Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday

Foretold
for Cole Heinowitz

River me out. Too many deaths & pictures. The loss astounds. A body shutting itself down differs from a body stopped by something outside. I don’t know where you went, your geology, only a fragment. I don’t like excess. You were soulful & so am I, which is why. All that otherness. I guess one could say you lived your heart out which is more than many can. Now the stream of your awayness can’t be crossed, always silence, just thought. This used to be a problem for me, at least with my brother. It was so hard not to see him again I thought my wish to see would bring him back if only for an instant.

Shira Dentz is the author of five books including SISYPHUSINA (Astrophil Press), winner of the Nassar Prize 2021, and how do i net thee (Salmon Poetry, Ireland), a National Poetry Series finalist, as well as two chapbooks including FLOUNDERS (Essay Press). Shira’s poetry, hybrid and visual writing, nonfiction, criticism, and conversations have been featured in diverse venues including Poetry, American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Blackbird, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, Brooklyn Rail, Cincinnati Review, Black Warrior Review, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Lana Turner, VOLT, Annulet, Apartment, New American Writing, Quarter After Eight, The Rumpus, Hanging Loose, Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day Series (Poets.org) and NPR. She’s the recipient of awards including an Academy of American Poets Prize, Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Awards, NELLE Literary Journal’s Three Sisters Award for creative nonfiction, and an NEA/NYS arts grant. More at shiradentz.com

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx