This selection, chosen by guest editor JJ Rowan, is from earthwork by Jill Khoury (Switchback Books 2024).
so tired i close my eyes briefly
turn away from my mother
for the bigger brighter moon
night
this pang
cambered
road banked
no shoulder
high dizzy
inked sky thickbrandied
cinders
slide away
under my steps
i turn away from my mother for
hunter’s
moon buck moon full
cold moon
in silence i turn back
to follow mama corona
she is gone
Jill Khoury (she/her) is a disabled poet and a Western Pennsylvania Writing Project fellow. She has taught poetry in high school, university, and enrichment settings. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and edits Rogue Agent, a journal of embodied poetry and art. Her poems have appeared in numerous venues, including Copper Nickel, VerseDaily, CALYX, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day. Winner of the Gatewood Prize, her second full-length collection earthwork is available from Switchback Books. Connect with her at jillkhoury.com.
JJ Rowan is a queer nonbinary poet and dancer whose writing and movement practices have developed largely out of collaborative approaches and the pursuit of deep connection. They are looking for the places where the written line and the lines of the moving body intersect, where genre blurs and remixes and reboots, and where style and role reach maximum fluidity and deeper capacity. Their chapbook, a simple verb, is available from Bloof Books. You can follow their handwriting and movement projects on Instagram.
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