Selected by National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes for the New York Times Magazine.
“I do not know the language of that place” underscores this poem’s striking balance of ambiguity and mystery. Much is said in the white spaces, caesuras, breaks. The unpunctuated five lines of the first stanza unspool suggestively creepily. The hands in car guts have a visceral intensity. The halting final couplet prompts a pause, a silence, a reread.
Thank you Terrance and thank you New York Times. Special shout out to Matthew Zapruder for his encouragement.
Vickie Vértiz 