Welcome to the 30/30 Project, an extraordinary challenge and fundraiser for Tupelo Press, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) literary press. Each month, volunteer poets run the equivalent of a “poetry marathon,” writing 30 poems in 30 days, while the rest of us “sponsor” and encourage them every step of the way.
The volunteer poets for July are: Clayre Benzadon, RJ Ingram, MeraBaid Kaur, Kes Maro, Dallas Outlaw, Azmia Ricchuito, Tammy Smith, and Daphne Stanford.
If you’d like to volunteer for a 30/30 Project month, please fill out our application and warm up your pen!
July - Poem 3
Senseless / Clayre Benzadon
In the gap between simple
and ordinary, I chose simplicity.
Plain, decent, friendly,
sweet, naïve, foolish, stupid.
The word “stupid” sticks to me.
Recently, in EMDR, I envisioned
all the times someone called me
stupid: struck senseless.
We hold on to so much that later
we drop it all in the middle of
the street, crying ugly, until our
mascara filthily streaks the sidewalk.
Now, that image is simple.
I’m looking for ordinary
this time:
This time, I enter a convenience
store and pull out a Coke from
the fridge, a package of tissues
to wipe off the snot and filth
of being human. The guy
at the counter, instead of
taking advantage
of this, asks
if I’m ok.
This isn’t simple, or or-
dinary. No, this is sub-
lime.
I was struck senseless.
I asked the guy for a lime,
to chase the stupid
feeling I got from crying
uncontrollably, at everything.
The gap between simplicity
and ordinary is a small light
someone leaves on for you
in the middle of the night.
I did not use the internet to write this poem / RJ Ingram
I asked Nora to use the back door the dogs have been acting up / I think they miss their father I think they watch too much tv I think I’ve got to flip whatever’s in the oven / Turnips rot in the back of the fridge I bought them for a salad & only used half of them / I know what you’re thinking what kind of salad needs turnips? / Honestly I don’t recommend it / Prairies come & go but getting to yell COW out the window? That shit’s forever / The quickest way to the kind of quiet I’m looking for is a plate of buttery crackers dipped in melty cheese / Of course you can come over I’m pulling monkey bread out of the oven & I’m going to turn the temperature down & make some shrink sinks later / Do you need a ride? I know you’re just across the street but I’ve got half a mile to go before I hit a digit ending in six zeros / I missed you at the Halloween party by the way / I ended up wearing a dozen or so different costumes & had a character for each / I turned it into a drinking game / The first person to guess my middle name won an all expenses paid trip to the back of our minivan / Santa’s gonna be a little late this year & he’s gonna drop off your presents at K-Mart he left a note you can read it yourself.
And the note said / A lot of things / I’m sure of it
The Poetry of An No-Skip Album- A Pantoum / MeraBaird Kuar
I love a pantoum, the way I love the last song on an album,
the way it lulls me past harmony, past melody, bends some
space to sound me out, slides me into dreams
holds me there, how sticky-sweet we feel in the heat of release.
The way it lulls me past harmony, past melody, bends some
time so I savor the chords strung together like plot points.
Hold me there, how sticky-sweet we feel in the heat of release
coordinates map a story of a time, a place, a voice.
Time to savor the chords strung together like plot points
in and out of an orchestrated void, eyelids flutter or fold
coordinate maps of a story, a time, a place, a voice.
My head nods, my eyes draw hearts and stars, they float
In and out of an orchestrated void, eyelids flutter or fold.
I love a pantoum, the way I love the last song on an album
My head nods, my eyes draw hearts and stars, they float
in space to sound me out, slides into my dream.
Remedies / Dallas Outlaw
My warning label
comes with a warning label
a sticker of noteworthy
tabs to keep open
read me twice
before assuming fluency
my fine print
changes with context
the side effects
include mirrored behavior
returned energy
without modification
the medical term
is projected dysmorphia:
a condition
where people mistake
their own reflection
for my personality
often misdiagnosed
as arrogance, coldness,
or difficult behavior
symptoms worsen
when accountability
is introduced
without anesthesia &
there is no known cure
only distance from the mirror
or the courage to
recognize yourself more
distortions kaleidoscope
landscape direction
to last feast on the possibility
that it just might work
I Was Raised on Little White Lies / Azmia Ricchuito
The doctor said take two and call him in the morning.
That was over 40 years ago
and I've been listening to you
say I know what to do
and you'll get right back.
You never did.
Leave a message after the tone.
The lights are on
but nobody's home.
And no, I didn't know what to do.
I don't know where you went
when your eyes turned black.
I don't know where you went
the times your eyes rolled back
in your head
in your head
in your head.
But I know who paid the electric bill
so that the day they find your body
the stench won't be so bad.
Little round white moons
an orange bottle filled with stars
you're higher than the kites
I flew at field day in kindergarten.
You boarded your spaceship
leaving me behind
All these years later
and all I can ask is why
didn't anyone ever cover my eyes?
I shouldn't have seen this
concert for aliens
this cacophony of chaos
the fever-pitched crescendo
of little white lies
crashing
breaking
metal against earth
180 proof, 180 degrees
spinning out of control
an orange Camaro
wrapped around a tree.
the only family you have left
are the cousins of death
and me.
I'm choking on your legacy
wishing I could spit it out
it's in my tired bones
laid bare with agony
It's just me and your ghosts
not knowing what to do
and two howling wolves
and they're always ravenous
whatever I do.
When My Friend Heather Invites Me to Hot Yoga During a Heat Wave / Tammy Smith
Hell no ❌😈
is easier to text
than calling her
but I probably should
politely decline
doing anything
downward-facing dog
on a blue flowered mat
when it’s this hot out
F that
is what I want to convey,
but I’m not about to text
any fire emojis—🔥
nothing flashing red,
orange, yellow: content
she may misconstrue
as explosive 🔥💥
or flirty ❤️🔥
Pointless pretending
anyone functions well
when the feels-like temperature
hits triple digits
I hesitate
sharing anything that steamy,
lest Heather think
it’s 🗣️🔥
In Your Duende Dream / Daphne Stanford
After your body tethers itself to sand
Blown by wind as duende works the
Body of a dancer, allow yourself
To plop yourself down onto shore.
Let the waterline creep further up
Your leg, ankles sinking into wet
Sand. Like that scene in “The Never-
Ending Story” where Artex slowly
Sinks his white body into the swamp
Of sadness swallowing him, despite the
Journey ahead, despite wishing he still
Wanted to try. Some easy dichotomy
Swims toward you, kicking salt-
Water toward pelicans diving to snatch
Sanderlings. Hermit crab sidesteps by,
Having found himself a new conch shell
To inhabit. Not allowing us to believe
We can’t go home again. He takes his
Home with him, not hoisting it up but
Crawling toward some deep quiet, within.
July - Poem 2
Writing on Company Time / Clayre Benzadon
Truth is I wrote this
at work. The trouble with
poetry is that you can draft
it anywhere. Once, I scribbled
a love poem on bar napkins
while drinking over an ex.
Next thing I know,
the poem’s plastered on
a huge billboard, so that even
my ex can read it. Poetry’s this
lucrative, I laugh as I take
this statement in like my last
swig of whiskey: neat, chillingly.
The point of a poem is to remember.
In my office, I tune into Dolly’s wisdom:
Be your own boss, climb your own ladder
You keep working, working, working […]
The question is, what work do I need to do
to become my own boss? Is it another
poem, or something more abstract, ill-
egible? Tomorrow, I cried, I’ll be a better
employee. For today, though, I’m in charge
of finishing this last line.
I did not use the internet to write this poem / RJ Ingram
I am going to spend too much money on an ice cream cone when this poem gets rejected / I am going to slice through a watermelon & press the panini so hard I’ll be forced to turn it into croutons when this poem gets rejected / I’m not afraid of sparklers bc they die out & I’m not applying to lead the choir / I’m just trying to be a better father to my husband’s plants & I promise I will read it to them when this poem gets rejected / I will sing to them on their deathbeds & bury their remains in the slumberyard / I will smash a watch with a mallet at the end of a tight five & tell the audience I will see them next time when this poem gets rejected / I will invest in a ride bracelet at the amusement park & wear it until the periwinkle plastic fades to a muted gray / I will buy myself another ice cream cone & practice my whistle when this poem gets rejected / I will interrupt my father but only when he tries to explain football to me / And I will ask him But who’s on first? When this poem gets rejected / I will try to hold my potty break for intermission & I will sneak out a couple minutes just before / And I will say isn’t this thrilling? To the geese crooning in the park when this poem gets rejected / Here I got you something RJ I say to myself as the kettle whistles & sand runs down the bulb / And hand myself a scoop of red velvet macaron with licorice ribbons: A parting gift just a little treat for when this poem gets rejected.
Prompt 7.1: What is your Ben & Jerry's flavor? RJ Equalitea [Red Velvet Macaron with Licorice Ribbons & Pieces of Candied Anise]
The Morning I Called For a Wellness Check / MeraBaird Kuar
We don’t eat food that lingers from the table to the sink,
that spills into the living room, onto the front porch,
that makes lines of demarcation between the eyebrows.
Being human today meant standing in the heat outside
the gate of the woman who told the neighborhood app
I was suspicious because my backyard was fenced,
but that was years ago. Today her door is open but I can’t
see inside the dark opening, like a gap-toothed grin obscuring
the grooves in the gums that will be an adult smile, yet hinting
at something lying in wait. Did she yell help, who is there with her?
I hear mumbles grow wider as I float on a string away from
and closer to, what do I do? I ask her questions that bubble up
from the spring, I don’t use my phone to conjure heart,
I use it to call the authorities and I disappear a few yards away
onto my porch, where my children wonder what adult novel
is writing itself, what bit of life is dying on a burning ledge
called mortality. I blow the wick, I see the waves waft down
the street. People pass, and ask and inhale and swallow
the day, hoping it stays down & digests into the juice of tomorrow.
without you and me / Kes Maro
’re always in blue
mirrored sunglasses
flipping horseshoe crabs
& cutting out wood-
-en bunnies with a table
saw. always a handful
of pistachio shells empty
on the table next to .
