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dancing girl press, 2014
$7.00 |
Irène Mathieu is a pediatrician in Philadelphia. Before going to medical school she studied International Relations and completed a Fulbright Fellowship in the Dominican Republic. Irène’s poetry, prose, and photography have been published or are forthcoming in The Caribbean Writer, the Lindenwood Review, Muzzle Magazine, qarrtsiluni, Extract(s), So to Speak, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Love Insha'Allah, Los Angeles Review, Callaloo Journal, and elsewhere. She has been a Pushcart Prize nominee and a Callaloo fellow.
July 4th
the holiday is on the street:
a hot strip of chicken
split on the sidewalk,
sideways spit, and
the crush of
emptied soda cups.
more than a hundred
degrees today in D.C.,
the river churning
black like ash,
the fire hydrants’
projectile vomit,
the cigarettes making
air smell salty.
one day we might die
in a flood of grease,
every burger joint bursting
a deluge of hot fat,
this country drowning,
a boiling mess of
unnatural oil.