BOA poet Ryan Teitman, author of the recent Litany for the City (2012), has his poem "Archipelago" featured as a Read Selection for the new issue of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. We thought we'd share it with you. Congratulations, Ryan! Archipelago Ryan Teitman A bird is a kind of island. In flight, a flock is called an archipelago. At rest, a peninsula. When two flocks meet, they are called a communion. Used in a sentence: Two flocks met and became a communion. A surgeon opens a body with a scalpel. A scalpel is a kind of bird: small, thin, flightless. A flock of scalpels is called a bouquet. Children are a kind of book. We take them from the library and put them back. A flock of children is called a collection. A body is a body until it falls into ruin. Then the body is a kind of nothing. A nothing is a kind of bird: rare, sweet voiced, carnivorous. It eats the eggs of other birds. It’s the island I go to when I fall into ruin. Click here for more about Litany for the City.