April - Poem 9

untitled / Maureen Alsop

Who’s Grumpy   / Bob Bradshaw

You’ll need to speak louder.
    Car alarms outside 
    are always going off.

    Don’t get me started
    on the nurses. 
    Pill pushers!
    That’s why 
    narcotic agents
    aren’t allowed
    to visit!

    The vegetables?
    Salty mush!
    And the meat!
    Well, the flies
    don’t complain.

    And my room? Stuffy?
    I’d sleep better
    in a morgue's drawer.

    Why complain?
Don't others somewhere
‍ ‍have it worse?

    But, dear, if you could 
do something about the clouds?
    They’re never
    positioned right—
    too much light
    gets through.
    Some days
    too little

Helen Contemplates Infidelity / Stan Galloway

Orpheus had Eurydice six months of the year,
sharing her with Hades,
but holding her,
delighting through the summer in their personal adventures.

Sharing wasn’t his idea
but true love let strict monogamy
be reluctantly released
to have her half time.

So why should Menelaus grumble
when I have a stout servant in the night,
knowing I’ll be taken for an hour rather than two seasons,
knowing I will love him no less in the morning,
knowing he can have me anytime I choose.

Pollinator / Ava Hu

*

They are marked by 
red canyon.

God of the subterranean,
god of the yellow bloom.

Their feet, wet
with marigolds.

Do they watch to see 
if Orpheus looks back?

Their bodies press 
into flowers.

*

Tawney’s Cave / Kirsten Miles

The squeeze is the gate
palms pressing powdery dirt
toes pushing the slip
of her twelve year old body
the world has already
begun to demand she stand tall
but here the only way forward
on her belly
into a cool dark air

the hiss—a sharp, white secret
escaping the brass vessel strapped
to the crown of her young head.
She is a small moon in a throat of limestone
a quiet lever of bone and light

carbide headlamp cutting light into the opening
cavern lined with glistening limestone teeth
walls draped in flowstone’s velvet hush
knuckled spires rising here and there

tasting the ancient
damp breath of the earth
unlearning the sky
A tiny figure jeweled with droplets hangs
before her, a reassurance of life
in this world
of rock 

some things
require us to get a little bit lost
in the tight spots
before we can finally
stand up and breathe.

massage boards for heaven  / Sergiy Pustogarov

i’ve bought a thousand massage boards 
trying to break the knots 
that turn my neck
into stiffened old oak boards.

i’ve worked with reiki
trying to release the fears and woes
my muscle store as frantic pains.

worked with god too,
raising my voice from the beams 
of an ancient farmhouse.
pleading for help to guide this soul 
toward that desired haven;
while rewriting the lie 
that heaven is reserved
for a three-word prayer-
whispered from the deathbed
of one who spent their precious breaths
killing a thousand smaller lives.

i’ve spent my savings
rewiring my nerves,
teaching them not to flinch 
at those souls who wreak havoc;
still awaiting their free pass 
through the pearly gates.

and sometimes,
when i’m bent over in the living room,
ass up, breath taught,
trying to untangle myself again:
i hear saint peter saying
welcome home,
you blessed broken heathen,
who never knew which question 
unlocked the perfect gate.
so you asked them all.

you sought every path
through redemption’s burning traps,
hoping to one day it might be enough 
to let your body
finally rest.

wind's howling / nat raum

a mourning dove, cataclysmically close 
to back porch, throats gentle coos

into a starched blue sky. we had alley 
doves on eaton—fittingly, i only knew

how to mourn when i lived there. still
i peel layers of myself imbued with you 

off of my skin, trying to remain convinced 
i am better off. still i know not how

to exist without you, the music of our shared
ecstasy or the ensuing stretch of misery.

sometimes i see myself as a parasite—
head buried in blood vessels, thirsting

until gluttonous coma arrives and i expire,
fall to forest floor, and learn to crawl again.

Seven Haiku for Early Spring / Daniel Avery Weiss

Sweet milk—
the cherry blossom
greets me.

We splay ourselves
in the dew,
the roly-poly and I.

The crane stoops low.
A snap, a splash—
a salmon.

Gull on the rocks,
heckling. An icy tide
envelops our toes.

Ice—
steam—
a toad's breath.

Magnolias.
A thin rustle of wind.
Petals.

Under the beech tree,
ants fluttering
across my lap.

how to navigate writer's block / MK Zariel

look up a themed call on the internet, find a thousand
variations on "sad" and various texting abbreviations,
say screw it and write another political screed
about being trans. (indie lit is a reflecting pool
into which one pours trauma—) say i'm done

and get rejected. say it's beautiful but not nearly
comprehensible enough—say where are the explanations
of why exactly you're doomed. (an inbox is a void
into which one sends praise and extracts money—)
tell an editor that you want to see trans joy represented,
tell Instagram that you want to know who you are,

tell nobody. join an organizing project and explain poetry
to three people, go to a reading and explain anarchism
to yourself. when people ask if you're an artist or an activist,
nod, wink, change the topic. (a college application is a series

of narrowing questions—into which one combines twelve practices—
into one cohesive brand—) talk to teenagers, explain everything
to everybody. look up a poem on the internet, look for an accessible one
for a friend who thinks poetry isn't for her, find neglected websites
and opaque verse, worry she's right. say screw it (because you're still trans)
and try to at least jot something down.