Bedroom at the End of the World
“For three weeks I watch geese at sunset / outside the hospital window, bellies lit orange”
Desirée Alvarez is a poet and painter. Her second book, Raft of Flame, received the Lake Merritt Poetry Prize from Omnidawn. Devil’s Paintbrush received the May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize. She has received awards and fellowships from New York Foundation for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Foundation for Contemporary Art, European Capital of Culture, Yaddo Art Colony, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Poets House. Her poetry was awarded Prairie Schooner’s Glenna Luschei Poetry Award and she has published in journals including Boston Review, Fence Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Lit Hub, The Massachusetts Review, The Iowa Review, and The Slowdown Podcast. Her poetry is anthologized in Other Musics: New Latina Poets, Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice, and What Nature. She teaches at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, and The Juilliard School. Alvarez exhibits her paintings internationally. More at desireealvarez.com and @desireezoealvarez.
“For three weeks I watch geese at sunset / outside the hospital window, bellies lit orange”