Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. His poems appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, The Worcester Review, Thimble Magazine, Otoliths (Australia) Impspired (UK), and Bosphorus Review of Books (Turkey)among others. His work received an Honorable Mention from the International Human Rights Art Festival, and nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net, in 2020 and 2021. His chapbook,  “Contraband,” was published this year.

My Teacher

For Ronn Dundon


My teacher listened
like a brook babbles, 
or magpies collect trinkets 
for their nest.

He had the instincts
and patience of an owl.
I spoke loudly, hurried,
twitching on my branch.

For all I know,
my teacher is gone
and now, I feel like 
an ungrateful predator 

who devoured 
what he said,
but never honored 
his bones.

Merry-Go-Round

For Sophia, my granddaughter


Her wrist is so slender that
the tiny bracelet spins around it
like a carnival’s merry-go-round.

— this is the play of big and small,
the way God sometimes is tiny
and our hubris seems enormous.

Sophia pulls at the bracelet and the beads 
are launched like rockets across the couch, 
I watch her plunge under the pillows like a pearl diver.

I was told once that sacred texts must not be read 
but sung, and that new beings will be born 
from the carcass of their arrogance.

The carnival will move away, it always does,
although going-round may outlive its merry.
I wish living could be looser on my wrist.

Questions for Ray

After Ray Bradbury


Would you find the story plausible,
if a machine existed that returned us to the moments
we were so convinced of our own folly
that we wounded the people we loved?

Would it be more credible
if it was a tough pill to swallow?

Is there a limit to our fantasies
past which we cannot fantasize?

What if the machine works, and when
the baneful and the wounded meet again,
the ones who invented the machine
were the ones we hurt so much?