’re always sitting
in that chair. ’re always
cradling that horseshoe crab
just above the waves & showing
her legs. ’re always
asking why the bunny
has red eyelashes & elephant
feet. ’re always
making pancakes on a griddle
on a green linoleum counter
& telling to add blueberries.
’re always taking a nap
in that chair. ’re always
wearing a yellow hat.
’re always yelling
up the stairs at a different kid.
’re always going
into the basement to get
something. ’re always
saying don’t step on the crack
’ll break my back. ’re always
in the parking lot at the beach
& never on the beach unless
’re in the water
up to r ankles when
the tide is out like this
it’s like & could
walk across the long
island sound on crossing
sand bars & never
get our knees wet.
From your dad / Dallas Outlaw
Sneaking into windows
eating movie popcorn
laughing hearty laughs
like a true 90s hookup movie
i know you miss him
but this is why
men should ask permission
before taking yall away
when you still need
my pension; a dowry must be paid
and a question must be asked
before a broom can be jumped
or an i do be said
your upbringing discussed
your traumas healed
without childhood ptsd
being the basis for everything
conversations not just with you,
but with me
who’s going to love my baby
more than me
So, before the aisles
of the grocery stores
become the Isles of Skye
and I the Old Man of Storr
I’d wish that you’d consider him
asking, just this once
if he can borrow your hand
before having to return it
with nothing on it
My Bloody Valentine / Azmia Ricchuito
When I was born, they said I didn't cry.
I suppose after nine months
tethered to your umbilical noose
sharing a body that
never felt like home
That I'd long realized I was wasting my breath
with complaints.
Complaints are for the living.
Mourning belongs to the living.
And I was born
somewhere in between.
There was a part of me
abandoned in utero
before I ever took my first breath
like a song left off Nevermind.
An afterthought, a footnote.
Who listens to parasites, anyway?
My father hated the parts that were just like my mother
because she was never satisfied.
My mother hated the parts that were just like my father
because his temper could make even an angel cry.
I learned to stop crying
before
anyone
could give me
something
to cry about.
Long before my precocious ears heard
the empty threats
of generational curses
from cycles my grandfather broke.
He showed me the moon
through a telescope
and asked me if I thought
we were alone on this rock in space.
He taught me
How to laugh.
How to sing.
How to ride a bike.
How to love.
How to read.
How to write.
It was in the pages of my childhood diary
that I first learned how to cry.
When he died,
on a day dedicated to love,
I screamed until my throat bled,
the moon watching in silence
as I cried alone.
V a n i s h i n g P O I N T S / Tammy Smith
Since it’s no longer my fault
I’m FAT or that fads
keep changing (theory & practice) the way
I l o o k
at: pills pens pinpricks promises potential
ingest inject introject interrupt ideology
sacred scripts
in BOLD BULLETS
sublingual. slips of the tongue religiously
a weekly shot between breaths—watching
sweaty layers of scarred flesh
shed peel unfold
as inches disappear
Letter to David from a Datsun Wagon / Daphne Stanford
High school, driving foothills, boombox in
back, blasting Jareth’s lament: Everything
I’ve done, I’ve done for you. Of course, Sarah
refused to accept her assigned role of
Goblin Queen. Thigh gap, acid-washed
jeans: But it’s not fair! Clock hands chime 13.
You say that so often: I wonder what your basis
of comparison is? Down in the underground,
Jareth sought shelter among goblins.
Gnomes chuckled, briefly–shame blushing
your cheekbones. Helping Hands lowered you
down tunnels, toward a daydream not unlike
Alice’s Drink me teacup. Don’t mind if I do.
July - Poem 1
Quiver Theory / Clayre Benzadon
-after Marilyn Hacker
I was trying to keep my main hand
steady, but I couldn’t help it; the cry
that burst out of me was a monster. I
shook widely, wildly, I lost it, loose. And
then came the aftersniffles. I was full
of trembles, like lightning. Now, I come
home to a wreckage: papers everywhere, sum
of what they call disaster. I feel beautiful
in this chaos. I almost cry again, breast
heavy with a vibrating sensation of want. To be
as elastic as static makes my hair stand up. Trust me,
all I ask for is to be as animate as the last
time I quivered, without a tongue
having to get me there. Let me, unprompted, come—
I did not use the internet to write this poem / RJ Ingram
Congratulations your application is still being processed you’re on hold to speak with a representative & there are thirty two people ahead of you in line / This is the vacation you’ve waited for the forty-five minutes of freedom you wouldn’t normally have on a Tuesday in the early afternoon / A godsend a respite a gosh darn miracle / The dryer broke so go-ahead & hang the sheets in the yard & when the neighbor boy asks what you’re doing just say some analog shit & blow him a kiss / When the car is in the shop take the bus & get to work an hour early & watch the bag boys get ready for their shift / Watch them take the paper sacks from their boxes watch them shine their rainbow buttons with their dirty T-shirts watch them click their clicky pens like they’re betting on a winner / When the basement floods take an inventory of the unneeded & when the roof leaks befriend every bucket in the house even if it’s not a bucket / The stock pot becomes a bucket the extra cat litter pan becomes a bucket heck even the paint bucket get’s to be a bucket / The world is an unblemished apple / Spinning so fast the pitcher can’t miss it / When he hits the apple the crowd screams & when the bat smashes it the crowd screams & when the worms come up to eat what’s left the crowd screams / I reached for my phone to make a call this morning but realized time works differently now that you’re gone / Things tend to end before they get going which seems to upset everyone else on the carousel / But not me no not me I’ve still got a trunk full of tokens. Hi-yah!
Melancholic Music Takes Me Back to Sacramento Where I Discovered Fatalism or Something Like It / MeraBaid Kaur
(after listening to NPR's Tiny Desk: Chelsea Wolfe 2016)
My husband says we are all capable of anything, and he believes this, because the rhythm has hovered near the stamen never landing, but the waiving vibration of air wafts in, nostalgia enters the olfactory, the stimuli has been stimulated, response simulated, but its not response, its reflex, it is scents stacked on scents, stacked on scents and multiplied–magnified beneath the sweat that collects in the crevice of any old flap of unexposed skin.
You can’t hear the hovering hum, but you imagine it, you feel it stirring in the navel center where you were once attached to your mother’s lack thereof, there, of course was nothing specific to ingest, just waves of movement giving you fullness, not in language nor volume, in emotion, hers and yours and yours from long ago, and yours from later on and yours from the beginning of time that wasn’t yours, that wasn’t hers, but was.
It’s a choir, a resonant dissonance, it does not bring you chills, it chisels them into your soul, and they grow into notches along the shaft of your hair, it gets deeper now, don’t be fooled by calling it darker, it is not dark, it is pale and stark, your eyes squint to sift through all the light, you turn and eventually shut them tight.
The ocean of night, wrapped around each drive into town, windows down, the high hangs on from all the other highs before it, vegan sushi from the co-op, where I’d happen upon future stars, knowing they would be someday. I possessed their songs in a painful remembrance perfumed in infancy. Twenty-one was a rip tide I’ve learned to wade in, the shoreline kaleidoscoping around me forever in this sinking symphony.
lights ou / Kes Maro
new river deltas bound in rounded rectangles. creased
sketchbook pages folded into the corner of the couch i
circle closed pieces of land, neatly fitting, but not
touching. negative space rivers, all that nothing enmeshed.
so often i want to be in the world this way, not touching,
fitting. is it taps that plays at night? before sunset,
the coyotes chime in, throwing their voices up matching
bugle tones, entering staggered resolving after the horn
’s measure. the land knows the base by its noise.
the proximity of planes over head, the horn in the morning
and night, sometimes jets breaking sound
barriers. terror doesn’t build
in the air here like elsewhere. nothing has ever fallen
from these planes and decimated a cul-de-sac.
i want the land to feel tight or i think it should be
more like, the way it felt one time driving over the border
into the six counties, how the land rations its breath
under the union jack’s greedy lungs filling in every window,
or that it should be tenser than that. but the trees here
don’t feel worried. i’m not building
towards saying the base exists peacefully. really, i just
want to tell you about the coyotes, how they love
music, but there’s this landscape holding them
that can't be drawn over. i can't stop thinking
about where these planes go when they leave.
ASD / Dallas Outlaw
Actually still deft
Agile and clever
enough to keep
you on your toes
quite literally
midnight snack runs
because eloping means
it's time to eat
and no i don't want
the most convenient
i want ice cream
because you know
(sensory)
and in the morning
when everyone's asleep
i'll sit patiently watching
the same clip of cartoons
or you may catch me
bolting in the living room
interupting dead silence
before being forced into
uncomfortable social situations
routine keeps things clean
because my mind is messy
did you know that the color
yellow is my favorite aura
it’s calming, a worldly pacification
since information keeps overloading
on the dock of my brain
once I see red
I’m thrusted back into
emotional dysregulation
all over again
Does everybody have this problem?
Or is my own spectrum colorblind?
How Long Until You’re Gone Too? / Azmia Ricchuito
When you are filled with a longing
For places you’ll never know
Always looking for home
You can never find it in people
With their coming and going
Everyone you ever loved
Will one day be lost to you
Do you start grieving the day you say hello?
Or do you take a chance
That this time you’ve arrived
And put out a welcome mat
And flowers at the dinner table
Building bricks from the ashes of longing
Knowing you are finally home
Madness Has Some Nerve / Tammy Smith
Showing up unannounced
on a jam-packed NJ Transit bus,
halfway to New York City,
three hours before seeing
Girl, Interrupted
Off-Broadway in the Village.
How dare she block the aisle
with heavy bags,
causing weary-eyed riders
to trip over her belongings
on their way to seats
they already paid for.
Madness doesn’t care
about sweaty feet
tight inside loose shoes,
or pity worn-out soles
stuck in place.
Nothing matters.
Not this quicksand I’m in,
not this labyrinth I’m walking.
Not my therapist’s warning
when he insists
madness is what I manifest
to pass the time.
