Features • Fall 2025 - Diagnosis
Poetry • Fall 2025 - Diagnosis
after Ellen Bass
O black bean boy, O owl eyes,
O package of muscle and fur.
My cautious companion, my
in-love-with-me friend. What will we do
without your low grumbles
your hot-water-bottle body
beside us all winter? O sun-scorched nose,
O wacky teeth that can’t bite a thing, O
fluted, veined callalily ears
taking the world straight to the heart.
There is no guy I’d rather sleep with,
no slinky tuxedo like yours.
When you frolic and hop
in your nightly routine, the sounds
of cracked glass and low howls
are like the heartbeats in a womb.
In that embryonic waterfall, we sleep.
Two lucky mothers.
O bloated bladder, O swollen,
sleepy heart. When we nearly lost you,
we sought you in our grief
to ease our grief. We held your exhausted body
to us. O seeing soul, O aperture closing and
widening, catching the landscape
of more than mere humans can know.
Beloved beast, dear body that heals and heals.
Tiny horse, honeyed contralto,
our leaping, whiskered seal —
Fiction • Fall 2025 - Diagnosis
W E The People entered the home of the Crisis Actor illegally. This is true. Why deny it? We certainly weren’t going to be invited in. There was the matter of him knowing our faces, from those days when we picketed on the gum-spotted sidewalk or confronted him at his car in a parking garage downtown, our accusations drowned out by the scrape of skater boys. And, of course, there was the restraining order. Legal lines had been drawn and, yes, we decided to cross those lines, which resisted no more ably than strands of cobwebs stretched across a basement doorway.
The fresh online pieces we experiment with outside of our print cycle. Formerly known as Blog.
Notes
The purposes of this review are twofold: first, to convey the eminently pleasant though not necessarily intellectually stimulating experience of seeing The Light in the Piazza at the Huntington Theater; and second, to convince you, yes YOU, the member of the Advocate reading this (or honestly whoever else) to take up my mantle of reviewing shows at the Huntington now that I have graduated.
From the Archives
Poetry • Winter 2011 - Blueprint
*translated by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander*
Manhattan is
to approach Manhattan
taking a yellow cab from JFK and
still looking for it
when I wonder will it show up
asks my wife (same case
when we went to see the Moroccan desert wasn’t it
I calm her down
it’s all about the approach
Manhattan is
its own desert (perhaps
and finally
like a distant mirage
the silhouette of that throng of skyscrapers comes clear
we are thrilled a little (from the oasis town of Erfoud lush with date palms
thirty kilometers by Land Rover (beyond
the tracts of dirt and rocks
graceful (so exquisitely graceful
golden swells of dunes rising (we
were thrilled a little
Manhattan is
nothing but a marvel of nature (perhaps
behind the neighboring (Queens?
