Paradise

 

“Monument Valley” by Kathleen Frank

By Emma Winsor Wood

 

Not a place to inhabit

But one that inhabits

*

Hard to get to

So not everyone can

*

There is one island in Hawaii where the residents still live as they did in the 1800s–no cars, no

computers, no cash. It’s owned by white men, who dictate the rules that keep it that way.

*

A bird, a fish, a town just south of Las Vegas. Las Vegas.

*

Whatever you think it is it is

Wherever you thought it was it was

*

Once named, it closes like a fist around another fist

*

Notice: Private Property

Notice: No Trespassing

Notice: Trespassers will be violated to the fullest extent of the law

*

: an enclosure


Emma Winsor Wood is the author of the poetry collection The Real World (BlazeVOX books, 2022) and the translator of A Failed Performance (Plays Inverse, 2018). Her poems and essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, ZYZZYVA, Fence, jubilat, DIAGRAM, The Colorado Review, and BOAAT, among others.