Poems

by Natasha Pepperl

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If you live long enough

you can point with clarity to your burn
zone. When I say burn, I mean the years
you were charred

جون (Joon)

My grandmother offers joon as a great unfolding / as her backyard buzzes with dozens of deep-rooted / rosebushes pressing dry June with a knowing of garden

Ceremony of a Relocation in Fall

The sun reaches through the bare
window and fingers the cardboard
boxes and wakes us early.

First Grade Autobiography

Everything swarms

of humidity and cockroaches
and mosquitos. I slap my legs

On the men of this family: to their future lovers

These men are West Virginia pickaxe, fluent
in uprooting and the duration of heat
before a harvest. How hands can dance

What my brother’s brownness means to him

a friend recently said that I'm white
as fuck. Here's a brown education on being

American: my mother spoons food to punish

We all have a heat

We all have a vice we keep circling as house cats hunt / for an opening to squeeze through. Maybe it’s meaty / as a person or thin as a folded letter. Maybe it’s the cigar

Fits and Starts

Maybe that’s why churches are

buildings that block sky—we have yet to beat
out our animal instincts.

Nightfall in Israel

Three hours after the fifth cry for prayer
crackles electric, showers run
dry in Arab neighborhoods

The Stakes

While there is a clear one-sentence
summary of desperate — there is no good
and simple explanation of

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Featured

If you live long enough

you can point with clarity to your burn
zone. When I say burn, I mean the years
you were charred

جون (Joon)

My grandmother offers joon as a great unfolding / as her backyard buzzes with dozens of deep-rooted / rosebushes pressing dry June with a knowing of garden