POETRY SPOTLIGHT:
KYLE CARRERO LOPEZ
KYLE READS THREE POEMS
“INHERITANCE,” “UNTITLED (HAVANA 2000),” & “AMERICAN GHAZAL”
INHERITANCE
Not yet sundown and a plate dips
from hand to hardwood, sharp whites burst
like new calla lilies, my gaze drops,
halts, finds my father
in the floor’s pasture—
I once read narcissists can’t love their child
as a separate, that they crane down and see extension,
a blooming self/appendage—
and there, in the ivory wreck,
I see: next to and of him, with him, me. I see.
Like shard spawn of cracked glassware,
my breaks slide right into his.
Each piece soon glides down the trash
and fire pit croaks as it lands.
Kyle Carrero Lopez was born to Cuban parents in New Jersey. He is the author of the forthcoming chapbook MUSCLE MEMORY, winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books Contest. He co-founded LEGACY, a Brooklyn-based production collective by and for Black queer artists. Kyle’s recent poems are published in POETRY, The Nation, Bear Review, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere.
Find him at kylecarrerolopez.com.
Note: Kyle’s poem “Inheritance” will be printed in the forthcoming Issue 68 of Great River Review.