Karen Kevorkian: California Poets Part 10, Four Poems

Karen Kevorkian

April 2nd, 2026

California Poets: Part X

Karen Kevorkian

Four Poems

Subduction

A car stopped on a bridge below the world spreading its patterns of boundaries

on either side tall grass heavy mud and small trees curving with the river

all was newsprint clear

one little house to live in a woman at the table reading

waking to August sun turning cars to brass

noon fired up one side of a tree trunk a bright red folder on a shelf

soon shadows edged sharp as the blades of new knives

balanced at the river’s edge she dived in, green water closed over

Memory a Site Time Edits

Like the Forum where each bonelike column

identifies this or that place or building

pristine and bleached

known doorways boarded, the little bakery’s mouthfilling

yellow tarts, a café’s leather banquettes

old men lifting small white cups of black espresso 

that life

why want it back

to the tired or bored it says nothing

the alley by the window where a desk stood

the other window by the kitchen sink, a new shelf,

unfamiliar plates

A Black Calf in the Field

In the field a black calf nuzzled the side of its cow

her sleek and round body you imagined laying hands on

to slick the short hair in one direction could you transcend

barbed wire to flounder in dry grass the sun flirts with

some surrender to the Jesus they say will take care of all things

I do not feel this is plausible though I understand surrender

last night driving outside the town a sky of patent leather sheen

along the powerline a meteor, fleeing ball of fire

It Is Just Us Making Our Exit

The color wheel shifts, red sunlight filters lawns an eerie green

from rare rain, against them white roses bloom suddenly,

specks in a tide

pacing midstreet a woman’s tinyfisted hands, a rooftop star

that mimes holy refuge

a room’s weighted lamp cord laps at a heat vent, its pendulum

circles widen

everything saying something, the angry cat that hurls itself at a window,

on TV someone you know acts out death

pushed to curbs plastic bins marked Heart of Screenland

the old hotel where the Munchkins stayed, on the coastline

a body washed up, red neon hand in window of a psychic life coach

dusty shop with a handpress, a wall map, 19^th century Paris,

years of its gridded unfolding

Author Bio:

Karen Kevorkian is an American poet based in Los Angeles. Her fourth poetry collection is Here in My Body it Feels Crowded, a chapbook (Walton Well Press, 2025). Her other poetry collections are Quivira (Three: A Taos Press, 2020), Lizard Dream (What Books Press, 2009), and White Stucco Black Wing (Red Hen Press, 2004). 

Her poems are published in New American Writing, Four Way Review, Furious Pure, Laurel Review, Verse Daily, Massachusetts Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Agni, Michigan Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry International, VOLT, and other journals.