In the theater lobby,
I watch red-haired wild women
mingle and wait
for the show to start.
Sylvia Plath devotees.
Anne Sexton wannabes.
Hysterics.
Her Kind.
Mine, too.
Not to mention the nun
nestled in the corner,
needing salvation.
Doesn’t everyone?
After the show,
on my way back to Port Authority,
when the subway doors won’t close
and racist remarks spill
from a passenger’s lips
like loose change—
I’m reminded of the older Asian man
who sat in the front row beside me
and confessed he, too,
was a mental patient
back in the sixties.
How turbulent that time was,
not unlike this ride home.
Wilder, Be / Daphne Stanford
After Lucie-Brock Broido
As in startlement: birds flying dark toward
bewilderment. Emily sought fortitude: wander-
lust, purplings most wild, more purported than
possible. And wild to hold, and wild to shame:
field of larkspur & purple thistle. Dandelions
blowing seed toward wandering lambs, velvet
nostrils fixated upon moors, traversed: first by
Emily, then LBB, who wrote herself into E’s hand.
Notwithstanding, removing the tops of heads
necessitates a refusal to deny bewilderment.
Master, grant fortitude to grovel toward trails
untraversed: black olive, oak, maple & birch; tree
trunks guarding lambs huddled in copse-woods.
…And wild to wreathe, and wild to tame: forest &
fogged-up windowpane, notwithstanding. Be-
come wilder than the wind. (David was here, too.)
June - Poem 30
you can’t take the countryside out of me / A Cento composed by Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
with lines contributed and by Kristina Byas, Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson, Jess Gleason, Shane Moran, Jingyu Li, Stephanie Zito
I go to the trees,
raspberry my heart in blossom,
where sleep left me, torched,
and asks nothing of me
lovestump,
rising off dry ice. — serious — we’re mute ash,
a path worn smooth by someone else’s footsteps.
Yielding detours of my own
and I felt that in my bones.
Unearthing detritus of days gone by,
mistaking this scar tissue
between green covered mountains,
little sticks of dynamite
fading as they flutter, turn pale
like sails over her eyes,
settled inside the wound
and blanket myself in breath.
I can finally breathe.
fluency in us —
Still finding his balance
this moment will never end.
In one dream, the ghost said to get dressed for bed.
I’m delighted to wrap
the laughter of those missing.
Seen
for the son buried warm.
What we owe
a tap root to sink
until it fell in line —
Curiosity called me to climb:
I wanted to do it right, but I was peopling
heroes or foggy mirrors of our fellow struggles
even dreams must bind to —
Am I growing into my father’s sunlight
Because, somehow, I love my father still?
I like watching you smoke,
One mouth moving at a time —
God is a watchmaker in an old southern town,
like a half-dollar rattling the floor til’ flat, hand-holding and
was touch with him. I keep returning
for years, calling it home —
Exchanging hunger for love was routine
in my family. We called it Tuesday.
But the people who chose me back
scatter through the fields, where
my nightmares denting the pastures,
and rejoice in having my life for the living —
I release the interrogation of my own existence
into paper, the winter that healed
the more we flinched against that fire –
After the run of the day the sun takes a dip.
I want those june bugs back —
Birds sing me back to life, making the city
swelt red from my skin
until the day I die and go to hell,
I’m rooted for the season
across our skin again
in terrible corners —
I sometimes shudder to consider
sour obedience.
I lay myself down
then stayed on purpose.
I left the light on in the house.
I believed in infinity then.
I build, I change, I repair.
Begging. I say to you
in some dreams I’m the monster,
roots sprawl, building a staircase as
they move like teeth. Out here in the woods,
I wish I could repent at your bedside
atop the horns you hide.
The cherry, your mouth,
my sensual sanctuary
she gave me. A stone for holding
Kintsugi of hearts, frozen lake,
the sun sporing itself through the clouds —
Hope is enough to let it.
I can be the sturdy clay of earth
settled inside the wound:
I love you—infinity—
I wake up and try to remember
am I still
shimmering and white, monstrous angels
spanning from gold to blue —
I tried to write a love poem but I pained
all the fuck alone in my basement
this internal bruising, we’re just committing
a tap root to sink.
– all I think about is the coming storm
in purple hands.
Watch me silently sit,
the wing fells into the porched arch of my lower back,
belly down. Her ear resting right below his chest
into the untamed fields—a violent dell –
the shadows do not hold,
spikes pointing every direction —
If Michelle Obama is a Man, so Am I / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
Even though we birthed black babies.
Even though we forced them out of our holes
and offered them up to America
as a sacrifice.
Look at the slant of our jawlines
when our heads are tilted to the sky
while we’re thinking, the curve of our necks
when we’re swallowing again and again.
There’s no proof we could give that would satisfy
the doubter: a hand on our breasts? a finger
inside us? Our holes have been probed enough
—every word dissected for missing
consonants, every dress scrutinized
for missing sleeves.
We’ve diapered men, nursed
them, burped them, bathed
them, rocked them, taught
them, led them, held them, grieved
them, enabled them, resurrected
them, loved them. We’ve made men
president, and still some men
can’t say our names without choking
first, without stifling the urge
to say nigger behind us.
Look at all that we begot!
—babies and businesses
congregations and
countries.
Fine.
If we’re men
we’re the toughest
men, the kindest men
the smartest men. If we’re men
(then just admit it)
we’d make the most goddamn
beautiful fathers.
HANDS / Shane Moran
LEFT HAND
Answering the phone at the Berkeley Hotel is how I spent my summers off from college: helping
pretty girls sneak into the pool and drafting poems in the back, waiting for a bell. Every job has its perks, though most jobs are only bearable if the future is on your mind. For me, a present obsessed with the present is too stuck, too Buddhist.
After I graduated, I became the hotel assistant manager. Hospitality is about pretending you love people despite recurring inconvenience. I’m quite familiar with such labor, but couldn’t pretend forever. Jim Ryan soon gave me a job writing emails for him in his office. I sat beside Kalea and Sarita, fresh graduates, who walked with me to gossip on the lawn around lunchtime.
Few things are more interesting than the office politics at an old university. Still, my interest in pretending to be another man eventually dwindled, and my boss noticed and gave me three months to find another job. Oh. Well. My life is over. Failure. Ruin. Blah. Etcetera.
Then, probably a week later, I found work in HR—writing about mental health and the quotidian. No one likes to work, and I know that. So there I was: twenty-six, ADHD, dyslexic, a little girl-crazy, somehow writing for 38,000 people every month, saying things like:
Remember, getting on SSRIs is probably a good idea.
You don’t need to miss your sister’s wedding to finish a spreadsheet. And if you must, here’s how to cope with it.
Underrepresent how much you can do in an hour, then quietly exceed what virtually everyone else is doing, since accumulating wonder is both enjoyable and, in most offices, a marketable skill.
Xanax is a perfectly reasonable after-work treat, provided your car is already in the garage.
Zoom meetings are for the morning. Have that drink. We will replace you. Live a little.
RIGHT HAND
Zero is my projected profit from poetry this year. My days are divided : work, poems, and scrolling
everything except X. RIP Twitter. Sometimes, my phone gets so hot that it won’t charge, so I have to take it out of the case to keep scrolling. Please resist sharing your judgment. I’m quite innocent—much of my doomscrolling, really, is an algorithm of worthy poems and unreachable women.
Vices are best when people can’t see their effects on your physical body. I avoid overeating, overdieting, gym-ratting, frequent naps on tanning beds, and the like. I’m waiting to finally get paid for waking up only to fall in love—for my addiction to heartbreak (and my drinking). All this is the foundation for the almost-smut, the grief, and the confession I’ve put in this pretty package for you—and, if you ask me, selling it at a decent price.
((Only $20?))
Racing after recognition would be in my LinkedIn bio—if I’m honest. I see you—you see me. If you quote Baudelaire then tell me you watch Baddies, I’ll find you interesting. Pose for me. Let’s watch it together, so I won’t feel so judged by the crisp voice of Marianne Moore in my head. You know, one hour of dubious reality TV can feel medical cathartic, if you will.
Natalie and her baddies would’ve probably appalled Marianne, as did Ginsberg and his Beats, as did those pre-internet-porn exposés—but I bet the longer she watched, the more she’d find the ladies' fascination with realness entertaining. It is hard to look away. Knowing her cold eye, after a couple of episodes, she might write of this life of spectacle over dignity:
I, too, dislike it. Don’t know why I watch—certainly not for the wig pulling. Maybe it is the hammer of judgment on my heart, reminding me of all I’m forbidden to do.
Growing takes time, they tell me—but it is a constant fight for money and affection, brand and recognition. I’m eager to determine who I am. I want you to know who I am. I crave an eye that knows what is real and says what it sees. Baudelaire still comes to mind :
what strange phenomena we find…
All we need to do is stroll about with our eyes open.
Words for an Adult / Jingyu Li
Please, accept substitutes: a promise ring,
a cardboard house. Paper folded into a fan shape.
These were things you lived for. A popsicle stick
could build bridges, a sweet treat meant a sunny day.
Think of paper hearts and think of real hearts.
Among the grasses hide tiny people, bend down
and whisper to them what you hope
will never change.
Homecomings (and Goings) / Stefanie Zito
The car was filled with the smell of it
As we moved down the highway from the airport
The rhythmic rumble of roadway under tires
Pavement patched together
Staccato stretches of billboards
Peppering the horizon
A metronome of homecoming
Steamy asphalt and deep fried everything in the distance
Marked the fragrance of summer breaks
Extended family, former homes,
Now unfamiliar, foreign.
Feeling stranger.
Cold seams unraveling over time.
Connections I didn’t know how to repave.
June - Poem 29
Reflex / Kristina Byas
I stopped
listening to the rhythm of their breaths,
trying to read their faces.
Stopped measuring their silence
only to be mistaken.
Stopped believing
I could outrun
what someone else
had already decided.
As if I could bargain,
trade their truth for mine,
and call it understanding.
