Margaret Dornaus

Margaret Dornaus holds an MFA in the translation of poetry from the University of Arkansas. Her poetry appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including I-70 Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Minyan Magazine, MockingHeart Review, and One Art. A Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net nominee, her first book of poetry, Prayer for the Dead: Collected Haibun & Tanka Prose, received a 2017 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America. In 2020, she had the privilege of editing and publishing a pandemic-themed anthology—behind the mask: haiku in the time of Covid-19—through her small literary press Singing Moon.

The Weight of It

—for Tyre (d. January 10, 2023)

It’s that four-year-old picture
that gets me every time: the slim father’s
ear-to-ear smile a horizon line
of hope and joy. With no room for
anything other than the life he balances
in supplicant hands. As if he’s just
asking us to bless his newborn child.
Welcome to the world, Tyre Nichols wrote
on the blog he left behind, posting sunset
shots of the Delta he loved alongside
that portrait of himself as a young Atlas—
the weight of the world on his back,
his infant son still cradled in
his outstretched arms.