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Toti O'Brien

Toti O’Brien (she/her) is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. Born in Rome, living in Los Angeles, she is an artist, musician and dancer. She is the author of Other Maidens (BlazeVOX, 2020), An Alphabet of Birds (Moonrise Press, 2020), In Her Terms (Cholla Needles Press, 2021), Pages of a Broken Diary (Pski’s Porch, 2022) and Alter Alter (Elyssar Press, 2022).

Novia

In the photo they put on her grave
she wears a shell pendant, and you
feel the ocean behind her, the wind.
I remember her in many occasions,
but especially twice…

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TRAVELING COMPANION

Consciousness slips into my dreamsand imperceptibly awakes mebut the night leaves a message for meas I venture into daylight.My hand prods for a black coverednotebook. I ink down something.Now an incipit marks the glisteningsurface, like the vanishing printsof a sleigh dog on snow. A few wordsto be repeated like a nursery rhyme.A few letters, the name of a stationwhere the

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UNSCATHED

Wolf (or is it a crocodile) crossing the bottom endof the page, moving from left to right.It has freshly stepped in, hesitant, one could sayas if lingering still in the corner. Take a closer look, and you’ll see it is on wheels.You will also notice the slight shifts in tone(brown to tan, burgundy to rust) and in texture(here woven, there

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UNSCATHED

Wolf (or is it a crocodile) crossing the bottom endof the page, moving from left to right.It has freshly stepped in, hesitant, one could sayas if lingering still in the corner. Take a closer look, and you’ll see it is on wheels.You will also notice the slight shifts in tone(brown to tan, burgundy to rust) and in texture(here woven, there

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