Anniversary Poem / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
Though we don’t make
up make
out make
sense make
love make
room for each other
on the couch anymore,
we make
believe we
make do
we make
dinner.
astronaut apéritif / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
When I walk into boiling summer days,
the air soup and dampening sound,
my heart is cold with the crisp quiet of winter.
My heart never arcs with static desire for cold
more than in the pinch of winter storms,
when the air reflects the cream-sounding light
of streetlamps the world, a crystal
halo. Here I crave
a deeper cold to sink within –
some sort of marrow-spoon to hollow me,
soup me up for the snow to eat,
reclaim me into clouds.
So, toss me up, lathered on toast,
to brush across the edge of space.
Let the black matter of the universe taste
what I offer and let me savor
what true freezing tastes like in return.
AUREOLA / Shane Moran
Grow up with earth - eyes closed
Build the palace - the sky
mourn more of your learning
Who learns to sing and does not know
The garden rocks reek of jasmine breath
Bulbs gladdened by a smile become one
endless ribbon - Stars get tangled
in her hair, comb them out for dinner
Teach kindness as a butterfly would
Become of the finest gifts - Chance
to rise or kill what sprouts out the dirt
of you - One can lose - only illusion
Window / Jingyu Li
When my grandmother died, my father wrote her name
in a notebook and drew a circle around it since
no one can step outside of death.
When my grandmother died,
my father drew a circle around himself
and looked at us through the thick window.
In the nights, he stepped outside the window.
In the days, he stepped back in.
One day he asked me if he could hurl himself from it.
What would I do if he jumped out the window and died,
he asked me. And since I was young, I had no answer
but I remembered the window.
There were times I forgot about the window
and tried to reach through the air for him.
There were times I believed we were on the same side
of the window. Or that I was him,
that I was the one about to jump.
Some days I turn my back to it, him and the window.
Cherish / Stefanie Zito
We sat together
You in my lap and me on the armchair
Which held us through it all.
Our home’s baptismal furnishings
The inaugural provisions of postpartum rest
Receiving the mess of waterweight
The milk that came in
The tears that followed.
We tested the limits of space
As we grew two by two
Canines and kids alike
My capacity stretching along with it.
Our yellow chair, the color of joy–
Forsythia, dandelion–
Early markers of spring.
Seasons have shifted, bodies growing
in time under tension
Fraying warp and woof
A slow shredding into disrepair.
Our trusty, rusty chair sat itself on the curb
We curled into its final embrace.
and carried our sorrow inward.
November’s darkness hung thick overhead
I turned on my heel and tore outside
Sheers in hand, tears on cheek
I stabbed the chair in its backside
Cutting to the heart, a swath for the savoring \
Running back inside waving
a victorious yellow flag of revival.
With my needle and thread
I wrote its next chapter
Piercing precious remnants
Two heart-shaped pillows
With which to bolster my children’s spirits–
A new and reimagined place to land.
June - Poem 28
Don’t Mind the Boys / Kristina Byas
Girls will be girls,
free,
wild,
laughing with ease.
Then,
here come the boys,
being boys they’ll be.
The Wound is not a Metaphor / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
The Wound is not a Metaphor
it’s the mangled toenail, split
and lifting. I approach it with reverence,
examine it, stand on tip-
toes, the throb of it.
My little pain baby
—foul fat flesh growing
around it. I love the way
it catches light.
cuteness aggression / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
Foxgloves accordionfold out
the hole in my chest
to the wound in yours.
I didn’t mean to let my yellowing hands
scrounge too wide, I wanted
to lounge like the sinners in limbo
with jasmine blossoms overflowing,
on your bruised face, cresting over
crusted cuts in the twinkling symmetry
ionic – iconic in its looming sun-
flickered in freckles and motes,
sloughing broken skin, and unhealing
lines in your face. I left them there –
that you asked me to leave
in a voice begging to leave
red welts, hand-shaped,
hand slapped, shovel-dug-
slam into your body
again with a meaning I can decrypt
when I bury you in bitter thyme and roiling worms
I pray you groan and rip my skin,
feel coughed nails, lungs splintering in
each bark telling me
that I’m wanted.
Someday we’ll sit, watch the seagulls
dawn over the ocean, and fight over the crabs,
who couldn’t scuttle sideways fast enough
to avoid the sharp beaked love.
Angel Sonnet 12 / Shane Moran
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart
rise above? Beryl asks sitting beside his ex-wife at their daughter’s
graduation, dancing with his ex-wife at their daughter’s wedding,
waking from a dream of his ex-wife the day of her second wedding.
Alone is a sturdy coffin, with only one string to pull on,
put he had to feel for it in that dark space. Often, he mistook
the fabric of his own clothes for the bellstring, until one day
he pulled and kept pulling it and the casket opened.
For while he stood there looking at the open sky,
until he lifted himself and stepped back out into the world.
His eyes took time to adjust to the bright lights of the sun.
He left new flowers at the foot of his parents grave and asked.
──────────────────
11. one can
lose
only
illusion
Other Home / Jingyu Li
for River, Komal, Kani, Nancy, David
Somehow
I think I left something behind,
possibility maybe, or a banana slug. A month and
we’ve done what my family never could or never would,
we understood each other somehow, metaphysical
dogs and all, and in prayer we named different
gods but they all sounded like gratitude
and every day we looked for the bear
that wouldn’t hurt us, in the place
that wouldn’t hurt us. The satellites in the sky
look like fireflies, I said. But I didn’t know
they were satellites until you told me.
Of course metaphysical dogs are real, you said
and so we became friends.
We make each other laugh, you said
or I forgot the words. I’ve started talking
like you. My brother thought your voice was mine
in a video with the bear. I need to walk this off,
you could have said about anything,
I’m wide open.
Ordinary Miracle / Stefanie Zito
Little by little
Rain falls. Sun shines. Flower grows.
Tale as old as time.
June - Poem 27
They Said I’d Understand When I Was Older / Kristina Byas
it was for my own good
at least that’s what they told me
at least that’s what I told myself
because the truth is always quieter
than the lies we
inherit
embody
and
protect
Same Mom. Same Moon. / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
My mom, at home in her slippers,
likes to stare up at the moon and hope
that I, forty miles away at home
in my bed, am staring out the window
at the same moon. “It makes me feel
close to you,” she says. Same mom.\
Same moon. Same moment of quiet
recognition. She likes to praise
God’s handiwork:
the moon, of course.
And me.
carbon-rod dating / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
I set fire to this house myself
and lay on the floor with you.
Your sunset-cloud eyes tendered me,
the smoke roiling over the ceiling.
Electricity warps with possibility.
Fire already combusts.
Our hands fell close, but sparks
sang better the less we touched,
the more we flinched against that fire
callusing out of every sooty bond of us.
Water births life.
Fire breeds it.
I stole the attic bird nests to weave
my kindling lips, painted them
with rosemaling rocking chair cinders,
pressing them, finally, to your lavender-stalk neck.
A nucleus fissions radiation.
A fire always radiated.
When the roof avalanched around us,
embers and charcoal and crisps,
a single electron of mine jumped
across the crush of bones to you.
Angel Sonnet 11 / Shane Moran
A child who’s lost the one who made him,
searches for her in the trees and in the unknown
bodies of others. Beryl found a woman other
than his wife to push grief into and she loved him.
Four years later, his wife asked for a divorce.
Their daughter: eleven. Two is better than one,
was the pitch he gave her about her new bedroom,
which was a carbon copy of one from an Ikea ad.
And when his daughter returned home each week,
if there was no woman for company, there was crying
through the night. Beryl listened to his mom’s old cd’s
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart….
──────────────────
11. chance
rise
or kill
what sprouts
out the dirt of you
Excerpt from “A House in Other Words” / Jingyu Li
mother
garden green
home
mother
geese imagine
home
garden
mother home
green
garden
geese imagine
green
geese
garden green
imagine
geese
mother home
imagine
A mother always faces
home while the geese look south \
to warmer weathers
But what happens when a mother faces two homes?
her daughter & infant son
her mother & father & country in a country far away
She wishes she could fly the distance—like geese—oh if she could fly!
Roots Entangled / Stefanie Zito
A seed knows how to grow
And so do I, for I began as such
Tucked in soft and sacred darkness
A cellular unfolding
A dreaming into being
Stretching into new spaces\
The liminal land of womb.
I’m still cracking open
Emerging
Taking root
Going deeper
Growing into the knowing
Of my being-ness
How to harmonize with
The holy mess of it all.
June - Poem 26
Bully / Kristina Byas
I don’t remember them all,
the many things they called me
other than my name.
And it wasn’t forgetting,
just surviving,
choosing my own voice
over their echoes.
Exiting Eden / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
There are bugs in paradise:
woolly-legged ones,
yolky-eyed, fat-winged,
ones that cling to the skin
like a grifter.
And the sun still spills its
milk on everything,
making us wet and rotten.
This is what Eve knew
when she planned her escape,
her mouth open wide and wanting.
She got tired of all that beauty—
another sunrise, another sunset,
ripples waltzing across the lake.
Sometimes thunderstorms are nice,
or twisters,
earthquakes too,
how they shake us
up, rearrange
the garden.
Beneath the Hand-shaped Oak / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
The last time I lounged beneath
was with summer in you
and my hands were brimmed
– june bugs, honey sandwiches, desire.
Now in aches of spring, again
the tree’s blossoming perfumed leaves,
but no June, no honey,
only desire.
Hands emptied, save
cloudy sunshine gaping through
such splinter fingers.
I want those june bugs back
– hopefully I can resurrect enough
of their iridescent bodies
to forget they stink when smashed.
Angel Sonnet 10 / Shane Moran
She joined him on the other side—held him,
and Beryl shrugged his wife off his shoulder,
telling her he’s fine, and continued reading
his eulogy. She returned to the pews and
he told the people of his mother who now
was with his father, and how he was unsure
if she would be thrilled or slightly concerned
she’d have to cook his favorite chili for eternity.
Once they were all gone from the repass,
his wife joined him in bed and held him—
His core convulsing, screeches of a bobcat,
a child who’s lost the one who made him.
