My name is Paul Drigotuma and ever since I was a child I was fascinated and sometimes frightened

by stories of the Bible and the older I got the more I turned to poets to help me find

inroads and corners in the Bible to help me explore the stories of characters rather

than just theologians.

Of course she looked back by Natalie Diaz.

You would have too, from that distance the shivering city fit in the palm of her hand like

she owned it.

She could have blown the whole thing, markets, dance halls, hookah bars, sent the city

on its hundred her dreams tumbling across the desert like a kiss.

She had to look back.

When she did she saw pigeons glinting like debris above ruined rooftops, towers swaying,

women in broken skirts strewn along burned out streets like busted red bells.

The noise was something else, dogs wept, roosters, hulled children and guitars popped like

kernels of corn feeding the twisting blaze.

She wondered had she unplugged the coffee pot, the iron, was the oven off?

Her husband ordered keep going whispered stay the course or baby forget about it.

She couldn't.

Now a bursting garden of fire the city bloomed to flame after flame like hot fruit in a

persimmon orchard.

Someone thirsty asked for water, someone scared asked to pray her daughters or the crooked

legged angel maybe.

Dark thighs of smoke opened to the sky.

...