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Mary speaks of how it feels when the baby turns

As if he’s a fish alive in the sea.
I am ocean.
As if he’s a hand stirring water and grain.
I am what will rise in time.
As if he’s a tongue rolling around honey and sour.
I am fruit.
As though a stormcloud boiled the sky.
I am sky.
As though a skin of wine sloshed in a servant’s arms.
I am servant.
He rolls beneath my husband’s hands as though he is curious,
as though he is leviathan near breaching the waters.
Still, I am sea.
As sprouts pushing against earth, toward sun.
I am field.

Advent

Around December first, the summer people
All have gone. Some had stayed to see the fall
And some for hunting season—all have gone.

We walk deserted roads. The first snows came
But dried away to traces in the ditch
And snowy patches on the forest floor.

In town the Christmas lights are blinking bright,
The tourists few. The locals are subdued,
At peace with what some still call Advent time.

It’s dark by four. We light a fireplace fire.
We have a drink and share a meal and read
Until it’s time to go to early bed.

Poor People’s Campaign 2018, by André Daughtry

In the summer of 2018, André Daughtry served as an official photographer for the Poor People’s Campaign during the 40 Days of Moral Action that took place in 38 state capitals. Drawing inspiration from the original campaign of 1968, spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr., organizers sought to frame economic enfranchisement as an explicitly moral imperative, intimately linked to racial and other forms of social justice.

Again

          After each daily death come flurries of
resurrections.                 One night, a swallowtail
saved a lackluster dream;  later, on rough
terrain, absent all sprig, what tipped the scale

was a willful warbler.           Today, assail-
ing winds and mushroom-fog conquer the hour