Your new country a wild dog / your new country a wild church / your new country bucket of bleach water dumped in the street / your new country ask for permission, motherfucker / your new country blind tongue / your new country drag me to a tree to hang / your new country burning wick / your new country crooked vocabulary / your new country no se habla español / Your new country show me your papers / your new country I ain’t got no fucking papers

OCTAVIO QUINTANILLA is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing, the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely. His new poetry collection, The Book of Wounded Sparrows, is forthcoming from Texas Review Press in fall 2024. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University