Author Archives: José Araguz

  The calcified doors open like shells as I open my eyes and remember you The shells of my lungs open with speech in the palindrome of memory   The shriek like a bird, like a cat, was you Water … Read More

  “Silver seems to dominate in the Carolinian dream, when it is, of all such dreams, the one least likely to be realized.” —Popular Science, 1892   Silver does dominate my Carolinian dream—recalling granite run with metallic seams, creek beds … Read More

  Prospectors may appraise an entire mountain range and identify only the absence of a single ore.   But if just mica and corundum crumbs are found, if the profits are insubstantial, the operations small, mines can be less   … Read More

  The old men chide each other to tee up quick, before the rain. I want to buy a fountain soda, sit on the porch, and eavesdrop. I want to buy a pitcher of beer. I walk the mini-green, swoops … Read More

  lord, grant us the shelter of strangers where no one needs us to be animute, invisociable as an old retriever   give us room to braid our three halves into a horse’s tail, lord, let it be a draft … Read More

  You were only here because at some point someone made space for you   I too want a predictable home so I can do whatever I want but for you and for me this translates differently   what people … Read More

  Many, many animals and insects lay eggs and then die or give birth and die or raise their young and die when the time is come.   Humans keep living, outlive even their own kids’ lives but still there’s … Read More

  They say mother is the boredom    of invention. Stripes, stripes, stripes, spots. How was it in insurance Did you talk    about markets    while your mind scoffed? There was a little anarchy today. It was all about … Read More

  This alone. The man on the TSA line right in front of you, carrying caribou antlers. Yes, you drank. Yet no doubt. There he stands with the horns. And guess what. He looks like Ted Berrigan. He may be … Read More

  Mathematicians don’t have friends. Astrophysicists: kinky. Oceanographers: beige, stringy, often unaware of holes in their hearts. Chronologists will not shut up. Chemists: introverted onanists who wear a single suit their entire life. Geologists smoke one pipe before breakfast. Archaeologists: … Read More

  —after Sara Borjas   There is a footrest inside of me: lie. Everyone steps on it and never wants to leave: that is a lie. I give them water and teach them my loneliness: that is a lie. They … Read More

  —after I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)   Who giveth this woman in marriage? Outside the Wee Kirk Chapel, in my coronet of white myrtle. Then, the bishop-pines, the broom corn. My bridegroom nuzzles me with feelers. … Read More