April - Poem 7
The Peace / Maureen Alsop
A ceaseless salve, the river’s light, a holy
spoken name—the sun’s
acidic touch.
At daybreak
the sea is an open mouth. Surf—
another language.
Ashlyn! / Bob Bradshaw
The moment I shuffle
out of this YMCA
I see Ashlyn
sprinting to me,
and my heart’s doors
start popping open!
My heart tosses aside
its keys. My arms
fly open like shutters
to take in
the morning sun
that is my granddaughter
once again.
Distillery / Stan Galloway
When we become fine wine
through ageing and confinement
our spirits strong as oak barrels
with mint or coriander splashed across us
the bitter almond of forsaken amaretto clinging
the sweet-sour rot in a strawberry daiquiri’s aftertaste
the aroma of the morning beside you,
then I know we have survived
life’s hangover
two hundred proof.
Forest / Ava Hu
The Amazon forest is nearly gone.
*
This is the burning season.
What once streamed runs dry.
Trees cut down
and raised as churches.
A man survives
with two hearts.
Spirits. Smoke.
Forgotten gods.
The hum of chainsaws
and gunshots keeps rising.
God comes
with mud.
God comes
as an outlaw.
Does God open
a seed in ash?
Who will remember
the names of trees?
*
Ode to a sun dog / Kirsten Miles
diamond dust flickers
suspended to the left
of a low hung sun
shattered rays slung
round her phantom halo
unbidden color a
smeared blur of ice filaments
flickers through leaves
yaws across the gloam
as Route 20 winds down
towards the James River
black lab wedged hard
and hot on the floorboard
brown eye rolls up
waiting for the mouth feel
of a stoney creek
The way his torso leans
head cocked gaze
holding me fast
as if knowing that wheel
can lure us into
a final curve
untethered
bright rays curtain across
the windshield
that time we turned into a
grassy hill sailed across
yellow tickseed
rolled
rolled rolled
each floating
object
A loose texture of
rarer bodies
In the blue air
Down by the Meadow / Sergiy Pustogarov
we danced through a meadow
down by the creek--
acting
like not a single care
could affect this
teenage heart.
we fished for minnows
thinking
our crackers
would turn into their favorite food
the second they bit our hooks.
we danced shirtless
among
the twigs and rocks.
teasing one another
if we would dare jump
in the freezing waters..
we were happy together
searching for fish that never
saw our
bareback strokes,
or dared to bite our clothesline
fishing poles.
that never happened:
but i dreamt it after
i cried myself to sleep
every night in the basement.
what a catch / nat raum
After “What A Catch, Donnie” by Fall Out Boy
my thoughts are nightmare fuel, metacognition
for insanity’s sake, and my self-esteem paints
itself the same shade. i am forced to believe i am
the protagonist, eventually—my raisined ego
resists it, but there is no other excuse to explain
the way in which things are constantly happening.
my body breaks down lactic acid, double-time. cracks
groan in the meat of my neck and shoulders. shhhh.
i goad myself to unlock my jaw, push posture
straighter than the parenthesis of early kyphosis.
it all adds up over time in the sense that nothing
is actively coming for me—it is already here. i don’t
do the therapy work during sessions. it happens
on the outside, day by day, convincing myself that soon,
things will be different. someone will see i am a catch.
Of my student's second class in pottery / Daniel Avery Weiss
Yes, sweetheart. I am really bald.
No, I have not always been bald.
Oh—yes, I am really—yes, very bald.
Yes, I can help you center. Can you try to do it yourself first?
That's okay. Effort is optional. No, I am not going to put my hat back on.
Yes! Excellent. The walls are great. Looking good.
Position your hands like this. Pressure between.
Slow the wheel down. Good.
Yes! I mean, what would you do if I said no? What if I simply said, “No, I'm not bald, actually.”
Touchè.
Pressure from the bottom of your hand.
Forward. Lean in. Yes! Yes!
No. I am not.
win condition / MK Zariel
gender is a TTRPG and i’m the problem player, says a meme—
and in some twisted way i find it accurate. i am transmasc as in
late on a weekly basis, as in responding to every conflict with some
version of well, actually. butch as in optimized, except when i’m not,
as in overwhelming and quiet all at once. i’m here to tell a story
until i break down and decide to troll everyone instead. to be trans\
is to never have had a gender role model beyond caricature
to be unmoored, unaligned, a changeling in human form—
bilateral dysphoria creeping like foreshadowing like an aura
like a warning. gender is a video game and i am a glitch in the system
ask me to make a character and i’ll choose
the pixelated edge of the screen. the three genders are
boy, girl, and NPC—and I have been all of the above—
and i have tried to flirt with all of the above—and i have never
broken character when i need to. i have minmaxed my pronouns
to hell and back, and still never found the one that feels
like a critical success. will someone make a name generator
for those whose genders are a mystery even to them?
