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Sunday, February 25, 2024

JUAN J. MORALES—"LOOKING FOR DUENDE" (Issue 27)

LOOKING FOR DUENDE

My parents had a sprinkler 
that sputtered water whenever 
the tap was off, and mom surprised me 
when she casually said 
duende was watering the backyard again. 
I heard duende as Lorca’s captured inspiration 
in college. I asked how to translate it 
into English, and my parents couldn’t, 
settling on “the mischief of a goblin.” 
Mom added that it’s like 
the movie with small green Gremlins terrorizing 
the Pennsylvania town 
during Christmas. 
When I left home, 
sent out to find duende, 
the muse gifted deep wells of dream, 
podcasts about skinwalkers and tricksters 
orchestrating mischief, winds singing 
through deep woods 
to echo like ocean waves. 
I didn’t know I first encountered duende 
in the Looney Tunes cartoon 
where Bugs Bunny saves 
the B-52 bomber from the small saboteur 
and William Shatner's Twilight Zone plane ride, 
watching monster dismantle 
the engine before flying into the lightning 
and leaving him in lunacy. 
Duende coaxed me to pedal faster 
on my childhood's rickety bike, 
to follow shadows mistaken 
for witches, to welcome deja vu 
on mountain trails I’ve never hiked before. 
I still search beyond Lorca’s execution 
and mass grave 
whenever I study full moon's grief. 
I accept the medium’s summertime warning 
that my dead father has become duende, 
promising to meddle 
until we safely make it 
into the chilly months of 
November and December.



ABOUT THE POET 

Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father. 
He is the author of three poetry collections, including The Handyman’s Guide 
to End Times, and his fourth collection, Dream of the Bird Tattoo, is forthcoming 
from University of New Mexico Press. Morales is a CantoMundo Fellow, a 
Macondo Fellow, the editor/publisher of Pilgrimage Press, and the associate dean 
of the College of Humanities Arts & Social Sciences at Colorado State University 
Pueblo.



ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 


We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 
hear it.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

MIRANDE BISSELL—"AIR POEM " (Issue 27)

AIR POEM

Loft Mountain after a day of midges 
and sweat. I sleep long enough to start over. 
Night wind lifts the tent’s fabric like a tongue 
plays on a tongue, has waited for us 
to want something more than rest. 

The air has the calcium sweetness 
of well-water. It’s bone-building air. 

I have a collarbone to cool, blushed-apple 
shoulders to round. All these years, we 
should have comforted each other. 



ABOUT THE POET 

Mirande Bissell is a teacher in Baltimore, MD. Her first book of poems 
Stalin at the Opera was selected by Diane Seuss as the winner of the 2020 
Ghost Peach Press prize.



ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 


We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 
hear it.