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 
The Flood
After the ark had left its improvised dock—
The waters having risen quickly—the animals
Not selected or boarded in time were abandoned
In treetops and on high hills. They watched
As the great ship drifted south or north or
Maybe west, its outline shrinking in their
Sharp eyes, in the waves. But the animals,
Being animals, said nothing. For sure, they
Knew it was unfair. All the fish would survive,
Even sharks and bottom-feeders. But the parrots
With their red and yellow feathers would
Tire eventually and fall out of the sky,
And the lions and elephants would sink
To the ocean’s muddy bottom—sand would
Come later. Spotted deer raced wildly for a while
On the steep slopes, their hooves splashing
Water behind them. Dung beetles bored tunnels
Into whatever earth they could find—not because
They thought it would save them, but only
Because that was their habit. A few hares tried
Desperately to procreate for the same reason.
Why does no one praise the nobility of the creatures
Rejected by Noah? Many had waited in line for days.
Some, the gnats and flies, had spent a lifetime
Buzzing in place, waiting to be admitted. They
Must have known that even the highest mountains
Would be submerged. But the wet slow-moving tigers
Only paced in a circle, growling at nothing,
As ordinary pigeons continued to preen
Their gray iridescent feathers, and a troop of
Brown monkeys with large eyes and delicate fingers
Still picked lice from each other’s fur and
Stared at where the ark had been.
BALCONIES
Beyond our lives are other lives, ones
We might have lived but didn’t. Cities
We visited asleep, read about
In guidebooks or glossy magazines,
Photographs of olive trees older
Than Chartres, cafés where waiters know
Already we’ll be there for hours,
Our cups empty, staring through the glass
At passersby under umbrellas,
Running from the cold November rain.
Beyond our lives are cobblestone streets
Flowing up hillsides, rivers in reverse.
At the top, stone fortifications
Constructed by Caesar, by the Huns,
Visigoths, Moors, or Napoleon.
Below, landscapes famous for battles
Or poets—Machado might have stood
Here and watched the sun sink to the west.
Beyond our lives are the lives we’ve lived
(Forgotten?), magnolia blossoms
Outside my bedroom window, the street
I’d stare at late at night, cars going
Somewhere, the Chinese restaurant on
Milam Street that stayed open till dawn,
Or later, apartments in New York
And Boston, metallic smell of steam
From the radiator in winter,
The remainder tables in bookstores—
To blame for my odd education—
And your life by the Rio Cali,
The steep green hillsides, salsa playing
On a radio, crazy traffic
In the evenings, civil war, and threats
On the telephone. Beyond these lives
Are the lives of our desire, Madrid,
Velázquez at the Prado, Goya,
Pulpo a la gallega, bread warm
From the oven, wines we’ve never tried,
Neighborhoods we’ve never made our own,
Balconies where we look out on all
The lives we haven’t yet imagined.
