Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason


PREPOSTEROUS

It
is preposterous
to hear someone

else say “I.”
How else
can

I
refer to
myself? No one

hesitates to steal
this special
word.

I
won’t be
blanched—like those

without pigment who
could be
models

for
a vacuum.

ISTHMUS

Outflank
premarital prejudice?
Coxcomb’s debauchery. Dimpling

dipsomaniac dipshithood. Cupid’s
inchoate cupidity
shrunk

him
into nubbin,
nude nugget, raspy

vacuum-cleaner vagabond,
vaporized valetudinarian
valentine.

Thomas Fink’s fifth book of poetry, Clarity and Other Poems, was published by Marsh Hawk Press in Spring, 2008. His chapbook, Generic Whistle-Stop (Portable Press at YoYo Labs) appeared in 2009. A Different Sense of Power (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2001) is his most recent book of criticism, and in 2007, he and Joseph Lease co-edited “Burning Interiors”: David Shapiro’s Poetry and Poetics. His work is included in The Best American Poetry 2007 (Scribner’s). Fink’s paintings hang in various collections.

Maya Diablo Mason was published in The First Hay(na)ku Anthology (Meritage, 2006) and her collaborative work has appeared in Otoliths, 21 Stars Review, BlazeVox, Of(f) Course, Long Island Sounds Anthology 2008, Marsh Hawk Review, and EOAGH. A high school student in Long Island, New York, she plans to pursue a career in drama, visual art, or writing.

 
 
 
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