Harvest

By Marion Wrenn

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One way to listen to the city
is to choose one sound above the rest;

let the ear engineer a soundscape; let it 
glide across the crush of tender missions

at treacherous intersections, shun interlocked
brakes, fire smashed horns

from transplanted drivers; plunge against
the flow and attend the absence 

of the Muezzin’s call in the gloaming. 
Avenues drop rose-colored

light. I’ve been listening for the distant crow 
of a rooster someone’s keeping close

whose cry erases the tumult–the marriage
of soil in a raised box for root vegetables 

and the carrot of birdcall above the hum. 
Every prayer is a gentle wish for a time

machine; every wish a feathered freefall 
that robs the thanks from my lips; 

listen for the chicken someone
can’t keep secret and be glad.

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Marion Wrenn is the author of Gladiola Girls (Cooper Dillon Press). Recent poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, River Heron Review, and The Georgia Review. She co-edits the literary journal Painted Bride Quarterly, where she also co-hosts the literary podcast "The Slush Pile." She is the Executive Director of Writing at NYU Abu Dhabi.

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• Going to AWP? We’d love to see you at our reading “Offsite. On Purpose”—with MER, NELLE, Perugia Press, Whale Road Review, and Cultivating Voice LIVE Poetry—held in honor of poet Jennifer Martelli’s memory. It takes place on Wednesday, March 4, at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30) at Westminster Hall, 519 W. Fayette St. We are also holding a meet-and-greet breakfast with Radar on Friday, March 6, at 8:00 am, at Bistro 300, Hyatt Regency, Baltimore Inner Harbor (free to attend, each poet pays for their own).

• 03/19 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Sunni Brown Wilkinson & local poet Elizabeth Jacobson / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free

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