Introducing Antionette Nena Villamil with a poem

We will be publishing Antionette Nena Villamil‘s chapbook God Damned Mouth this summer. Here’s a poem from the new collection to get you pumped:

And With Spring, Relief

You’re asleep but not
oblivious. I’m awake, coiled into
myself, a rattlesnake in hibernation. You’re full
of red wine and half truths, I’m an empty belly

of night, drunk on make-believe kisses from
a make-believe man. Between our backs, the cold
creeps in like fog, as if—

Daybreak, and the robins
sing a hymn to their god
the sun while the puma, gnawing
on a dead skunk in the arroyo, is silent.
And now the tulips are breaking
dirt. How I envy their beauty, their
mindlessness, the fact
that they know better
than to stay too long.

Bio:

Antoinette holds an MFA in Poetry from New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared in New Mexico Poetry Review, Yoga and Total Health Magazine, and inter-rupture. She teaches creative writing, most recently at Santa Fe University of Art and Design, and manages Durham Editors, an online editing service. Antoinette spends her ever diminishing free time reading, hiking, and chasing after her toddler (who chases after her cat.)