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| Michael Landsberry |
Lying on the ground of the Nairobi mall
the blood-soaked woman had been lusting
after a pair of Manolo Blahniks in a boutique window,
shards now sparkle in her chest. Are the bits
of skin floating about her dogwood petals?
Al Shabaab took credit. In Mecca
where my cousin studied, the traffic
halted in the circle for beheadings and hand choppings.
I never looked, she said. I stared
out the window to the right
where they say the unlived live. I fancied myself
baling hay in the cool hills of Kilkeel.
In Sparks, Nevada, a twelve-year-old shot
two classmates, killed his teacher who tried to talk
him down. A former marine who survived two tours
in Afghanistan. I smashed a mosquito feasting
on my hand. A bubble of blood spurted out-his or mine?
Liz Dolan’s manuscript, A Secret of Long Life, nominated for the Robert McGovern Prize will soon be published by Cave Moon Press. Her first poetry collection, They Abide, was published by March Street. A six-time Pushcart nominee and winner of The Best of the Web, she has also won an established artist fellowship in poetry and two honorable mentions in prose from the Delaware Division of the Arts. She recently won The Nassau Prize for prose. She has received fellowships from The Atlantic Center for the Arts and Martha’s Vineyard. Liz serves on the poetry board of Philadelphia Stories.