August - Poem 14
If I met you at the Bone Museum / Zoe Berger
I’d put my skeleton next to your skeleton
I say over dolma, moussaka, lamb,
at the family-run Greek spot on Flushing.
In a real matter of the heart you tell me of the grocery store with your mother,
how your aunt bled her dry for thirty years, the flippant way
your mother called you sister in the produce section,
and stopped examining lemons to smile to herself,
the same crowded grin as yours, a little passing fantasy.
How you imagined being hers, stepping away
from the fruit to cry. Over a beer
you let out the real nasty stuff:
your friends’ fathers, after prom
when one of the boys got into your bed,
how you walked home barefoot in the middle of the night,
decided leaving would keep you safe
but not clean. I want to know more of your insides
so we go to the bone museum. There are signs pointing to cranial fractures
labeled “Unknown Trauma”, bones sliced sideways
and longways, exploded heads suspended
in golden contraptions, every hard white thing
tagged dutifully, precisely, with care
to the original owner. I look at the lucky skulls
all lined up in smudge-proof glass
and I wish neither of us had skins.
(to carry a plant) / Ashley Howell
knit and cloth winds touching
point of hook
moss mountains thinning
sprawling toward sky
will it hold
as chair
sits softly with
pillow stagnant as cloud
cup clasps what will burn
to vapor
to purity
hold firm small warrior
you carry so much
Crustless Sandwich / Dahhee Chung
Peanut Butter and Apple Jelly
Smeared to each side,
Cut the crusts,
Cracked open rambutan shells,
Sally sold sea shells by the sea shore,
Rolled some salted seaweed and rice,
Wrapped rice rolling, rolling rolling,
Three, four, five…
Containers of cashews and chips,
Crackles for your chomp,
We can crack down gizzards after school, son.
First day without holding my hand,
But the nice stranger’s.
My first teacher was Mrs Lake.
Brave and bold, but
Question marks furrow your brows and the crinkles of your nose,
A cacophony of crows cawing, a child crying,
And the harsh cough of the boy barfing.
I wonder if you’ll like your lunch.
Loveseats / Alison Henderson
The horsehair loveseats
smell like cat piss,
even here, in the new condo
in South Florida,
where the walls are white,
the carpet beige,
everything else pink and green.
My mother sits, legs up,
on the long white couch,
watching the news,
then repeats what she hears
later as opinion,
like I didn’t hear it too.
I want to know what she thinks
when she paints,
but the canvases hold
only flowers,
pink opening into green.
I sit on a loveseat
writing by the window,
the golf course kept green
beyond the sliding glass.
Between us,
the beige ocean is vast.
They face each other,
a pair from the old house
before the divorce.
Instead of Self-doubt / Ash Kemp
After Andrea Gibson
call it wonder.
You can take it with you,
You can mold it,
Harness it for creativity,
Nurture it on nature walks
And bookstore trips.
Talk to your friend attention,
Take some vitamin hope,
Drink it down with a glass of warm acceptance.
Stay awake all night
And write what you might have dreamed.
Submission is not an ending,
But a chance to face a different direction.
Breaking / Hannah Page
We’re exposed to
violence every morning over
breakfast: a new
carousel of crime &
stupidity repetitioning through
the late afternoon until
enough fresh
dirt has been
spat through
the pipelines into the frigid
studios where putty
people wear too much or too
little fabric depending on
where. And on, a new
montage – hideously ordinary
in the way we can’t feel
the heat of the car on
fire, the warm
blood pooling in the
A/C of the studio where
they excavate harder than
the forensic specialists
at the scene. They’re fighting
to keep alive
the heart of the
story economy – however
twisted where
it nestles
in the collective chest.
Ode to the Peanut / PF Potvin
smush you
cut you
cream you
gut you
boil you
into paste
strain you
ink you
oil you
crush you
sprinkle you
on the face
pickle you
pinch you
curry you
grind you
layer you
round the waist
coat you
blend you
candy you
press you
meat you
in that space
perking ears
flaring eyes
sniffing for a trace
widening mouth
wagging tongue
begging for a taste
Missing crow / Janette Schafer
It’s been three weeks
since I’ve seen Chuck—
the crow that visits
my porch.
I hope he has another
“girlfriend” feeding him
bread crusts and blueberries
to explain his absence
and hasn’t been swept
away by a hawk—
although sometimes,
wild things just leave you.
The robins and
a lone cardinal
appreciate
the bounty he has
left behind.
[6:32] / Kate Thuma
I’ve been waiting for you my whole life. And for the five days of breakneck stillness before the six hours of frenetic frozenness, which are both as long as any lifetime. There are ways I’ve never met this stranger, but it feels truer to say I didn’t know I’d always known you. It makes sense to me now that it snowed when you first knocked, flakes dampening the sonic boom.
You open your eyes
And I’m instantly cosmic.
You cry and I’m born.
