Elise Thi Tran
LONG SO LIVE NOR MUCH SO SEE
The ghost of my professor recites King Lear
from memory in reverse while we spy
the squirrels’ autumn-fretting in the yard.
We take date night from home this time, atom-split
the tenderloin with our gas masks in our lap.
Indulge ourselves with swigs of kerosene
from the flask you keep beside the knives.
The dog will die this time next year
& I try not to think of it, ask you to lick
my glasses clean of vinaigrette and mist
in time to watch the king unhang his darling fools
& long so live nor much so see
an unwretched man crawl
back unbanished from the heath.
ELISE THI TRAN is the 2022 First Pages Prize winner. Her work appears in Apogee, Blackbird, Copper Nickel, Diode, The Kenyon Review, Poet Lore, and Salt Hill.
ISSUE FIFTEEN features poetry by Samuel Amadon, Malachi Black, Thea Brown, Michael Chang, Adam Clay, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Brandon Downing, Kami Enzie, Angie Estes, John Gallaher, Rachel Galvin, Matthew Gellman, Bob Hicok, Domenica Martinello, Julia Anna Morrison, Mark Nowak, Allan Peterson, Elizabeth Robinson, David Roderick, Mary Jo Salter, Rob Schlegel, Will Schutt, Donna Stonecipher, Rodrigo Toscano, Noah Warren, Phillip B. Williams, and Stella Wong; fiction by Aimee Bender, Amelia Gray, and Keith Lesmeister; creative nonfiction by Su-Yee Lin, Philip Metres, and Kim Gek Lin Short; and Donna Stonecipher in conversation with Camille Guthrie.