Associate poetry editor Jenn McMahon on today’s poem: Taking readers to a setting near the sea, where “romantics are as plentiful as skunk cabbage,” Anna Koriath’s “I wanted to Buy a Donkey” blends soft and stark images together in a gorgeously unexpected way. Here, Koriath’s dreamy, yet grounded language floats through a stairwell of stanzas with an intention that makes readers feel at home between the lines. Even if you have never felt the calling to buy a donkey before, Koriath’s words convince you that you have always wanted one. The magic of this poem is not only found in the dream of having a new equine partner in crime, but also within the journey through a land where sunsets turn distinctly “tabasco” in color. With a voice that feels like a sweet memory long lost, this piece transports each reader to a place where they have always wanted to go.

i wanted to buy a donkey

I wanted to buy a donkey from mountainous territory
where persimmon and sandalwood grow wild,
& romantics are as plentiful as skunk cabbage,
their distal relative.
I would feed him boiled hyacinth
because that’s what donkeys like and constancy
and the modest sight of a Boston Whaler stammering in the harbor.

Each morning I would take him to the bay to chew mustard greens
and listen to the ocean percolating its raspy song
along the unopened sails of a dozen
slightly moving sailboats.
Sandalwood in the wind. Wheat
on the horizon.
On the way home I would shoplift
ice cream sandwiches to throw at the priests
loafing in the square as the sky turned tabasco and plush
and kindness broke from our hearts and from our ears.