Poems from Winter/Spring 2025

Read 5 poems from our recent print issue, which features a folio of work on “The More-Than-Human World” from Guest Editor Kenzie Allen

From Kenzie Allen’s Folio on “The More-Than-Human World” in Poet Lore Volume 119 3/4
Terri Witek

\ /

can birds speak with one beak?
do birds drop stones in water?

will birds leave their dead?
how do their feet find our eyes?

do clouds speak in bird?
do eggs dream in snake?

does night bend blue beaks?
are birds blind in one harbor?

dear warblers dear
where are your mothers?

should I split stones for your dead?
should I leave water?

From Kenzie Allen’s Folio on “The More-Than-Human World” in Poet Lore Volume 119 3/4
Cindy Juyoung Ok

By Streetlight

After “The Young May Moon” by Thomas Moore

The young gray wasp is circling, love. The crowds
of flies are lighting, love. How bent the rove through all these oak
groves, where the languid deer are
curled napping, love. Then bounce, the fawn’s split
leg bleeds bright, one deer. Its sibling gathers berries
with delight, two deer. It follows their mother’s
old ways to create the bed all the day, and to
use it together the full night, these deer.

A truck picks her up and washes the blood
as they sleep, love. But they know where to jump
and to watch-keep, love. And I, under stars, also watch from
afar, parent from this window peeping, love. Then bounce,
I walk at the rise of sun, to the deer. I only glance
at the woodland so they won’t shun, these two
deer. Or, in following my flight and the hill’s changing light,
I might happen to lead them back to that empty brown spot, no deer.

From Poet Lore Volume 119 3/4
Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong

Talking to Myself at Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas

Designed to be seen from a distance, Michelangelo’s David
looks out of proportion here—too large: his head, 
his hands. I don't think this is where I meant to be, 
he says. I know, I say, I’m too close, but I
understand. It's a matter of intention, of context. 
No, he says. I used to be a rock before I was torn 
from myself by someone with a point to prove,
who needed my body to prove it. Forever looking 
at Goliath, who I can't see yet, or ever. Who exists 
only in the imagination, perhaps still asleep 
in the quarry. We used to be one body, David says, and now I'm 
holding this stone for him but he's not here, so here I am,
still holding. I’m looking up at him like something's going 
to change. Like I don't know how the story ends. Like he 
doesn't either. It'll be over any minute now, I say. 
I can't wait forever, he says. Tell me when it's over.

From Poet Lore Volume 119 3/4
Yosa Buson, translated from Japanese by Joshua Gage

Three Spring Haiku 

on the temple bell,
settling to rest,
a butterfly







old garden—
stones covered
with spring rain





accompanied by my lover,
we bow before the Imperial Palace…
hazy moon

From Poet Lore Volume 119 3/4
Maureen Morris

Vernal Equinox

Another sky fever, another day 
starry with heat and a green that hurts. 
Tulips the color of a tongue.
Something is in the garden
panting for me and I must go to it.
I am porous as a cloud, feral 
even for the pear trees’ reek,
petals scattering the streets
like bruised confetti. 
What does it mean to come back
for a season, for a week, a day? 
When I write about awe 
it sounds like delirium,
but no, it’s just this afternoon.
A cluster of wrens circles 
under this daytime moon, all light.