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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Karisma Price was born and raised in New Orleans and holds a BA in creative writing from Columbia University. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University where she is a Writers in the Public Schools Fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vinyl Poetry, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Leveler, and Rookie Magazine. Karisma lives in New York City, and along with Kwame Opoku-Duku III, she is a founding member of the Unbnd Collective.

THINGS THAT FOLD by Karisma Price

Friday, 23 March 2018 by Karisma Price

~after Jamaal May

My father’s voice after the cancer
has spread. A flip phone. A flag.

 George Bush’s hands, as he pauses 
his vacation briefly for thoughts and prayers.

My body next to the potted plant
after my father throws the wooden chair.

A cheaply made chair. A small stack
of clothes. A birthday card.

Milvirtha Hendricks under the American
flag 5 days after Hurricane Katrina.

Her face from the crease
made in her

obituary photo as we use
the newspaper to eat crawfish. 

The wrinkles in her forehead.
Floodwater passing

through a broken levee.
My uncle’s hands

retaping the attic windows
after the flood water rises.

My cousins sleeping
in the attic because

no neighbor has a rescue boat.
Black people in distress.

They lay prostrate and call it
prayer. The blankets on my cousins’

shoulders days later, when rescued.
The National Guard’s smile as he carries

the neighbor’s dog from the flooded
living room. The dog’s body around

his neck,
an upside down flag.

 

Four Way ReviewKarisma Price
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  • Published in Issue 13, Uncategorized
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