Staretz
Ashley Kunsa


no one wants to hear a poem 
about Rasputin; 
 
not because he resists 
the strangle- 
 
hold of words 
(even the reddest of wheelbarrows dulls on a cloudless day) 
but because, 
 
despite such striving, 
still he fell 
 
cold and silent 
like us all 










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About the Author: Ashley Kunsa's creative work has been published or is forthcoming in more than a dozen places, including The Los Angeles Review, Pembroke Magazine, Roanoke Review, and Bayou Magazine. She won the A Room of Her Own Foundation's Orlando prize for flash fiction and tied for first prize for Eastern Iowa Review's Experimental Essay Award. Currently, she is completing a PhD in English literature at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband and son. You can find her online here.
GRAVEL