e 5th
                            via
              square              street
pershing

dusky sun to splash a mirror pink/\unfixed blues unbound/\uncurl/\curbed coveys flap silence from the street/\toothy love man swoops/\woman hisses/\she pops/\love shocked/\blued boy relieves his rusted buggy of a holy bible/\old timer he got/\a room/\prefers the blue of open fires/\up rise planes & peaks/\blue-lipped backlit band of seraphim/\pitched black to the walls/\creep of moon to bear witness/\rheumy eye to hang before the fetal dawn/\peels raw the skin/\within what blue’s/\jambed tight against the thinning

   

“The title text and ‘tents’ embedded in the prose poem are portals to articles and interviews centered on populations and individuals living on the street, particularly in Los Angeles. While the lyric attempts to observe and witness, the internet offers a way—via hyperlinks to medical and arts initiatives, private ventures, and video portraits via the YouTube channel, Invisible People—to open the poem to experiential possibilities beyond text.”

   

Irene Cooper (she/they) is the author of Committal, poet-friendly spy-fy about family (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020) & spare change (FLP, 2021). Writings appear in Denver Quarterly, The Feminist Wire, The Manifest-Station, phoebe, The Rumpus, streetcake, Witness, & elsewhere. Irene teaches in community and supports AIC-directed creative writing opportunities at a regional prison in Oregon. WEB
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