Cover Art: Makoto Nakamura, "The Drama of A Woman Begins at the Fingertips, Shiseido Nail Enamel" 1978, lithograph. MOMA

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Painter to the Moon

​Reflector of brighter lights, still, I glow,
pitted by rock fall,


in lone orbit, turning upon myself.
Ear cocked inward, trusting


momentum to carry me, I paint
in a palette of blues.


I crown myself with scavenged
laurels. Grown stiff


in the posture of a supplicant,
I hold my piece


of the firmament, proceeding by rumor.
Fixed, yet wheeling. Cautionary.


(after Chagall, 1917)

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​Devon Balwit writes in Portland, OR. She has five chapbooks out or forthcoming: How the Blessed Travel (Maverick Duck Press); Forms Most Marvelous (dancing girl press); In Front of the Elements (Grey Borders Books), Where You Were Going Never Was (Grey Borders Books); and The Bow Must Bear the Brunt (Red Flag Poetry). Her individual poems can be found in The Cincinnati Review, The Stillwater Review, Red Earth Review, The Fourth River; The Ekphrastic Review; Noble Gas Quarterly; Muse A/Journal, The Inflectionist, and more.

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past, Fire Folio: Nomi Stone                                                                                                                                                                                          next, Amy Baskin