August - Poem 1
I am making up stories about you handsome stranger on the train / Zoe Berger
Necessary fictions
while I let the beer have its way
with me Are you thinking of me
thinking of you? I want you to have a good forever
and you are wiggling your feet in your shoes
so I bet you do too Life is a ring of blessings
all in the wrong order
An unbound book of prayer Late
Still open Not a fool
I hope she knew / Ashley Howell
I’m reading a book
that’s not very good
a memoir
I will finish
because it’s not so much
the reading
that I need
but the offering
to listen and hold
her story
I liked her first
book more
but in this one
she laid herself bare
so I must accept the words
into my body like warm milk
or a virus
I’m not sure
if I’m a good person
there are people
who hate me
others I hate but
I’m trying to stop
people who do not want
my amends
even if I offered
which
I’m not sure
I would
or need to
be human
is all I can do
in this moment
not knowing
what I did to
create such emotion
in others
I can’t tell if
I’m upset they are hurt or
that I’m seen as someone
who can hurt
my friend died
on Christmas Eve and
I don’t know if she was scared
or knew what was
about to happen
I hope she knew
I loved her
Doshirak / Dahhee Chung
Julienned potatoes and onions seasoned with black pepper and sesame plated besides
A rolled omelet whisked with green onions, sliced into perfect bites,
A container of crispy, salted fried seaweed,
And a cold plate of acorn jello served with a tiny tasting dish of chili soy sauce and a tiny spoon,
Spread the table with small bowls of rice.
Pharaoh grabbed a handful of the onions and potatoes and smashed a fistful into his mouth, chomped three times and swallowed.
“This was my favorite school lunch.”
“They served it in school?” Clarence, genuinely curious.
“No, Halmi packed it for me.”
“No one made fun.”
“I made fun.”
“Of yourself?”
“Of everyone else who asked,
‘what’s that?’
‘Monkey brains?’
‘ew, gross!’
As they sporked congealed gravy with pale meat and boxed mashed potatoes,
Without masticating,
But swallowing the slurry
Into clumsy mouths.
The appall on my own face would surface
And I had to look away,
As I, savoring a perfect bite of gyeran mari and gamja bokum,
Replied, ‘I can’t eat that stuff.’
Chewed my own deliciousness,
Each bite layered with savory umami,
And a pleasant bounciness
Secreting sweet saltiness,
Averted my eyes from the tinned foil containers,
That emanated the scent of school cafeterias.
But I wish I would have shoveled my lunch with my hands
And ate like a barbarian,
To be on display for the uncouth,
As a show of irony beside the aesthetic brilliance my lunch was,
Assembled with the artistry that only my Umma could.”
Gold / Alison Henderson
It was bright white in the common areas
down there with no windows.
A basement divided
below eye level.
Cubicles like holding pens.
Heavy plastic chairs. No edges.
A small TV mounted to the ceiling
in each section.
Ridiculousness or the news,
too high to hear punchlines.
The floor shone, reflecting nothing—
stank of wax and bleach,
mopped every morning
by some guys from C-module.
Markus said he’d broken parole.
Trespassing.
He gave me instant coffee
in folded scraps of note paper.
Asked to see my breasts.
I almost did it.
Coffee was like gold.
A woman belted lonely hymns,
dragging her socks along the concrete.
Above, wire mesh hummed.
We’d speak through a vent
at the base of the wall
between the two yards.
It was covered in pencil markings,
release dates and prayers…
Said she was doing life for a carjacking.
Devina.
Like divine.
She moved like a warrior
back to her cell, across the floor.
Hands behind her back.
Cuffed. A rope clipped to the chain.
Three COs walked her like a dog.
They did not know she was a dragon.
She smiled
in the fluorescent whiteness, head high.
We watched her through
our long windows.
When I got some money,
I slipped her two folds of coffee
through the vent.
Selfie / Ash Kemp
after a prompt by Joseph Fasano
My name is Ash.
Today I feel like a miniscule ant,
carrying in the harvest.
Sometimes, I am a worker.
Sometimes, an egg.
But always,I am attentive.
I ask the world,
how did I get here?
And the answer is a miniscule ant carrying the harvest.
Against Cyclosporiasis / Hannah Page
I’ve craved salads for days
on end in the midst
of this national health
crisis: shredded
lettuce half-recalled and
half-pardoned; wilted
greens trucked down hills toward
sprawling landfills,
toward sentinel flies.
Less so than before, I
hunger for inconvenience:
for the ineffably certain
to gravitate away from
my molten core. I would
have taken every unsafe
door had my husband
not labeled the unmarked
pieces of the map
drawn in his
image because tracing
his profile with my
fingers is outlining
the contours of a life
well lived in. Of laying
each night two bodies,
one bed, my face
healthily greased and a dozen
pills inside the pair
of us. You are safe.
You are loved. You are
protected. Somebody who
loved me almost this
much used to pray
that litany for me.
Now my protections
include the more esoteric
of the Jewish texts; our sleek
black dog; and my oiled
wedding band.
Gold Mountain Awe / PF Potvin
In the field I throw
over &. over
under
& side
an orange
plastic disc
while a woman explains
her face like a tree
caught years in the light of snow
“that would be my house”
& nods at the valley below
Uncompahgre Peak where plumes
billow & schroom
cooking the sky into toxic soup
as our dogs take turns
twirling. & chasing
across the grass
knowing in their bones
that distance matters more
the closer you get
On the occasion of trying to take notes / Janette Schafer
Retaining walls
Plumber recommendations
A realtor pretending to take notes
Call a locksmith for a new listing
Someone really needs an aluminum siding guy
I need to go back to Ways of Attending:
How Our Divided Brain Conquers the World,
on how the hemispheres of our neurology
coexist, how creating paintings of wildflowers
and solving polar form alternatives
make love, come together
Yes. A haul-out company. Useful.
If the crow I feed on my porch
recognizes me
An attorney for easements
and tax abatements
Septic and well assessments
for rural properties
if longing is a place
or a direction
A new title insurance partner
Radon levels above 4.0 require
a radon mitigation system
Submit three poems
Encourage buyers to purchase
an umbrella policy
Write a stanza on how
the shadow in my lover’s eye
should be a color I can paint
on my bedroom wall
so I can always wake up to it
Don’t delay your closings over
an occupancy permit
ordered too late
Untitled / Kate Thuma
Shooting my fingers
into the sky in tree pose,
there are finely-haired roots branching
out of my fingers that hold me
in place in the sky so I exist
an atmosphere above human life.
The world turns under my toes
and I’m suspended at the edge
of the same sunset
for whatever the length
of an undone day is.
This is how I live more slowly
than biology mandates.
The wormhole astrophysicists marvel
at is the displacement of air
from my racked spine
and time moves through mud
in the expanded space
between my vertebrae.
I am a little behind in everything.
I learn the already-known organically.
I’m the last one to realize my realizations.
The world turns as I’m leaping.
