B rder-C ossi g as Tr th

José Felipe Ozuna

After Robert Creeley

I don’t remember muchabout crossing the                                       . Everything I say                                is a lie.The night                      like lavender.                                       trust me. The shadowof a raindrop                            shoes in the sand. The moonsplits                                                    . I can tell youwhere they’re buried                                 . Every cloud                         someone I love. I’m sorry                               .Mamá, the border sur-rounds us.          I can’t promise                             anything            .            brother                                the sound of a coinrattling                                       father                                              a sheet of memory                                     the echo                                              .                                           outlines what’s gone.                                          . The night is nota flower.I write that it blooms. And so it does. 

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Headshot of José Felipe Ozuna

José Felipe Ozuna is a poet born in Guerrero, Mexico and living in Minneapolis, MN. He was a 2022 Undocupoets Fellow and a 2023–24 Mentor Series Fellow. His poems are published in Best New Poets, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, Afternoon Visitor, and the anthology Here to Stay. He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has received support from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Fine Arts Work Center, and Metro Regional Arts Council. He is working on his poetry collection.

Afternoon Visitor

12

Iowa City, Iowa

Co-Founders
TR Brady
Maggie Nipps

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Afternoon Visitor was founded in the spring of 2020 in Iowa City. We are an online quarterly publication of poetry, hybrid text, visual poetry, and visual art. We want work that investigates and divines, that searches out and wants. We’re looking for accidental visitors, harbingers, and spectres.

We’re particularly interested in giving space to trans + queer writers in every issue and presenting work from established and emerging writers. We welcome experimental work, long form poetry, and sequences.

We nominate writers for Best of the Net.

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