about the author
Dina Hardy—recipient of a Stegner Poetry Fellowship from Stanford University, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Pushcart Prize nomination—is the author of the chapbook Selections from The World Book (Convulsive Editions). Her work has appeared in numerous journals
such as AGNI, Black Warrior Review, Meridian’s Best New Poets, Southeast Review, and Transom. She currently lives in Dubai, UAE.
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letters from the land of
white pith helmets & puggarees
Dina Hardy
Alternative content
When I press the desert to my temple my eyes become decorative papers with a pair of maps etched by fog. I am the marquis of loss. Perspective shifts around a clevis, still the directory
of this landscape remains in whiteout, & my accoutrements are somewhat heavy.
Attempting to follow footprints of the lion is akin to tales of coming terror & crystallography for beginners not to mention these mysterious apparitions that disorient me:
- ships found by 36 anonymous gold cloaks
- dancing found by 16 very sad girls
- a workman arrives with bricks to fix the wall
Diagrams from the mechanical curator include depictions of a brass cannon & clockwork village
Figure B: a comparative study of progress
My vehicle advances with such rapidity there is a sharp, grinding report within the gears, apparently, the sun travels southward above the clouds, night—come now, as I fire the first shot into the blinding warfare of the future.