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Lake Mendota, after Sunset
by Steven Espada Dawson

                                                                                                                                           Lake Mendota was previously known as Wonkshekhomikla,
                                                                                                                                                   in the original Ho-Chunk (Hoocąk), or “where the man lies”

By mid-January this whole lake will freeze over.
A passing stranger tells me this like they had to

get it off their chest. The local hush-hush bubbling 
up from the city’s slushed lung. At night,

Mendota terrifies me. When the stars un-dim
the Midwest dark is a polishing rag

for Mendota’s vanity mirror. Trapdoor to some pit
behind my eyes. An idea too far away to see 

itself clearly. Under the ice, the fish stop 
all their pretending to swim. They’re waiting 

for the stars to change. Holding their breath for it. 
Every day here, the little dipper is a little bigger 

than me. When I ladle soup into a bowl, I wonder 
what the stars name my dipper. If they try to see 

themselves in my soup. Maybe I’m too far--
just stubble on Mendota’s face. Someone told me

voices carry further over water.
Maybe I terrify them too.

Steven Espada Dawson is from East Los Angeles. The son of a Mexican immigrant, he is a former Halls Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and Ruth Lilly Fellow at the Poetry Foundation. His work appears in Agni, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, and Poetry. His poems have been anthologized in Best New Poets, Pushcart Prize, and Sarabande’s Another Last Call. 

ISSN 2157-8079
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