Italian thistle has tithed most to my cuttings these last days. In later Junes, rough touch recalled, I’ll spoor less bare. I ask Charles Darwin: come eye the goats with me, and how they eat spined things. Charles Darwin picks up a rock. He tells me the present is the key to the past. I want Charles Darwin to know I know something. I want Charles Darwin to remember me. I speak to him of beetles that bore earth. I tell Charles Darwin that we have rollers here. I say to him: Charlie, I’ve watched them roll dung face down/ass up. Do not question me for using 2 Live Crew as a way to Charles Darwin’s heart. I have learned, in life: there is no slicker way to charm whitefolk than to let them into blackness. Charles Darwin finishes the lyric. Charles Darwin and I squat into the royalled ripgut, and count morning spiderwebs.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a shepherd who has appeared in Obsidian, Puerto del Sol, and HOBART. She is the author of saanens, nubians, one lamancha (Winner, 2022 Quarterly West Chapbook Contest) and rut (2022 Ghost City Press Summer Series). She herds goats on the open range in coastal California.
3/6 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Keetje Kuipers / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
3/6 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Keetje Kuipers + local writer Julie Marie Wade / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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