George Franklin
Winner of the 2023 Yeats Poetry Prize, George Franklin practices law in Miami. Remote Cities is his third full-length poetry collection with Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, complementing Noise of the World (2020) and Traveling for No Good Reason (winner of the Sheila-Na-Gig Editions manuscript competition in 2018). He has also authored the dual-language collection, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (translated by Ximena Gómez and published by Katakana Editores, 2020), and a chapbook, Travels of the Angel of Sorrow (Blue Cedar Press, 2020). He is the co-translator, along with the author, of Ximena Gómez’s Último día / Last Day and co-author with Gómez of Conversaciones sobre agua / Conversations About Water (Katakana Editores 2019 & 2023).
$17.00 
Without a Soul
People who have souls, I guess, are lucky,
But I’m not one of them. Cut me open,
And no shimmer of invisible self
Will fly off to heaven or sink to hell
Or drift, a lost weather balloon across
The stratosphere. Inside of me, there’s not
Another me, a less-tangible gust
Of stubborn opinions, drafts of poems,
And fondness for garlic. What you see is
Probably all you’ll find, the old guy on
The autopsy table, dull eyed as a
Supermarket trout packed in melting ice.
A friend, the other day, told me I was
A materialist. Maybe he’s right,
But I do believe in desire. It flows
Beneath our skin, a wind, ephemeral,
Unseen, eager, and utterly mortal.
People who have souls may be lucky, but
Those without may be luckier. I think
About all the nights we’ve held each other,
How I wake the next morning, my lips pressed
To your neck, shoulders, resting my hand on
Your thigh, listening to my own heartbeat,
Listening to your breath on the pillow.
On those mornings, our bodies are enough.
THE UNFINISHED GOLEM
Inside these sentences is a cave.
Inside the cave is the skeleton
Of a man. His bones are carved from words.
His arms and legs phrases, sharp twisted
Wire and syllables. The cave is dark
And the stiff bones shiver even though
There’s no wind. Meyrink might recognize
Him as a golem, perhaps one left
Unfinished, the secret name never
Inscribed on his forehead, a golem
Who never took his first steps or stood
Guard over his maker’s sad prayers.
The skeleton is missing teeth, hands,
Parts of a clavicle. Loneliness
Has burrowed into his tibia.
He has no ankle—or companion.
He is not Adam, and God hasn’t
Formed his mate from a remaining rib.
There is no mercy in words, at least
None for creatures who only exist
In sentences, and lack tongue to
Rise to grammar or comprehension.
Reader, do not withhold your pity
From bones that have never been alive.
