Poems

Brandel France de Bravo is the author of three books of poetry, editor of a bilingual anthology of contemporary Mexican poetry, and co-author of a parenting book. Click the links below for more information.

FEATURED IN

The Best American Poetry 2024

from “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry”

Window caulk cracking, door padlocked, another laundromat
is closing. How far will people have to drive their dirty
bedspreads? Headlights in daytime, snaking in slow caravans,

black Hefty bags in the backseat, to some suburban strip mall’s
Sit and Spin. My years of hoarding quarters, jam-jar maracas
are over. Wheeling my wet load past oversized peepholes

as I eye the red minutes—over. I don’t have a private
chapel devoted to laundry as seen on HGTV, just
an “in-unit W/D.” And, so must most neighbors. Do I miss

laundromats? …

Publications

From Locomotive Cathedral

From Provenance

“The Food of Belonging” and “Apricot” in the Ilanot Review

“Breath” in Beltway Quarterly

“Eureka” in Beltway Quarterly

“Kibosh” in Beltway Quarterly

“Pariah” in Beltway Quarterly 

“Wedlock” in Beltway Quarterly

From Mother, Loose

“The Old Woman in the Shoe” at Accents Publishing

“In Transit” in Sliver of Stone

 "The Night Kitchen” (nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize) in DMQ Review

"Dialogue with the Body” (nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net) in Lunch Ticket

“Grammar School” (originally published in the Alaska Quarterly Review) in Redux

“The Queen of Hearts” The Ilanot Review

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