Carolyn Oliver is the author of "The Alcestis Machine" (Acre Books, 2024) and "Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble" (University of Utah Press, 2022; selected for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize). Her most recent chapbook is "Night Ocean" (Seven Kitchens Press, 2023). Her poems appear in Copper Nickel, Poetry Daily, Image, At Length, Consequence, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts.
Drought. Air wet, thick and useless. Heat cloisters us: rabbit-like, we become crepuscular in our habits. Drought. Three hours before sunset, black-bodied dragonflies converge low over the lawns, a pattern of sustenance-seeking I cannot read. Drought. Craneflies mate on the window screen, tail to tail. Later their deciduous legs dangle from the lattice, their body-husks fallen into the dead celosia…. Read more →
Heavy fog converts fireworks into half-hearted jokes. Bold rabbits, the dark tips of their ears. Milky rain rivers down the hill, dismantling pavement; foams up the driveway, wind-driven; smashes on every surface, scatters. Then: a second set of spruce tips emerges. Haze. Shining flanks of cows and horses. Fields of drowned flowers. Orderly as crib railings or cell bars, forsythia… Read more →
For a long time, the only thing I liked about Gillian, the kind of girl who did the art projects suggested on the backs of crayon boxes, was her mother. Dr. Graham wore scrubs the color of the municipal pool when it was emptied at the end of the summer. She saved my sister’s life after a near-fatal car crash… Read more →