──────────────────
10. be
come
of the finest
gifts
In the Rain in the Dark / Jingyu Li
I hold a flashlight in front of me
lighting up the few feet of road ahead of me
and I don’t know what’s behind me
or around. I wanted to spot a bear,
but I’m only looking at the ground,
though most things fall to the ground
so a lot can be implied from looking there.
The flashlight lights up streams of fine rain falling
and I see the slugs and occasional colored
leaves. I see what looks to be a snakeskin, I think
that’s what it is, so I take a closer look. But it’s the whole
snake smashed into the road, flesh spilling out
the sides, but barely. A snake it turns out, is mostly skin,
so with its insides out is still beautiful and recognizable.
I’m grateful today, that I can say life has taken me
so far. I paint a picture for others to see, I walk
through the rain and tell a story.
Emotional Roll Call / Stefanie Zito
They trace the trenches they’ve made
swiftly shuffling up the sidewalk
a familiar and deeply trodden path
one by one, brisk knocks on the door
I become their doormat. Groaning.
My hospitable disposition turns cold
hostility instead overtakes.
I light the candles and wish they could go elsewhere.
Maybe they just need to be seen
to be noticed.
a welcoming wave instead of kneejerk wince.
Suddenly I observe their pain as my own
soften my resistance and draw them in.
Hello to Fear. Anger. Resentment.
We go way back... Greetings.
Guilt. Shame. Regret. I see you carpooled again.
Welcome, Grief. I know you like to linger… I’ll pull up a chair.
Anxiety, it’s been a minute, but only just.
How about we make space for the Cautiously Hopeful?
I’ll extend the table– set the leaves in place.
Will you join me? Let’s make room for it all.
It’s time for some Radical Hospitality.
Let’s say Grace.
June - Poem 25
Damages the Art / Kristina Byas
I’m afraid you’ve been mistaken.
No one carved me smooth,
polished me for mantel display.
No sparkle or shine.
You won’t find me on a pedestal,
or hear songs filled with my praise.
I’ve got gritty corners tearing at fraying threads,
splinters catching on careless hands.
I am
unbecoming,
jagged.
Refusing to sand myself down
for easier holding
only to be mishandled.
My edges are proof
I’ve touched the world
and been hit back.
But there’s softness
after the burning subsides.
Homegoing / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
her fingernails
the color of wet tea bags
she holds a moist cotton ball
up to the place where the mouth
splits open
in the backwoods
of Mississippi, pods hang
from the carob tree, curled up and dry
like my grandmother’s body
God is a watchmaker
in an old southern town
Plutonian Orbit / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
It’s a warm day in spring and I sit
beneath a sycamore with baby leaves
and I see your green sapling face.
I stand like I’m cornered by a predator
– some tiger waiting at me –
hands out if a 90˚ angle will defend me.
It’s high hot day in August and I roll
into the shade of that sycamore
and you’re shirtless at the fountain.
I hold in a scream so hard I blow my voice.
I eat Oregon forest black cherry ice cream
to revive what’s left of my throat.
It’s fall, the sycamore is falling,
like the sky, and no one is out
in the gray and the thunder.
So I float down through the cobwebs
of my ceiling and land in my unmade bed.
I can’t stop moonscape-shaking.
It’s a delicate winter day after snow,
I walk looking down, and you
hit me with a snowball.
I gaze at the underlid of your eye –
whatever could be within their green irises too
expansive in expression and reflected in my own.
I crave your hands at the mid-
crutch of my back – the wing-
spot – where I can never itch.
Caress me there, see me here,
and I’ll kiss you once
and I promise –
I don’t know what,
but I know it will taste like sun-
dried limes, cloves, and honey –
Angel Sonnet 9 / Shane Moran
Backpack bouncing on her shoulders,
she skipped all the way to the car.
Beryl held his breath until he got his
Hi, Daddy, releasing it with her Hi, Baby.
And then, he lowered the music to a murmur,
asking if she’d like pizza before they head home.
Wearing a bib designed to look like a large slice,
he shared—a little sauce on her face, he had to tell
her something. Grandma—my mom, Lala passed
away this morning. Beryl fell quiet as the pizza fell
|flat on her plate, and she slid out of her booth.
She joined him on the other side—held him.
──────────────────
9. teach
kindness
as a butter
fly would
Days / Jingyu Li
by Bei Dao trans. Jingyu Li
Use a drawer to lock up your secrets
Write notes in your favorite books
Insert the letter into the mailbox
Then stand silently for a moment
Stand in the wind, making judgements
about those who pass by, without scruple
Be aware of the shop windows lit
by neon lights. In a telephone
booth, drop a coin into the slot
Ask the old man fishing beneath the bridge
for a smoke. The boats on the river
sound their empty whistles
Gaze at yourself through the fog and smoke
of the theater’s dressing mirror. When the curtains
cut off the noise from the stars and sea
Flip through the pages of pictures
and handwriting under the light.
Things I Used to Think / Stefanie Zito
I once thought autumn leaves reattached themselves to waiting branches in spring.
I once thought the lamp post next to the half moon was the moon broken in two.
I once thought I wanted to be an astronaut until I discovered my fear of flying.
I once thought I could save all sea life by snipping the plastic rings of soda cans.
I once thought the difficulty of love was merely in the finding of one’s soul mate.
I once thought heaven and hell were destinations rather than internal residences.
I once thought I knew what I was doing until I realized I didn’t.
I once thought everyone else knew what they were doing, but they probably don’t.
June - Poem 24
Dress Code / Kristina Byas
Girl,
smile.
Be sweet instead of bitter,
easier to swallow.
Because if they choke,
we’re dead.
Psalm of Pleasure / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he
leadeth me beside the still waters. 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with
oil; my cup runneth over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:and
I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
What Dredges When Listening to YUNGBLUD’s “love song” / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
Slam into my heart with secrets –
you’re screaming bloodily out anyway –
we’ve both kept them too long.
Exchanging hunger for love, was routine,
but sky-fell out of truth and now must
slam into my heart. With secrets,
I whisper over a cauldron of my body
I didn’t deserve the harsh-love.
We’ve both kept them too long,
this internal bruising, we’re just committing
our weirdest bodies to fix this wild
slam. Into my heart, with secrets,
I nurtured whatever love would grow,
It never was for myself. Just memories
we’ve both kept. Them too long
screaming we’re not good enough, never
good-enoughs. Maybe I won’t listen.
We’ve kept them too long,
slam into my heart without secrets.
Angel Sonnet 8 / Shane Moran
He saw nothing but the crown of her face—a halo
as he woke her. His wife away, she brushed her teeth with him.
He sits on the toilet giving her directions
on how to wash her body. After she shouts
I’m done, he has her jump from the tub
into her towel and he lifts her up into his arms.
He tries to do her hair like mommy does it,
but she will have to be satisfied with a ponytail.
He tells her in the car line, not to let any boys
pick on her. And she nods, running out the car
slamming the door behind her. Her Abby Cadabby
backpack bouncing on her shoulders.
──────────────────
8. stars
get tangled
in her
hair, comb them out for dinner
Museum / Jingyu Li
crowds trace
one man’s feeling
through empty
halls and
silent rooms, can
walls hold time
in place?
Seasonal Swarm / Stefanie Zito
The seasonal swarm of winged ants were
eerily illumined by the glow of our chunky television
dispersing soon after arrival.
I sat disquieted on our muted carpet
my back to our family sofa
watching in anticipation
with my antenna up.
Climbing onto the couch,
clutching cushions softly
weeping into the orange plaid
forecasting my own flight.
I’m lifted and carried off
to our next house for a season.
The couch didn’t meet us there.
June - Poem 23
What I Answer To / Kristina Byas
I didn’t want to be named for a legacy.
I didn't want a life already outlined,
a path worn smooth by someone else's footsteps,
their story folded into mine.
Chapters written before I learned to hold a pen.
Pages filled with expectations, hesitations, and grievances.
Annotations explaining away the choices
they labeled as mistakes
or immaturity.
But I hear it,
how people say it with reverence.
Like something sacred.
A prayer whispered in a dead language.
I’d rather something chosen
for the person standing here,
not for the memory standing behind me.
No family myth.
No invisible audience waiting to see
if I could live up to it.
A name that belonged only to possibility.
Instead, I learned early
how heavy a few syllables can be.
How a name can point backward
every time it is spoken.
How it can feel like being mistaken
for someone you've never met.
And still, I respond.
Maybe it is suitable enough.
Or maybe there’s a name
I might have given myself,
one that feels like an unburdened breath,
and asks nothing of me
but my own becoming.
Mother Goose Goes to Therapy / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
Sometimes I want to scream.
Sometimes when I’m making breakfast,
I want to smash the carton
of eggs to the floor.
I’ve secretly wished to push
kids down the hill at the playground.
I’ve dreamt of whipping the children
and sending them to bed.
Do you think it has something
to do with my childhood?
Is there a pill you can prescribe
to make the rain, rain go away?
I’ve been seeing beggars riding
wishes like horses again. Just last night
I opened the door to shout hey
diddle diddle at the cow and the moon.
Upon Hearing Stephen Wilson Jr.’s “Father’s Søn” for the First Time / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
My father fished every Halloween –
glowstick on the end of his deep sea fishing pole
reeling unsuspecting families to the door.
My father used the same pole to fly kites
in the Maine seabent winter winds.
The kite shaped like a shark.
I’ve grown jealous of breezes
rolling effortlessly
as children slipping on ice.
He held the rod over my shoulders.
The wind vibrated down my arms,
morse code of the sky. The shark tried
to snap away, but we gave it slack
with each gust it looped towards the sky
further from the sea. His narrowed arms
surrounded my minnowed body,
held me on earth.
Am I growing into my father’s sunlight
because I miss the melt in him,
because I want light alive again–
or just that I don’t know how to float?
He didn’t echo as his father’s son –
too much wind
never enough shark.
Could I’ve been my father’s son
as well as his daughter?
