Carson Sandell (they/them)

Memento Vivere - The Offing Poetry - The Offing Magazine

“I miss that valley heat, the scent of manure and semi-truck diesel, of chlorine and my mother’s pool-wet cheek.”

From “Memento Vivere,” a poem, by Carson Sandell (@csandell.bsky.social).

theoffingmag.com/poetry/memen...

The title of the poem "Memento Vivere". Below the title is Carson Sandell and the date 18 Feb 2026. Below that is a photo of Yucca with blue skies and clouds in the background. The picture is attributed to Michael Yantis on Unsplash.

I’m most alive those time-stretched mornings where mayflies drop in death and the dried swarm smells of wharf-wood, where clouds are hand-raked and copper hedgerows mirror the limpness of Mojave sand, a small brown owl crawls back in the cool burrow, full stomached, from its beak a two-note coo gusts through yucca spine, juniper bark, longhorn beetles eat elderberry leaves in the valley. I miss that valley heat, the scent of manure and semi-truck diesel, of chlorine and my mother’s pool-wet cheek. my neighbor with a shovel scrapes a possum off the road, iron skips across asphalt, black eyes like stigmatas, gray-brown fur left in the street, a ratking of fingers reach out its stomach and like this underbelly of young death, we long for our mothers to breathe again, strong as bird lime.

My poem "Memento Vivere" is published in @theoffingmag.bsky.social I'm forever grateful to the editors and readers who advocated and accepted this piece.

book announcement graphic for "Transmasc Marvel Girl: Poems" by sterling-elizabeth arcadia, out Spring 2026 with Kith Books. On a Black background in the top right quadrant of the image, a portion of a white linework sketch shows some feathers and the claws of a hawk carrying some red and white entrails. In the middle of the page, in all caps, in red, "Announcing:" and below it, also centered horizontally, in white text, the name of the collection and author, then in gray text "Spring 2026 with Kith Books"

Transmasc Marvel Girl, the follow-up to my chapbook, Heaven, Ekphrasis, is coming out with @kithbooks.bsky.social this spring!! It's like a sequel that's even more more mad, horny, embodied, speculative, poltical, heartbreaking, and transgender! 🎞️🩸👩‍🍼🏳️‍⚧️🧟👽⛈️👬👭👅🍑💦 #poetry #queer #sci-fi #literature

I just know transphobic Superman would use his x-ray vision for unseen and unrivaled levels of osteology

Transitioning is the real life embodiment of an ouroboros

The sun and moon are polyamorous and I oh so desperately need to be their third

This might go in my manuscript, it might not, either way it was a fun excercise.

Cento of My Mother’s Facebook Timeline my son my sweet- heart I am still alive we need to get together again last time I saw my son his son was playing my son was playing football last time I saw my late son he ditched me I am having a hard time right now my ex- husband is getting married I am waiting how are you young lady I miss you a lot I still wish you happy birthday my son my sweetheart I wish my days were longer

I haven't posted on here in a long time, here is a draft of my late mother's Facebook timeline channeled through a cento. I hope you like it!

Thеy say she looks just like her momma bеfore the drugs /

She just laughs and says, "I know" (I know), "She really taught me well

She's no good at raising children, but she's good at raising Hell"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

ETHEL CAIN YOU CAN'T KEEP DOING THIS TO MEEEEE

If Grief is Stored in The Bones Then You Are My Marrow you are the frame my muscles depend on. my spine depends on the pelvis and skull like a shovel depends on soil to stand upright. your home, cinnabar red, is my wellspring, is the chant of my body as cells clash against something my blood can’t name. my ribs, a birdcage of fingers, protect my heart, your production of warmth swaddles it. you don’t want me to endure the same death. you want nothing in return, no apology for sutures or cortisol my backward birth caused. I wasn’t ready to leave you yet. you aren’t ready to untether from a life you created, you possessed it and you work overtime to ensure I live past sixty. mothers can be laid to rest, but mothers can never rest. when the shovel beside my grave is laid flat my decay becomes our decay, your final death.

Here's a little something.

That sounds so exciting! I'm so happy we are in a similar space!

I feel like my first poetry collection is coming together

I think I'm ready to shop around my craft essay about lack of punctuation as a technique of transpoetics.

Black Aperture changed my life

A Facebook Friend Wishes My Dead Mother a Happy Birthday someone believes she is alive. who am I to deny them that reality? what is my role in this web-mess of grief?

Wrote a short poem, I don't know if it's anything.

My ferritin levels went up, this could be caused by a lot of things and all of them are scary. I’m freaked out

I got blood done work done this morning because my ferritin levels were abnormally high. I hope the results come back normal because the causes of high ferritin levels are terrifying.

Working on a craft essay about how lack of punctuation in poetry can be a transpoetic technique

Just remembered my mother was bisexual. I'm never going to shut up about this.

I’ve got a lot of rejections on my work this week so I’m feeling very very down about my writing

Chair Gallows Beating wind with a stick. Riding herd on the human spirit. It's how a man slips his head into a noose & watches the easy weight of gods pull down on his legs. I hope this is just another lie, just another typo in a newspaper headline. But I know war criminals live longer than men lost between railroad tracks & crossroad blues, with twelve strings two days out of hock. I've seen in women's eyes men who swallow themselves in mirrors. -memory of Phil Ochs

-Yusef Komunyakaa

This is a Marie Howe fan page forever and always

The ugly stepsister is such a good movie omg

I get my hypochondria from my mother, I wish I wasn’t so paranoid about getting sick

I got bit by a spider and had some side effects. I went to the ER and they said everything was fine. That goes hundreds of dollars down the drain that I don’t have. Why am I like this😭

I miss my mom so much

the trend of ‘explain this to me like I’m five’ is a direct consequence of defunding education. functional illiteracy is a national crisis, one that this administration relies on to maintain power

I hope we fumigate this house because we’ve been dealing with bugs for so damn long