the night will surely linger
Kevin McLellan is the author of Tributary (Barrow Street Press); the chapbook Round Trip (Seven Kitchens), a collaborative series with numerous women poets; and the book arts project [box] (Letter [r] Press). He won the 2015 Third Coast Poetry Prize and the Gival Press 2016 Oscar Wilde Award. His poems have appeared in journals including American Letters & Commentary, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, West Branch, Western Humanities Review, Witness, and many others.
More from Vol. 33, Issue 3
The Killing Jar // Staying
Kevin McLellan
Certainty // Here // Full Sun
Octavio Paz, trans. Jeff Alessandrelli
from Memory Cards: Dogen Series
Susan M. Schultz
My Sexuality Is “Victim of Capitalism"
Sandra Simonds, trans. Rodrigo Toscano
Every Good Kneeler Knows Her Ground // You Are Mistaken
Nance Van Winckel
Metamorphosis of the Vampire // Exotic Perfume // The Sick Muse // Eternity
Charles Baudelaire, trans. Sandra Simonds
The Quick Brown Fox
Judith Baumel
Interview with Claudia Keelan, Editor of Interim
Michael Berger
[1. It’s there—in the fire. // 2. A ghost // …]
Martín Cerisola, trans. Keith Ekiss
Itamar's Netsanetian Sojourn
Nathaniel Mackey