Featured Poem: “Mythology” by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello
Mythology
Step down into the water
said a voice so I did hungry
my robes darkening as I gathered
[Moses drawn from water like
water from well or womb]
I spent myself for want of water
mouthfuls of wind-crammed sand
bellyful of refusals burning bush that I was
[water slipping away like
lungfish crocodile current]
for whom the waters parted
for whom I swept aside my linen tides
a savior wholly misguided so why
[first of the motherless
twice mothered by war]
must I who drowned once already
in the water of the womb ponder
why the water does not part for me
Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox (University of Pittsburgh, 2016), which won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, and was a finalist for the Florida Book Award and Milt Kessler Award. Together with E. J. Koh, she co-translated The Lightest Motorcycle in the World by Korean poet Yi Won, forthcoming June 2021 from Zephyr Press. A transracial adoptee, she has received fellowships from Kundiman, the Knight Foundation, and the American Literary Translators Association, among others. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions, and more. She serves as poetry editor for Hyphen magazine and as a program coordinator for Miami Book Fair. www.marcicalabretta.com
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