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Here's a mini Q and A with our poetry editor, Jackie, and Angela to get you excited.  Read the piece here.

 JB: The poem is based on a real event which I heard about from someone, who had heard from someone, who had heard from someone else. Some details, such as the setting, are factual: I knew what the weather was like that day and I was familiar with the creek and the dam. The omniscient speaker, I think, was born of my struggle to imagine what everyone in this unimaginable situation was feeling. Mortality and weakness were both the inevitable conclusion and discovered through the process. I think that’s why that line, “you see where this is going,” got in there—there was no other conclusion, no other way for the story to go. 

Read Andrew's poem over on The Dock and check out an interview between poetry editor, Jackie Balderrama, and Andrew below.

JB: I am very attracted to the parallels this poem draws between physical and mental disease. It calls to mind an awareness that suggests pain can be both visible and hidden to the observer. I think the piece especially resonates with the events of this past year's Ebola outbreaks. How did you decide to describe these diseases with the address of "you"?

AE: Beyond being a type of list, this is also a persona poem, so the second person is reflexive, conversational. I imagine this poem in the voice of someone in captivity.