The Glacier
Issue Three
Winter 2024

CINQUAIN FOR HOW, WHEN SHE WAS
TEACHING THE WHOLE GROUP CHOREOGRAPHY
FOR A ROUTINE TO THE TOTALLY EPIC
“CHAL CHAIYA CHAIYA,” DEBDATTA

said that
if we learned to 
hook-step, then we could do 
any Indian dance and look
okay.

CINQUAIN FOR THE HEADLINE IN THE TIMES
OF INDIA EXPLAINING “LATEST WELLNESS
TREND: LYING ON THE GROUND” AND HOW
“YOUR BODY AND MOOD WANT TO ALIGN”

This is 
why it’s hard to
feel optimistic slumped 
in your chair, your head hanging down.
Sounds true.

CINQUAIN FOR HOW ALL THE CARS AND TRUCKS
AND VANS AND BUSES AND MOTORBIKES
AND AUTO RICKSHAWS AND TAXIS AND UBERS
AND PEDESTRIANS CAREENING THROUGH THE DELHI STREETS GIVE THE APPEARANCE OF PURE CHAOS

Pattern-
less. Crazy. But 
the mess has intelli-
gence. Andrew says, “It’s like a school
of fish.”

CINQUAIN FOR THE BAGS AND BUNDLES
AND MOUNDS OF MARIGOLDS IN THE FLOWER
MARKET IN THE MORNING

Tawny.
Blonde. Aureate.
Ochre. Thousands of pom-
poms. Fluffy suns perched on filthy
manholes.

CINQUAIN FOR HOW EVERYTHING WE DO AS HUMANS
TO MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER MAKES ANIMALS’ LIVES HARDER AND EVEN WHEN THIS FACT MANIFESTS
IN FUNNY WAYS, IT’S SAD

Monkeys
lurking for food 
and cellphones. A macaque 
drinking a Red Bull at the Taj
Mahal. 

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Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. She is the author, most recently, of the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Her latest poetry collection Where Are the Snows, winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize, was released in Fall of 2022 by Texas Review Press and her latest novel, From Dust to Stardust, came out in September 2023. She lives in Chicago and teaches at DePaul.

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Artwork from WikiMedia Commons.
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