I think I’m shark enough for him:
packful and almost patient, almost-
learning the poor lessons he taught, poor-
lessons he’d learned before. At least,
I hope so. I hope I find that kite
rolled in the attic, the basement, the garage,
reeking of mold and sky, and fish the sky.
I’ve already got his narrowed arms,
his cackle-laugh.
Perhaps, in the winter winds of Maine, I’ll launch
myself up, icing in the clouds over the sea.\
The gulls will eat my eyes
and I’ll see him again.
Angel Sonnet 7 / Shane Moran
The women who proclaim the good news are a great army,
Beryl said to his fiance’s bridesmaids as he found
his place at the altar, hugging and thanking each of them.
Clammy hands and watery eyes, he watched her father
give her to the altar. And after the first married kiss,
the eating and the dancing. They took a bottle of champagne
upstairs and got in the bath. He sat at the end—opposite
the faucet—his elbows grazing the rim, while she lay
belly down, her ear resting right below his chest.
They scrubbed each other in vanilla. She rose out
of the water, and sat on him with a trill song.
He saw nothing but the crown of her face—a halo.
──────────────────
7. be
come
one end
less ribbon
The Fast Moving Lights Across the Sky are Satellites / Jingyu Li
and I miss my mother. I miss asking her what’s in the sky
even though I just talked to her today, and she showed me the baby
bird that fell out of the tree. It wasn’t quite a baby, it was
maybe a toddler bird taking its first unsuccessful flight
from the nest. My mother continued to garden, knowing the bird
wouldn’t go anywhere. When she finished, she got her phone \
from the house to take a picture. I wonder
if she would have regretted it, had the bird flown
off against her prediction. She loves birds, so she might have
been a little sad, but she would have been happy for the bird,
the way I’m happy the bullfrogs come and leave when
they’re supposed to. It doesn’t take long to miss a place.
The satellites in the sky look like fireflies.
Self Soothe / Stefanie Zito
I want to reach inside
my chest and softly caress
the unresolved spaces
dipping fingers into the crux
of these chambers
and emptying myself
of what was never mine to carry.
As I mine the depths
of my courage
I soothe the spaces that have
held on for dear life–
I hold myself instead
call myself beloved and
whisper sweet somethings
under my breath.
June - Poem 22
Good Girl / Kristina Byas
I taste no apologies
on my tongue, but
I remember them,
dry,
bitter,
sour obedience.
Say a word enough
and it breaks apart,
first its meaning,
next its sound,
last its flavor.
I’ve learned a new way to say
I am here,
with a familiar unpalatability,
only not to me.
Blood Harmony / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
Childvoice
Heartbound
Fatherwound
Godbite
Throbknot
Smokeglow
Deadhead
Lovestump
Stillair
Motherchord
Kinburn
Mythmold
Griefwork
Faithflood
Blackhush
Blueode
solstice / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
summer
breathe sleep out of my lungs
cobweb sun to my eyes
raspberry my heart in blossom
winter
slake air from my glut
swelt red from my skin
slay shine from my eyes
Angel Sonnet 6 / Shane Moran
How the group decided a man was guilty
was first by him being a man, Beryl read
on the first page of a novel entitled,
Our World After Men, sitting on the table
of his friend’s lesbian parent’s apartment.
Gini sees him holding the book and after
asking if he’d like coffee tells him, how
much she loved the book: you almost forget
about the men by the end of it. Beryl laughed,
as he grabbed another book from the table, Psalms.
The dogeared page had a note in the margin, reading:
The women who proclaim the good news are a great army.
──────────────────
6. bulb
gladdened
by
smile
It’s Father’s Day and I Haven’t Called / Jingyu Li
In the dark I walk
from cabin to laundry room to move my clothes out
of the wash and into the dryer—it would be too late
by morning, they would all smell of damp. I felt
a horror, that fear from childhood, of bears and of monsters
restless in the dark. The bear I had been waiting for
in daytime would be something entirely different at night.
The past days I’ve been asking, how do I let myself
feel without the flood? My father used to
cook me noodles at night after a hard day’s work, slim
noodles in a simple broth, abundant with chili oil,
scallions, two poached eggs.
With the trees on both sides and my flashlight
facing forward, I cannot comprehend what lies
around me, how much periphery I cannot see.
The important thing is not to spook
yourself, if you start running you’ll think there’s something
to run from. I keep my head straight, step
by step down those wooden stairs where the banana
slugs like to go. But they are not there now.
I’ve moved my laundry like a good
adult. I’ve burst into my cabin and shut the door.
Can I let myself be afraid now?
Petrified? Sorrowful? In this flood of warm air?
Please Turn Down the Heat / Stefanie Zito
AC units synchronize their blasts
cutting summers dank swelter
drowning out the soundscape
of tunes streaming from rolled down windows.
Neighborhood porch hollers are stifled
as is the incessant construction.
A glass of ice water sweats out a circle
mirroring my own puddles
of effort and release
amidst the thick air of ambient stress.
June - Poem 21
Ready. Set. Go / Kristina Byas
I keep count,
measuring the minutes
from now
to memory.
In All My Dreams, My House is the One I Grew Up in V / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
If I tell it exactly how it happened,
we were in a bar or a club, waiting
for a bus to take us home: me, my best friend,
and that one girl from high school I never
did like. The walls were yellow or green,
and I wandered down the stairs,
my son behind me, trying to keep
up with the woman in the black suit
with the bun in her hair. I opened
a door and someone was taking
a shower, but I couldn’t see who
it was behind the curtain, so we ran
to the street, hopped the bus and rode
so long, we missed our stop.
We had to get off, so we walked
to my childhood friend’s house (but
it wasn’t her house), she let us in,
and we stood in the hall while she changed
her clothes. She was the age I am now, but as
she walked room to room, almost naked,
her body was long and lithe like we were
at seventeen, and I fell to the floor. I almost died
just looking at her. Then, somehow,
we were back on the bus trying
to get back to Mound St.
An Ode to the Tartan Army / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
I fell asleep on the softest June night on chanting
No Scotland, No Party
My brain looned outward, fraying places
back and forth – Boston to Scotland –
leapfrogging who to sing, hug, kiss,
longest, loudest, hardest.
You rolled Boston in a love like a roar.
In a house burning itself,
you made us touch our own faces,
feel the tears there, and know
what kindness feels drawn
across our skin again.
Angel Sonnet 5 / Shane Moran
He leaves the building for the last time, smiling.
Jury Duty is not a glamorous activity, but Beryl
found it interesting to weigh the evidence of guilt
upon a person other than himself for once.
The man was accused of shooting his son’s best friend
after finding him on top of his wife in his bedroom.
Beryl found it hard to say guilty, but harder to say
innocent. The beauty of his wife wearing black
didn’t help this discomfort. But under the September
sky and out of the stuffy court room—he is eager
to tell his friends all about it—guilt-free,
how the group decided a man was guilty.
──────────────────
5. the garden rocks
reek
of jasmine
breath
Never / Jingyu Li
Tucson night, hot night
another wishbone, fast driving car
there’s an orange in my
pocket, take it, it's free.
A dog with a bone and a bark
on tv, the night was hot. I remember
the cowardly dog.
I remember houses burning down
bad things happening
to good dogs. I fell
on the steps, a sharp pencil
stabbed a centimeter
below my eye. Tom and Jerry
were golden, something that would
never end. If you chose the scared dog
over the brave one, nothing
would end. Nothing would change
walking to the store with your mom
for your birthday cake. She fought
with your dad. Still she remembered
your birthday cake. Cowardly
dog, you’ve never been
happier or sadder.
Holding & Held / Stefanie Zito
Roots sprawl, building a staircase as
I climb the stone shaped course
Soil-filled slits of eroded spaces
Plant green flags of marked memory
Holding much in the crevices
Cracks swell under pressure
Exposing raw spaces.
Though I want to be strong
I don’t have to be stone
I can be the sturdy clay of earth.
Soft. Held. Porous.
June - Poem 20
Doubt / Kristina Byas
Still.
Still not.
Still am.
Am I still?
My Father Talks About Death / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
My dad says people are dying
who have never died before,
and I wonder if he’s talking
about me: little girl
in the picture—taffeta skirt,
socks trimmed in lace, pony-
tails, bangs, eyes
swollen from crying.
My dad says people are dying
in their sleep and not waking up:
eight-year old me pretending
to doze just so he’d pick me
up and take me to bed.
Object In the Mind of Others / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
The only meaning in life is to reside as a good object in the minds of others.
– Tom Hiddleston quoting a “very wise man”
Longing is not strong enough verb for once
to be a thing, beloved as a childhood
stuffed toy, velveteen and come to life,
trying to holler with my spaghetti-thread mouth
don’t trust anyone
who tells you they are a nice
person, trust someone
who is kind to you.
Because nice is not kind.
Nice will tell you a lie and swear by it.
Kind will yell you truth while swearing.
Nice is in the lips painted red.
Kind is in the eyes rimmed red.
I want to live, wiser than Yoda
who proclaimed to do or do not,
there is no try. To try is all
we can swim to when we’re unfathomed.
Nice is thoughts and prayers.
Kind is protesting.
Object in the minds of others
that strength is your arms, your legs.
Object it’s the size of your soul in god’s.
Strength snuggles fawn-shapped
in bramble space
between heart and lungs in someone else,
eating bark and leaves and clover,
so the sun can shine down, finally
with finality, on the grave fresh
for the son buried warm
for lavender to grow in.
Angel Sonnet 4 / Shane Moran
Beryl conjures his father’s famous courage and smears
the butter on the bagel and makes the coffee with two sugars
just as John likes it. He knocks with only two quick strikes
and after John’s come in, he slips his way into the office,
minding coffee. He sets it down on the coffee table
in the middle of the office and asks John for a talk.
I have been here for four years, John, and I would like
the opportunity to do more than assist your daily tasks.
And John looks at Beryl and laughs, then do it—
you don’t get a new job by only doing your job, kid.
Beryl nodded and turned around leaving the office.
He leaves the building for the last time, smiling.
──────────────────
4. who learns
to sing
and does
not know?