Brooklyn? buildings and billboards it slinks
off and disappears (disappears
and reappears (meanwhile
growing more intense
the pleasures of approach
the anguish of approach
in a mesh (Manhattan is
growing more intense
and then
as though to shield it again
an elevated subway’s rusty viaduct (rusty in pure bright auburn (behind
which the throng of skyscrapers
stand in contrast like the light and shade of America herself
or (let’s put it this way
if Manhattan were a gift for us
it’s been decorated with rusty viaduct
like a ribbon of crude joke
and thrust at us (or
Manhattan is
pure ferocity (perhaps
its gentle cage of rusty auburn shields it
the cage vertically and diagonally (meshed like arabesque patterns
ruddling our cheeks
and yet
the mesh unbinds and the city emerges (endlessly
unbinds and (unbinds and (unbinds and it emerges
the ribbon and cheeks left
circumvented by a forest
of throated hollows
Manhattan is
unbinding and emerging (unbinding and emerging
suddenly
having crossed the Queensboro Bridge
we pull up short
of a greeting
to those throated hollows
Poetry • Fall 2011
To the god. Tonightthere are no visitors. Stormclouds rise over the near mountains, beyond the finch-dense forest.For nine and ninefold nights I have waited in darkness, lulled only by wind-whine—unmoving, bedded, mind-whir muddles and buzzesinto body. From between teeth seeps fortha strange issue, dries linen-white, palerthan graying face. Untouchable.Sores collapse open skin-strata, shallow basins, suppurated sediment. Nerve-sensed I survey the subsidence— does blood slowand flow around the wound? Tissue-silt crumbles, heats,as tubers sprout through the eschar, onion-stalksof bone, pungent. The blighted tendons. Each nighthands return to rub limbs with damp clothsof camphor, but I know my stench persists. Growswith each sullen moon, slow-flowing night-water. Brackish,blackening, the unrushing slough, breedinglike rancid trout roe, dug into gravel redds. Eelsdraw close, dazed. Residue of river, place where streamingstops. Tawny trace. Place where water slows, and flowis fallow. Have I fallen? My shocked knees molderand fold. My legs lapse. I will not leave. * * * At times I vision a shaded window.The voice-veil with greened gaze avers: no grovegrows on the hillock, and if below it somewhere flowsap-slinks they are locked in a rock-drum,deep and unrising. And what fate, spun from a frayedthread uncut by the rust-knife, will sphere me to stayif Eros does not come? * * * Bright: a begonia blooms. Yolky calyx whorlsbelow the twisted stigmas. Petalless yellow: the sepals. * * * A dream taskedto me: disorderof grain-sand and light.The love-wind, careless, carrying, knew little of chaff and seed, liftingbut what is too heavy. It came to pass. Dayplunged into the far massif,fell like shatter-glassinto the deepening forest. By my hands undertaken:you were and were.Another man might have beat the harvest, the hand-flail’s whiningchain, unsettling the scale-shells,then fan the thresh-pilewith vans of air-holding canvas, color of your hair,husk-grey. I was givenno tools. Raised my handsto the slats’ beam-slits, let your prayer-name rise.And from great height,over the mountain-shadows,the winds, thinned-warm, startled cool eddiesof dry-spooled air.Unweaving the grain,half-crazed scatter of field-fray, hazed, condign. Raincloudsfollowed the crossedcurrents, the streaming from the sky’s raised face. Were you there, restingon the low hay-bed,looking toward me as I left?Where I did not see, as a last breeze lazedin the wooden hold, the granary.Now what remains is only cold and golden. * * * A door deepens into the marble-mottle floor. My jewelbox, gilt-crusted, fills with gems, pale, opaque, vivecon, combivir, kaletra, truvada. The box, plucked open like a square-set string. Should they be bezeled, set in shallow-cupped gold, fastened to rusted ears? My arms are furred with sloe-blue molds. * * * The five-fingered god-hands dream.The thin indigo bird, startled, leaves. * * * Foot-whisper of a woman— You, with paper-scent fingers,within the bruise-black hall— Go where I cannot. Find.You, I know your hands— Your legs, they will take you.And once he is found I commandthat his stiff limbs be burned— String him up, dangle himwhere all will watch,where any who loves himmay freely go to weep— You will not find me there— * * * The second task-dream:to winnow thinsticks from the sharp-sliverarrows. Fine finger-workfor tips of small-silver:by feel to findthe breaking-downof browns. O were Ian arrow: freed from the bow-string to become vector—No: quivered into one thing. * * * As a pulley shakeswhen rope runsthrough it. The bushesnew-bloomed, shivering,opening the meadows dowered with trees—heavy-leaved, hoveringabove, and the silent star-pulses, alive.Spring crawls intoeyes and scratches its way out.When he comes,I almost do not notice his lightform, gauzed arrival,this low black breeze-blow,the feathered airsuspending him above me—when he is nothere, it is as if he is not here.
Poetry • Commencement 2011
**The Snare (I)**
Please shut up. When I emerge wild,
the golden lake over my shoulder,
I will take into account the promise
you entangled me in.
