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from Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return

CAConrad













              without a fortress
          everyone must apply
                            themselves
                                my dream
                                    president
                                      sleeps in
                                   a tent on
                                the white
                          house lawn
                        lip of earth
                    lifted for us
              to tuck inside
        grandma prays
     for busy skies of
   the rapture
   we must
    stop flinching
     to be held to
       be sung to
         kneading
        songs out
   of flesh



















  the day you see
 where you were
not loving
yourself it’s
  the place they
   always find
    before
   you do
  fantasy
of america is
finally too hard
everything they
 learned is true
           a million
             dollars
        shoved in
        a million
        bleeding
        mouths
     is worth
  a million
  dollars



















 one morning
every flying thing
 aimed itself at
   your pretty
       hat
          a vowel
            the light
            unleashed
           overhead
         we stood
        awash with
       songs about
       time never
        holding us
          properly
            regardless
            of suggestion or
           complaint carried on a
          season of fruit and grain
        when love learned to
        turn into a sizeable
         journey without
          leaving the room



















    redundant as in
   quixotic
  poet
 our
  clothes go
   up when the sails rip
    return to shore
     fully exposed
       no more
        humans
       please a
     television
    show with
   a cast of
    flowers
       aperture
         aimed at
           lily and
              rose
              each
      dramatic
         episode
            chrysanthemum
            chrysanthemum
            my hero my love
            chrysanthemum



















  broken
bowl no
longer a
      bowl
          apology moonlighting
           as compensation
          sometimes
         gloves get in
         the glove box
        this is
        how
         he is
          swallowing
           everything
            worrying
              over end
               date of
                the sky
                 a good
                reaction
            when life in
          reverse makes
           you nauseous





















Author of Amanda Paradise: Resurrect Extinct Vibration (Wave Books, 2021), The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010), and While Standing in Line for Death (Wave Books, 2017), among many others, CAConrad is associated with (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals and exhibits their poems as objects in various sites in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. They coedited Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books, 2015) and authored a book of nonfiction essays, Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009). CAConrad’s honors include a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, and a Creative Capital grant. 



Founded in 2020, Three Fold is an independent quarterly based in Detroit that presents exploratory points of view on arts, culture, and society in addition to original works in various media, including visual art, literature, film and the performing arts. We solicit and commission contributions from artists, writers, and activists around the world. Three Fold is a publication of Trinosophes Projects, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in the historic Eastern Market neighborhood in downtown Detroit. Click here to check out Three Fold’s events page and view a schedule of the publication’s on-site activities.

Three Fold recognizes, supports, and advocates for the sovereignty of Michigan’s twelve federally-recognized Indian nations, for historic Indigenous communities in Michigan, for Indigenous individuals and communities who live here now, and for those who were forcibly removed from their Homelands. We operate on occupied territories called Waawiiyaataanong, named by the Anishinaabeg and including the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Bodewatomi (Potawatomi) peoples. We hold to commit to Indigenous communities in Waawiiyaataanong, their elders, both past and present, and future generations.