Types of Life

The hats tell us where we end up,
a myth of hair. I am trying to bring flowers
to the hospital equipment.
How machines whimper
without air. How birth
is an airplane window
& forests below. A lake
full of manuscript pages.
And so much alive
this poem will never see.
I don’t trust the moon
wrapped in tin foil. The clattering
of line cooks, quick hands
in back of house light. The girl
who always brought a cat
figurine to work. A newborn
making a fist is still a fist.

Author of the article

Daniel Coudriet’s first collection of poetry, Say Sand, was published in 2010 by Carnegie Mellon University Press, and his chapbook, Parade, appeared in 2012 from Blue Hour Press. His translation of Argentinean poet Alicia Genovese's Bridges was published by Cardboard House Press in 2024, and he was previously awarded an NEA Fellowship for Literary Translation. His poems and translations have made recent appearances in Bennington Review, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Moon City Review, Oversound, Prelude, the tiny, and elsewhere.