OXIDANT | ENGINE : Issue 10
Peter Filkins
Facial Recognition
when they come for you
you will recognize them
by their vacant eyes
imprinted provinces
of residual fear
turned cold retaliation
harboring the just
barely sustained
conviction to deport
themselves as legal
witnesses who will attest
to the mother’s heaving
collateral sobs you cuffed
and the child the man
who knows you now
Peter Filkins has published four collections of poems, including The View We're Granted (Johns Hopkins 2012), winner of the Sheila Motton Best Book Award of the New England Poetry Club. His new book, Water / Music, will appear from Johns Hopkins in spring 2021. His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Common, Salmagundi, and The Hopkins Review. He teaches writing and literature at Bard College at Simon's Rock and translation at the main campus of Bard College.