1.
Similar to the negative torso
holding up the tree roots
I ask you to be gentle.
Everything will wobble
otherwise When you’re not here
something crawls into the hole
and doesn’t think.
Patience is expendable.
Go deeper with me.
Break any final symmetry.
2.
I think this body is an instrument.
I grow like a graft.
It might be useless
to try to place
what stucco home
sprung me fully formed.
How often I thought
of my network of parts.
And I thought of yours.
Wheeling we get married
and I use my new mechanisms.
**The Snare (II)**
How do we know
how to send the codes from one end
to the other of the last sunken terminal?
If I were to lie down and go to pieces
I could imitate the echo in the marl.
***
A lord’s hand made me whole again,
my corpse the fledgling map of the new world.
A lord smiles like a turning wing
and hovers over noon churning.
All the parts were plain to see, the parish,
the barnyards, veins and ligatures.
They cover me with hay
until I am gone.
These locusts buried in the riverbank. They hatch
and fly further. They cluster with force,
they eddy and course into my yawn.
Poetry • Spring 2015
Consider also desired
things. The currant
in the navel under
my long robe.
A split in the lip
yields its hard red ball
the one in the tip
of a pen and as sore.
Rough and parted.
Coccyx pressing
spine in sidesaddle
I span head to tail
scratching circles
on the scalp to roil.
A small machine
a sphere in the corner
of the room
makes noise’s noise.
Swamps the sticking
swish of release.
Is knowing.
You are here
to carry—pour.
Poetry • Winter 2016 - Danger
**The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care.**
I remember the breeze right before…
Burs of—was it willow—slant-falling.
The gray sidewalk, schist granules, scattering.
A brown dumpster lid smushing its green plastic, sandwich meat.
A rat made its debut, but for a moment.
I remember an awning string’s knotted tip soft-thudding a windowpane
—tympani’s uneven beat.
The rustle of stray trash—bass strings, almost rising
—but never.
And the chopper, the chopper—spittletatootling, spittletatootling—
A proud boot landing on obedient asphalt.
The stern, uncrying chrome.
The flighty flames decorative gas tank.
I can’t forget the beryllium blue sunshades
—orange hued at a glance.
And the stars and bars, starched, pressed, bandana.
Nation Idol Gorge
But for a moment
Then
Boom.
**The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care.**
Spartacus sprinklers (top rail)
Serial no. 21809A
Inspector 480F
Jiangxi Quality Products
Night Hawk Importers, San Bruno, CA
Roman Roads Distributors, Phoenix, AZ
Port of entry, Tacoma, WA
Tankard 10179.03
Inspector 4201
ILO quarterly report:
Case study 1142
Tingting Liu, 23, female
I.D. 41732
Platform 12, line 8, station 4
Muscular skeletal paralysis
3rd metatarsal taped to 2nd phalangeal
4th proximal splinted to 5th distal
OSHA Region 1 final report:
Incident 2267, explosion (gas)
Inspector 505F
Sprinklers inoperable
Logic Tree branch 20
System of Safety failure
Mitigation device
16 drill holes stoppered
Weld burs not filed
Citation: 29CFR.1910.159(c)(12)
Notes: inspector 505F on leave
DOL budget sequestered
PUB.L. 112-25
District 2, 112th Congress
United States of America
**The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care.**
I remember the plume right after…
Orbs of—was it cinnamon—black-rising.
Vapor gray whitening shingle powder rain.
A dumpster lid sheered off a gravestone’s angel face.
A hawk’s claws claimed the stump.
I remember two spouts of thin flame, blue, making an X
—mind’s waking dream.
The hissing of gurgling plastic, supplicant—sick
—stomach’s inner eyeball.
And the bathtub, the bathtub—sittin’ pretty—sittin’ pretty—
The hysteric roof flopping on an unfazed floor.
