August - Poem 16
Sailboats / Zoe Berger
Yawl
Sloop
Schooner
Cutter
Ketch
Smack
Junk
Dhow
Carrack
Frigate
Cog
Pink
Snow
Brig
Can you believe these are all types of sailboats
Can you imagine loving something so much
you use up all the letters naming them
august / Ashley Howell
tell the truth to the ocean
drink each other like you want to drink tides
until you are all tree
swallow each other like bags of saccharine and dopamine
make a list like red waves
roll your words with her tongue like wet salt
or only foundations
shiver your cravings like orgasm through slender toes
tell the truth to the rain
that you still aren’t well
until you are granite
release your poetry in monosyllables
oh
god
yes
let the earth cry
even though it won’t
Grey Moth / Dahhee Chung
In the days that tigers smoked,
A primordial beast with
Black-gray wings with folds highlighted by fuzz and a peak a boo
Little flare of orange flame and monarch markings,
Eat and burrow deep from when they were like green plump finger grapes,
Gripping her finger like a snake,
Until it’s coat shines like leather,
Polished by young boys from harder times,
Still breathing before it’s time
Palpitating in it’s suit,
Like her finger pulsing to the same micro beat from the proper palmer artery pumping from the palpable heart,
Holding on to life.
this is what I got / Ash Kemp
when I went to the store
this is what I got
a brush
reusable paper towels
with little daisies printed on them
a brush with the lady around the corner who looked at me like I was a ghost
baking soda
lemon oil
an oily feeling that settled on my shoulders when I tried to find one more word to say thank you, but said I’m sorry, instead
vanilla
one small bag of candy coated chocolate
a coating of regret for all the times I never believed in myself
when I went to the store, I got lost
Can you help me checkout, please?
Lepidopterology / Hannah Page
At my first and only big-girl job
at a crystal shop (but make it high-end)
behind the jewelry counter hung an accent
wall of taxidermied butterflies. The bluest
wings (Menelaus blue morpho) exhibited
more natural magnetism than
the punchiest reds or yellows
something cliché about swallowtails
and fresh about enigmas, about deep
deep blue suspended
between glass
panes in shadow box frames
Filming Danaus plexippus on your
iPhone today’s long afternoon
tracing its orange trajectory along
the edges of the park
where verdancy flourishes liminally
floral sprigs pushing past
filigreed fence trembling, alive
Night Courier / PF Potvin
we abandoned the path
with our dog choosing
our own beneath an elm’s
arms muscling clouds
across the sky and stooped
here and here and there
to balltoss returning
at dusk to the locked
car key a ghost we retraced
our steps down
gullies through fields
up slopes over bridges
while cicadas
passed their round
singing to katydids
until the light of a jangling
bike finally cut
a hole in our waiting
Wealtheow thinks of Grendel / Janette Schafer
I think of the “monster”
outside my window
as I lie in bed.
There was something in the
soft amber of his eyes, not fire
but marsh-anguish, as if to say—
Who could love me?
Make me worthy of love—
of its heat without burning,
its touch without fear and blood.
Why does his strength spare
when his claw could have
destroyed me? His hand,
gentle when it comes
so near my face.
Hrothgar snores;
I turn toward
another sleepless night—
dream of mercy
ripples—tenderness
that hides
underground,
out of reach.
CORVIDS / Kate Thuma
Corvids have a kind of demonic whimsy
achievable only
by a creature who gifts
perfectly round white pebbles
with blood still on its beak.
Keep them safe –
They’re talismans against
ordinary living.
Maybe this is why
crows can be lured
by metals and meat:
Thought and Memory
are still accepting sacrifices.
