Capsaicin and Ars Poetica by Shelby Handler

Over soup she said You’ve hardly cried this year
Then I rubbed my eyes      hands covered in the jalapeno I’d broken into my broth
She said Keep blinking 	
Steam clung to the starless windows but I saw nothing
I was wrecked by the world this year and I hardly wrote 
We know who numbness serves and yet 
The clink of spoons on the rims of strangers’ bowls
rings out from the edges of the darkness
I need something I replied 
Something that appears from the side—
punctures the night
Not with light but with deep water 

Shelby Handler is a writer and organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace. Recent work has appeared in and or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Poetry, The Iowa Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Redivider, Poetry Northwest, The Massachusetts Review, Four Way Review, Southern Indiana Review, among others.

3 August 2026