Juan Pablo Mobili was born in Buenos Aires, and adopted by New York. His poems appeared, among others, in The American Journal of Poetry, Hanging Loose Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, Louisville Review, and The Paterson Literary Review, in the United States,as well as a number of international publications such as Impspired (UK), The Wild Word (Germany), Hong Kong Review (Hong Kong), Pasaje (Argentina), and Otoliths (Australia). His work received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and an Honorable Mention from the International Rights Human Arts Festival. His chapbook,  “Contraband,” was published in 2022, and, most recently, he was the Guest Editor of the Spring 2023 issue of the Banyan Review.

A Kind of Faith

_{For my sons}

Have you ever felt like
walking out to the garden
to bury a dead bird, 
and not come back?
I told my sons that life
is breathtaking, but skipped
the part about its thorns,
although they know,
willing to face the unrepairable,
still susceptible
and troubled, heart and
feet firmly on uneven ground.

Spoons

_{Thinking of Jasper Johns}

I go down to river beds
to look for pebbles,
small like breadcrumbs,
that no one brushed off
our dinner table, when
we were as quiet as spoons.
When a new civilization
visits our ruins, I hope
they unearth them, taste
the stories under their crust.
like a child receiving
the-body-of-Christ, or
a mother frowning tenderly,
or a father’s enigmatic blessing.

The Pilosity of Memory

Although mindful to remember but unwilling
to commemorate, during our nation’s holidays,
during grade school, I carried our flag, hoping
it would end my parents’ wars.
That might be why I still gaze at armies
with suspicion, why peace it’s first the memory
of my mother returning her small suitcase
to the bottom of her bed, swearing to stay with us.