BENJAMÍN NAKA-HASEBE KINGSLEY

For my daughter who loves spiders & beetles & black nail polish


for those who hear      the glacier’s heartbeat

led by the moon      with both eyes closed

what trees toss       away their branches

& refuse the slipping     back into any outline

of their old self      yet tug the braid of all creation

these embers that gleam      beneath the ash

between the simmer      of soup & hiss of kettle

where a small girl      discovers the Atlas of Heaven

there’s gold here & there’s fools      gold too
​
so      live.



219  The Paris-American

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Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley belongs to the Onondaga Nation of Indigenous Americans in New York. He is the author of three books debuting 2018, 2019, and 2020: Not Your Mama’s Melting Pot (University of Nebraska Press), Colonize Me (Saturnalia Books), and Dēmos (Milkweed Editions). Ben is recipient of the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Kundiman, and Tickner Fellowships, among others. Peep his work from 2019 in Poetry, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Southern Review, and Oxford American, among others. He is Assistant Professor of Poetry and Nonfiction in Old Dominion University’s MFA program.

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