Dear M—, / Jingyu Li
It’s been hard to speak the truth lately. My hair’s
been on fire but the painting hand still moves. The brush tip
touches paper in calm strokes as if knowing some truth I don’t.
How can I speak what I do not know? The familiar feelings
are not coming, so I must invite them like guests. I had a dream
a girl with the same name went missing. Her boyfriend
came looking for her and I thought I could be of help. Almost
immediately, I knew something bad had come of her. That was
the end of the dream. When I woke, I was only glad to have felt
strongly. I didn’t consider what the dream meant. It's bullshit
isn’t it? That dreams are trying to tell you something. We only
think that when there’s something we want to tell ourselves.
I think I miss myself. I think I fear that I’m dead.
Or that some parallel existence of me is dead. It shouldn’t
matter because I didn’t like her all that much.
But dear god I miss her.
Seneca Rocks / Stefanie Zito
Seneca stands out
of place, a shifted stone
forced from his home
of the sunken sea.
A hardened tsunami wedged
between green covered mountains
strained upright by jagged time.
This rocking relic remembers
his origin, boasting hefted artifact
with a wave of his towering tidal fin
in resistance to fitting in.
June - Poem 19
We Are / Kristina Byas
Kin,
skin.
Eyes wide, full
of wonder
to wander.
Silver,
our native tongue,
fluency in us.
Late Declaration / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
I want women in power in business in STEM. in the military in trades in
suits in high heels in film in aviation in bikinis in congress in music
in marketing in sports in hotpants in lace in uniform in finance. in glasses
in ERs in TV in gaming in kitchens. in art in law enforcement
in real estate in leggings in publishing in landscaping in radio
in bakeries in childcare in courtrooms in boardrooms in factories
in nursing in sweaters in architecture in fashion in fitness
in mining in nighties in pulpits in daydreams. in space in makeup
in hindsight in pink I want women— like, want them want them—
lips to lips eye to eye hip to hip sternum to sternum
Twister (1996): Did You See My Cows Out Front? / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
I have seen Twister over 600 times.
I babysat myself each summer,
dumping the VHS into the VCR,
CRT TV squaring out the pixels, I rode
along with the storm chasers, those hodge-podge
collection of friend-family, found-family,
soda-cans-improvised-into-propeller family.
I sang along with four different stereos
playing four different songs along synapses
of the CB radio of my brain, the undiagnosed
CPTSD canyon between the lobes of my brain.
I ate along, each lunch, each day, at Aunt Meg’s,
served up steak and eggs, wondering
about lightning,
about what it feels like to be hit.
Asking whether it’d be better to be hit
than screamed at, better to be hit
than windslide around the house in socks
avoiding notice, better to be hit
than be told I’d never be the thing
that’d get off the ground, better
to be hit, than told I was wacko, I was crazy.
I looked at Aunt Meg’s table,
with her steak and eggs and homemade lemonade,
I look still
and long. Each time, I ask
to be lightning struck
over 600 times,
than remember fake silence
of not being struck.
Angel Sonnet 3 / Shane Moran
A black face underlined in pearl—a one of a kind.
Beryl’s best friend’s mother looks like a Huxtable,
and takes the boys to a white stripmall church
on Wednesdays nights. In the field just beyond
the parking lot, Beryl and his best friend play smear the queer
with their youth pastor’s husband and all the other tween
boys, who like to prove their strength in tackling the bodies
of other boys. Beryl likes to throw the ball, but he doesn’t
like the feeling of grass on his bare skin. Pastor Bob
compares Beryl to Colin Kaepernick—pussy.
His best friend tells him to man up, show these white boys.
Beryl conjures his father’s famous courage and smears.
──────────────────
3. mourn
more
of your
learning
The Bear / Jingyu Li
All month long I waited for a bear to appear
though I spent much of that time in bed and in other places
where a bear would not appear. It will be Father’s Day soon
so I remember the colored letters I once printed and hung
above the dining room table spelling ‘H A P P Y F A T H E R ’ S D A Y !’
and it was my joy to do that, my gift to celebrate. Today
my arms are stained in paint and I am painting a picture
for a friend. The bear still has not appeared in my window
and I do not know how to begin searching for it. I wait
for a miracle appearance. Ba, how much I want to paint you a picture
but can’t. A picture must come from the heart. I cannot paint you a picture nor
can I send you a #1 Dad mug or apron. I am sad because I don’t mean
to make you sad with my withholding. Every father
wants to believe their child believes they are #1. Breaking
the illusion is like telling a child Santa is not real and never
has been. But a gift does not owe the world any truth except intention. Maybe once
you were the #1 Dad, because I believed it. But it’s hard to believe now,
even for just a day. This poem would hurt you I think, by acknowledging what
you know, but this poem also sends its regrets, yours mostly, and mine
On Remembering / Stefanie Zito
I go to the trees
to remember how
to be here and now.
June - Poem 18
If the Day is Kind / Kristina Byas
I’ll set my thoughts down,
leave them waiting for tomorrow,
to consume me then.
When My Therapist Says “You Matter” / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
your words—
little sticks of dynamite
thrown directly into my heart
Hvaldød / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
There is no whale worth this cliff –
the sun sporing itself through the clouds
objects, looking down on the whales,
the cliffs, us, skvulpet on this roll
slid sideways, the pink and indigo of its eye
fryder in our jig towards the jags
of the crags, the zig and zags of trials
from these spiked slabs our bow
aims toward, despite our arms at the wheel.
The sun will watch us break on the whale –
the whale break on us –
the cliff breaks all grønn on its brun.
All oil of something will slide out
from someone’s fat and svaier on the storm
woken waves, tipped pink our noses, ears, fingertips
before breath squeezes out, then iceberg-bones us.
Senke oss ned i våre graver så dypt –
wake us, sun, wake us whale
warm us, steer us, uncliff us.
Hør oss if just once before the sun sits behind
our rudder, our clouds, our lives.
Å senke livene våre dypt inn i det neste –
deep, død, deep.
Above him is the heavy fatherhood of his father,
as it was not uncommon for Beryl’s father to remind
him of the boy’s privilege of having a father at all.
Beryl’s pities his father for the drum set
in the Galleria window he never got that his father
promised. At 12—it is good to be humbled,
yet there is a sting of feeling that comes with feeling
lucky to be a rock amongst rocks. It is natural,
that Beryl is searching on Ebay for a drum set
that matches the description his father gave him?
Midnight blue metallic shells with silver hoops and
a black face underlined in pearl—a one of a kind.
──────────────────
2. build
the pal
ace
the sky
Pythagorean / Jingyu Li
Calendula / Stefanie Zito
Cheer up they tell me
With their perky blooms and chunky stalks
Calendula know how to keep on the sunny side
Ornamental, edible, medicinal, cosmetic, prolific
Well, I too am rising and have much to offer, but
Even calendula tighten spent petals over time
Tucking themselves in
Curling, hardening
A spiky pod of colorless crustaceans
Dive into soil below
Stashing themselves for future unveiling
A jackpot boasting future blooms,
Merry and golden.
June - Poem 17
Birthright / Kristina Byas
Privilege (noun):
a family heirloom inherited at birth,
a tradition with unquestioned origins, used by individuals as a means of self-preservation.
Hoodoo / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
I dreamt of fish.
I bought a man shoes, and he walked
out the door.
A bird flew into my window
when I was sleeping
and now my grandmother’s dead.
I left the light on in the house
to welcome the spirits.
I broke a mirror and buried
the shards.
Goodbye My Children / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
Our ship burns on purpose,
on whale oil. Its meal scrapes our teeth
preparing sinewy arms for the storm
– taller than the fjell, culling
more than the fjord we sail
– to rip the ropes from our callus-full hands,
to tear luaen from our red-eared heads,
to bat our ship like a bird from the air,
to cat-play with mice to the terrible end.
The water chums brown behind us,
trollene diving, stirring silt of safety.
But the deep of kokingen holds no power
of saving us – only that of redeeming finality
downing out that deluge of snow unhindering
from the mountains onto our kroppene,
onto our unblessed hands unceasing
in hauling for whales in this ice,
hauling for fire in this water,
hauling for our lives, and whistling:
å utsette tiden –
stalling our time.
Angel Sonnet 1 / Shane Moran
Beryl wakes and follows his father to the bathroom.
They brush their teeth together. He undresses
his five-year-old body and folds his pajamas, leaving
them on the toilet as the father takes off his beard.
The smell of aftershave is a man. His father turns
on the shower. Beryl enters in a hop like double
dutch—a little afraid of the water. His father
joins him and washes him, quickly—no words.
With soap on every part of his body, Beryl leans against
his father’s hairy chest until he is completely rinsed.
Then he sits and pushes his blue duck adrift in the suds.
Above him is the heavy fatherhood of his father.
————
1. grow up with
earth-
eyes
closed
Hansel and Gretel’s Tale / Jingyu Li
and then we abandoned our parents, left
them far behind, no crumbs to trace us by, we let
their rough hands go, held each others’ hands.
They’ll say we are lost, or eaten by a witch,
only the stars will wink, only the stars will know
what brilliance is a brother, what brilliance a sister’s
word. Up ahead farther, up ahead some more,
the forest is not dark after all, we spun around
and it was day. A sip from a river and all our toes
are health, a twirl in the clearing and time rewinds
itself. Sometimes we dream of walls, sometimes
they move like teeth. Out here in the woods
hummingbirds come to rest. Once we were told
a story, but sister, it is easy not to be lost.
City Deer / Stefanie Zito
I want to learn how to be chill like the city deer–
who despite their anxious disposition, have quickly grasped how to anguish less than their survival instincts mapped onto them. Though they get really turned around in their wandering about, and though I’ve seen them clomping down sidewalks in the strangest locations, city deer seem to be fairly used to us humans. Sometimes I’m more afraid of us than they are. Maybe I should be more like the deer– mind my own business. Steer clear when I can. Steal from the wealthy gardens. Snacks for the road. Meanwhile the cemetery is the city’s second zoo. So much life amidst such death. It’s literally wild. The deer frolic without giving mind to the bodies and memories on which they stomp. They stretch and leap gracefully over the graves– the way faith taught me I would do in time. They don’t plan or keep time, yet have everything they need in looking out for each other.
