swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

weaving through shapes
Alex Vartan Gubbins

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The Dead Grenade

I break open a pomegranate, choose blackening reds
stuck to the hive-like pulp. Pluck them one by one.
The unpucker from skin is like a lover’s pull from lips,
when divots are made, when gums feel the sucking cool
between teeth, when fingers learn the weight of detached kernels.

This tail of mouse. Bird bone. Pellet for a shotgun shell.
This is done, & when biting, the down coat, the honey,
like a bustling rabbit in a hole. This moon, & how it scratches
our eyes, as if seeing is accomplished only when clean nights,
when the desert teaches our naked skin, when the glance
at fire ants becomes the way we ignore the other’s laughter.

Maxim Gorky and a Wine Sharing with Vahan Teryan

Lying in bed, we place our faces
near the other so we can smell the nostril heat
and frustration ready to release.
We flip through vintage photos
of St. Petersburgh, snaps of cafes
and clubs no longer standing,
the writers shuffling
over the Anichkov Bridge
through heaps of snow
weaving through shapes
of horse and carriage.
Their boots in the muzzle,
slush, they slur their words
like a revolutionary baker.

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Four Armenian soldiers were killed a few weeks ago on their sovereign territory. I am sharing this tragic news with you because I want you to know the genocide is not over and is still a current event. Yet, when students study current events in school, no one or very few in the US will bring what’s happening to discussion. Thus, the conflict is nearly silenced, aside from those who Armenians talk with directly.

Alex Vartan Gubbins has an MFA in Poetry from Northern Michigan University. Literature & the Arts; North American Review; Split Rock Review; and The Progressive are a few places where his poems have been published. He’s had translations of Arabic poetry in Metamorphoses, Diode, and Asymptote. He was a Finalist at the North American Review’s James Poetry Prize for his poem “Translator” about his experiences in the US Army. His Armenian heritage pushed him to live in Armenia from 2016 to 2019. He now works as an educator in the Detroit Metro Area, reviving the lit mag thisthatlit.