The wise, ever-wakeful steel beams.
The cheery glass—beaming—everywhere.
I can’t forget that purple doorknob
—horny at a glance.
And the plump couch stuffing foam, blazing, angry.
City’s Final Chorus
But for a moment
Then
Shsh.
**The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care.**
Spartacus Sprinklers (top rail)
Serial no. 21809A
Scrap metal yard F-2
Stripped steel tankard 28
Sampson Recyclers Ltd., Pittsfield, MA
Steelworkers local 4-12026
Smelting furnace 48
Slab beam rollout batch 81.2014
Semper Fortis Steel Precision Corp, Brooklyn, NY
Steelworkers local 4-200
Section cutting station no. 12
Steel cylinder hollow type 2b
Store & send department 4
Spirit of 76 Commercial Furnishing Corp, Slidell, LA
Steelworkers local 3-275
Sargon Sprinklers (bottom rail)
Serial no. 321911B
Sink coating station 12
Sanding unit 25
Seal testing station no. 7
Sprinklers standard specification 29CFR1910.159(b)
Station inspector 13
Sales packaging room H
Sort and storage garage 4
Second incidence of forklift crushing worker’s toes
Spirit of 76 Personnel Motivation Free Cupcake Fridays director, Chet Baker
Steelworkers local 3-275 chief steward, Marynella Fernandez
Section 5, clause 2 “Management shall comply with all state and federal standards”
Safety committee grievance no. 78: unannounced station rotations / inadequate training
Staff training regulation arbitration hearing 501.P.36
Sargon Sprinklers 1st annual wet t-shirt contest
Super Sonic Dance Club, 3rd Floor, Picayune, MS
**The Friday evening gas explosion in Springfield leveled a strip club next to a day care.**
I don’t remember the very moment…
Flashes of—was I daydreaming—Biloxi Bound.
The termite swarm at dusk, balling up, sprinkling.
A skeeter swirling in its hotel pool—for the first time.
A no-see-um bug popped out from nowhere—but for a moment—to romp.
I can’t say I recall Cleopatra’s hairpiece flying off in a speeding four-cylinder vehicle
—Empire of the Great Somewhere, but never.
And the flying fish, the flying fish—hither-flopping, hither-flopping—
The carefree palms, twerking, injured.
The bald, unyielding sun, giddy.
Tentative feet in knee high water, gripping.
Have I forgotten the name of that triple IPA—something like
—Rondez The Moon à la Batshit.
And the ample sized black pockadots—in my eyes, twerking, carefully.
Empire of the Great Somewhere
But for a moment
Then
Then
Explosion Rocks Springfield* is Rodrigo Toscano's new book. It is even wilder and weirder than these*
* sections suggest, and you can pick up your copy **from [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/Explosion-Rocks-Springfield-Rodrigo-Toscano/dp/0986437344), [Powell's](http://www.powells.com/book/explosion-rocks-springfield-9780986437342), or your local poetry shop. *
*Only the first four of these sections appeared in the magazine. *
* *
Poetry • Winter 2011 - Blueprint
Because some of them crawled on broken
hands and knees to save me
with their poems.
Because I was only
wretchedness at the edge of an abyss
of fashion magazines, and that
trickle of water down the side of their mountain
into my empty cup, which I refused to drink, they
were offering that to me. Because
I washed my face in their blood. Because
I tossed my hours in their coffins.
Because I was otherwise just dust rising off
a lampshade. My
tatters in rags without them:
A girl blinded by her own hair
riding her bike somewhere—
stupid, dying
for want of what
was written there.
A glittering starvation, forgiven. Willing
to burn their hands for me
to deliver it, burning
while I denied that it was burning.
I was like a child outside a cave of snow
that had collapsed on her fathers.
I laughed, wildly, for a little while.
And then I screamed.
And then I pouted.
Then I grew older, and had to begin
to dig my own pitiful little
hole with a teaspoon to get to them.
2026