I want to learn how to be chill like the city deer.
June - Poem 16
In Progress / Kristina Byas
I am the girl I used to be,
I am the woman I have become,
I am the stranger I’ve yet to meet.
I am.
Spiritual Practice / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
The first time she masturbates she does it with her hands,
the finger she dips in oil to make the cross on her forehead
now curled up inside her motioning, come here, come here.
The pastor told what it is to for a woman to be blessed:
year after year, a little angel nursing at her breasts, a man’s
arms, muscular and sweaty, wrapped around her body.
The bible says it is better to marry than to burn. Get down
on your knees and pray for your bridegroom, the pastor spat
from the pulpit, waving his hands in the air, and she will but
now she lies on her side, head bowed, knees drawn up to her chest
like a baby, born again and again and again and again and again.
Drukningsdøden / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
As you tremble, trundled up,
it’s the glacial spray that tastes you
first, the green of water before the blue,
the salt in the air before the cold,
the beat of boat beneath your feet
before the wind inside your fingers –
glovesless because you’ve forgotten them,
hatless as your hair wisps ‘round your ears.
All of you awfully cowled by the glaciers, seven
shimmering and white, monstrous angels,
quelling to quiet all the moments
between heartbeats, even thudless
on the hull, only ice groaning
Se og vær redd for meg
in seven voices echoing in dissonant choruses,
drilling holes into the green, the blue,
the salt, the wind, and the boat. Taste
that drowning coming for you and whisper:
Tusen takk.
Jeg elsker deg.
PENIS / Shane Moran
I’ve mulled over how I treated your body,
an ignition and my body, a pacifier.
I should have been more quiet in the dark
and felt your skin for what it was: a shore
of silent-hills and raised hairs. I thought watering
your Spanish needles and placing ice in your orchids
were comfort enough — I didn’t know what to do
with your body sick or grieving or out of its mind.
I submit. I’m capable of blindness. A dickhead.
There were better ways to love than devouring
your body until our faces were unrecognizable
without a squint and the right light.
Untitled / Jingyu Li
by Bei Dao, trans. Jingyu Li
Reach out
your hand to me:
don’t let
the world that’s blocked
by my shoulder disturb you.
Imagine love
is not forgetting and suffering
is not memory.
Nothing really
ends. Even if only
the last poplar is standing
like an empty tombstone
at the end of the road.
Don’t you know?
Falling leaves can still speak,
fading as they flutter, turn pale
come to a stop
yet still supporting
our heavy footsteps. It’s true,
no one knows tomorrow,
tomorrow begins
in another morning,
at that time,
we will have fallen
into a deep sleep.
Soft Summer / Stefanie Zito
The time is ripe to step
into a new season,
so let’s slip in
to something more comfortable
trade the too tight
drawstrings of busy bygones
retire the attire of rigid demands
declaring them outdated, passé.
I’m here for a silky spell
of smooth and simple scenes
the luxury of unfastened time
loosen the slack
drop the to-dos.
let’s drape ourselves
in the softest summer.
June - Poem 15
Semantics / Kristina Byas
Carefree, not careless.
Taught by consequence,
not choice.
My tongue has learned
the difference.
And the burden of knowing
stole something from me
and left room for neither.
Mary Considers Abortion After Gabriel’s Visit / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
17 Blessed? she thought. 18 And Mary went to the garden behind the house and fell to her knees. She loosened her hair, tore at her clothes and almost cried out to God. 19 But she shut her mouth and got up. And she went out into the field in search of the yellow flower, and she plucked it. 20 Then she went to the stone and ground the heart-shaped pods into dust and took that dust and placed it in a cup. 21 She was trembling just thinking about what might be said. And could she be sure the one who had visited her was an angel? 22 She looked down at her breasts, which had never been touched, and she pictured a suckling mouth gorging. The thought of this made her weep so that she poured the dust into a pot, and the water took on a muddy color. 23 Then, just as water was seething, she felt the presence of the Lord come upon her, and the baby moved in her belly. 24 Wherefore she cried out, “Why me, God?” and waited for an answer.
Consumption / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
hunt this young poem
awake, struggling, eat the words
quick, slurp it all down
SHOULDER / Shane Moran
Soft hands on my sunburnt shoulders became claws during new sex.
Hurt like a hot shower, it was a hot shower. I search for
Originality in our beery breath, in the single syllable of my name.
Ultimate test of self-control—a body that enjoys making
Love without having fallen. An unneeded
Drowning, isn’t always unnecessary. Learning how wide her
Eyes open was an education, how often does someone
Remain attentive—how often do I attend through a stinging?
Untitled / Jingyu Li
by Bei Dao, trans. Jingyu Li
Trumpet like a sharp plow,
we plant seeds
through the night: how long
until the sunlight breaks through
soil
How long
until the one listening
turns, notices us
How long, until we are
through toil,
glory
Before our grain is stored,
these thoughts
belong to no one. What is today
or the next life?
A chasm: large waves crashing
the shore. We
in youth’s name
listen to the wild heartbeats
In a vaster place,
our sleep will be full of straw
Hidden Hope / Stefanie Zito
Compost on spent dirt
Seeds planted, fresh and hopeful
Hidden potential
June - Poem 14
Bag Lady, Reconsidered / Kristina Byas
Three receipts,
one for gas,
one for matcha,
one for a version of myself
I no longer recognize.
A tube of lip balm,
worn down to the shape
of unsaid words.
A pen
that only works
a few letters at a time,
stifling me.
Two hair ties,
one broken.
A wallet,
with too little money
to buy me the happiness
people say it can’t.
Hopes spilled at the bottom
with loose ibuprofen
and breath mints.
Fear jammed in the zipper pocket
so it doesn’t find its way out
without my permission.
And resilience,
in case it does.
In All My Dreams My House is the One I Grew Up In IV / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson
In All My Dreams My House is the One I Grew Up In IV
In one dream, my father punched a hole in the wall
In one dream, I cried on the phone to my friend
In one dream, the cat was trapped in the chimney
In one dream, we sat on the porch while it rained
In one dream, the neighbor threw a rock through the back window
In one dream, the belt jolted me awake
In one dream, my brother accidentally drank bleach
In one dream, the house moaned like it was haunted
In one dream, my mother said she was leaving
In one dream, my brother’s friend kissed me on the lips
In one dream, a mouse ran over my foot
In one dream, I licked all the stamps for the bills
In one dream, the ghost said to get dressed for bed
In one dream, I died and came back as a bird
In one dream, the clock fell off the nightstand
In one dream, it lightninged but there was no thunder
In one dream, we fought and broke the front window
In one dream, I dreamt it was all just was a dream
the capybara in the hot spring that is the center of the black hole / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason
this is a provable fact, so perhaps
if we sink it into that hot spring
space, bulleted with the holes of stars,
place a little tangerine on our head,
like that celestial capybara,
citrus scents permeating
the unknown matter of space –
tangerine rinds falling
over our anxious selves,
nebulae of exploded stars ballooning out
or condensing, miraculously down,
to make new stars, to set on our brow,
and rest,
we could be as content, as wondrous,
in a moment that a black hole can stretch out forever
with our small souls and this being beyond
all space and all time – simple and complex
as a tangerine, as a hot spring,
as a sleepy capybara –
the universe cooling and ever-expanding.
PENIS / Shane Moran
I can’t imagine a more useless skill
than making love without the recklessness
of oversharing in the mutual delight of stressed
blood grunting out foreheads and the pumping
of bulging veins in and out a hug from the inside.
This is how a legacy is born, the spoons
of just showered bodies against a sink—
eyes squeezing and widening to the same pulse
of our breathing, and the rhythm of our thrusts.
Aphrodite’s song was the moonlight dashing
across my lover’s lips in the dark, cold tile bathroom
of our old Hartsdale apartment. The shower window
half open, we could hear the rain, the flick and hiss
of a passing smoker’s light, a neighbor's first goodbye
after a first date—the tumbling upon her umbrella.
God! This was the only kind of drama I wanted to watch—
even if I knew the ending: My hand grabs her shoulder,
after I pull out from the risk, and I hold a kiss that becomes
a shout that becomes a kiss against her cheek. I love you.
She tells me, I cum like a woman. My Shaking. My thanking.
And this is the greatest compliment: to be compared to a woman.
Her tiny nails tapping my forehead as I kneel
to catch my breath. My cheek against her gold tan calf.
She doesn’t have to ask—we go again.
Inference / Jingyu Li
for my grandmother
If the trees go on for as far as the eye can see
then they must go on forever. When a thrush flies
into the distance into the infinite trees I assume
they return a different thrush, changed by what
I cannot see, changed by the infinite trees and
the light from a different sun. Dearest granddaughter,
you are across the planet from me, maybe you are
on a planet I cannot see. When the wind blows
southwest, it will not be blowing the same speed
or angle across your face. Maybe it is perfectly
still where you stand. Maybe you have never heard
of wind. I laugh at the ones who say we are looking
at the same moon. It is a certain way here, but you
are not here, so how can it be? It is a lie people tell
themselves to remain fixed to their loved ones
but love moves, dearest.
Still Climbing / Stefanie Zito
Before I acclimated
to acceptable social cues
and appropriate inquiries,
and much to my mother’s mild mortification,
I’d enter any home I’d find myself in
with one specific request–
most often met with surprise,
or a tinge of embarrassment,
regarding my simple
yet presumptuous appeal:
I would readily ask
to journey upstairs.
Curiosity called me to climb
beyond the barrier of stairs
to ascend upward in discovery
past the presentable ground level
and with the accompanying trust
to venture into the mundane, yet
private and intimate spaces.
I wanted to see how people lived
the cozy and relational ways
intimate spaces were inhabited
to look beneath by going above
indulging in the hidden
geography of home.
I still retain lofty aspirations
to visit unkempt places
and feel right at home.