Slow Lightning by Eduardo Corral

Eduardo Corral’s Slow Lightning won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for 2011. Corral’s book is filled with love poems hinting at surrealism, intense disturbing poems telling of migrations across the desert, poems of fathers and sons, and poems riffing off paintings and other-poet’s poems. It’s a great mix, filled with emotion poking up from just below a semi-hard surface. Buy here.

From “Monologue of a Vulture’s Shadow”

. . . Sometimes my master soared so high / I ceased to blacken the earth. / What became of me in those moments? / But the scent of decay always lured my master / earthward. / As my master ate, I ate.

“Immigration and Naturalization Service Report #46

After the body was bagged and whisked away, we noticed a scarlet pelt on the sand. “This guy had it nice, sleeping on a pelt for days,” Ignacio joked. He paused mid-laugh, bent down, ran his hand through the fur. One of his fingers snagged. “This isn’t a pelt, it’s a patch of wolf ears,” he said. “No, they’re too large,” I replied. “Then they must be coyote ears,” he murmured. Sweat gathered in the small of my back. “Ignacio, should we radio headquarters?” I asked. Two ears rose slowly from the patch. I said a few more words. Nothing. I uttered my own name. Two more ears unfurled. We stepped back from the patch, called out the names of our fathers and mothers. Ramón. Juana. Octavio. More and more ears rose. Rodolfo. Gloria . . .