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brd

stdnt sks
hw s th flyng thng splld?

tchr sys
ll th sft lttrs hv blwn ff
spll brd
lk brd

tchr tlls stry
frst mnfst dstny
th bffl wr hntd nd skltns stckd
th ntv ppl wr pshd n slghtrd

tk wht th y cn s

thn crps plntd nd plntd nd plntd nd plntd
thn dry nd ht nd dry nd cld nd dry nd ht
thn rbbts nd rbbts nd rbbts
thn mn clbbd ll th rbbts
pld nd lghd
vrythng brnd
ll th ppl thrstd nd th lnd crckd
brd jst lft bfr snrs nd snst
brd dsspprd
thn nsts mpty

stdnt sks
wht hppnd t brd?

tchr sys
brd sys n brnchs t prch nd crps cllps nd hrvsts nd n wrms s hngry

brd sys spk sky     spk
drk spk
ll thngs trnd psdwn

thn blw wy

nd trnds nd hrrcns nd wrs nd dss
nd nthng lvng

stdnt sks
dd brd knw?

tchr nswrs
brd knw trd t spk
thrt splt

brd ndd wtr

stdnt sys
whts wtr?

Anthony Cody is the author of The Rendering (Omnidawn, 2023) and Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Contest selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and the 2021 American Book Award.

About Anthony Cody

Occasion

Hispanic Heritage Month

Themes

About this Poem

“Last year, I spent an afternoon drawing with my niece and nephews. Before cleaning up, I asked my younger nephew to write the name of the animals he drew. Atop the winged creature he hurriedly wrote brd. This brd challenged me to re-examine the poems I was working on, poems centered around The Dust Bowl, whiteness, and climate collapse in post-truth, late stage capitalism. The more I wrote, the more unsure I became around what future mammal, or animal, the voice summoned. I became more concerned with the fear, exhaustion, and deep sense of loss that arrives within me each time the poem is read aloud. Ultimately, brd continues to ask, what will remain?”
—Anthony Cody

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More by this poet

“Stop. Go put your shoes back on. They’ll know we Okies,” a Lost Image Reclamation

Anthony Cody

2022

El Arpa, a Mexican Lynching, No. 53

^{“The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. We must never erode this historic office.”

-Jeff Sessions, former U.S. Attorney General, February 12, 2018 to the National Sheriffs’ Association}

1. The inheritance of the heir is never a dandelion disbursal. Scattershot. Floating beyond fences. Growing elsewhere.

2. The inheritance of the elsewhere is a cave of collapse.

Anthony Cody

2020

Artifacts on a Hanging Tree, Goliad, Texas (a series of 70 Mexican Lynchings, 1857)

^{“Site for court sessions at various times from 1846 to 1870. Capital sentences called for by the courts were carried out immediately, by means of a rope and a convenient limb. Hangings not called for by regular coursts occurred here during the 1857 “cart war”—a series of attacks made by Texas freighters against Mexican drivers along the Indianola-Goliad/San Antonion Road.

About 70 men were killed, some of them on this tree, before the war was halted by Texas Rangers.”

—State Historical Survey Committee Texas Marker near the tree}

Anthony Cody

2020

Poems

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brd

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