Where does the extra juice come
from? The wailing mouth of the storm.
An ice man melts, gets out of 
bed, the Carpathians. Similarly, the Atlases
divulge their secret people, secret only 
because I haven’t yet met them. 
It bothers me, not meeting them. And satellites
gaze at this earth not seeing them. 
If I walk through my neighborhood how many threats
will be redoubled on me from little signs in yards, 
police lives matter flags stuck into eelgrass?
How many penetrations go unseen and violent 
as the mosquito? The mosquito singing of blood and harps,
the quiet stuff of civilization which annoyingly reigns with 
a sceptre and globe banded in gold.
I am gloriously alone, 
I like to say to myself for the O’s.
Like the chief playing the gong.
Like the witches plopping up from the squishy mud. 
Like a vacation to the Ligurian coast you can only experience via your enemy’s postcards.
Like the mushroom you’re not sure about but eat anyway.
Like the old Mansa’s fleet blown from Mali to Rio de Janeiro. 
Like the shadow of the rocket that blows up on the runway.
Like the ingenious spiral of the ant finding her way home.
Like the fat embrace of the cosmos
I feel from every direction all at once.




Published December 19th, 2021

Matt Broaddus is the author of two chapbooks, Space Station (Letter [r] Press, 2018) and Two Bolts (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2021). His poetry has appeared in Fence, Foundry, Black Warrior Review, and The Rumpus. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation as well as a residency from Millay Arts and a scholarship from Community of Writers. He serves as Associate Poetry Editor at Okay Donkey Press and lives in Colorado, where he works at a public library.

Curtis Talwst Santiago (b. 1979, Edmonton, Alberta) studied as an apprentice of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. Santiago has exhibited internationally at venues such as The FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY; The New Museum, New York, NY; The Eli and Edythe Broad Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA; the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada; The Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; and the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; among others. The artist was included in the inaugural 2019 Toronto Biennial of Art in Toronto, Canada, the SITE Santa Fe SITELines.2018 Biennial, Casa Tomada, in Santa Fe, NM, and was featured in the 2018 Biennale de Dakar in Dakar, Senegal. The artist's solo exhibition, Can't I Alter, opened in February 2020 at The Drawing Center, New York, NY. Santiago's work is in the permanent collection of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. Santiago lives and works between New York, NY, Lisbon, Portugal, and Toronto, CA. You can find more of the artists work online and at the Rachel Uffner Gallery.