August - Poem 17
Heat / Zoe Berger
What can I say. I was young
It was hot
The goat outside yelling
Sounded a bit like a girl I knew
Who cares if the boat driver wanted to fuck me
I didn’t do it but I did do worse for less
I had lemons for eyes
I turned months into men
A dark sky was a blanket to tear through
Something to kick my feet out from under
memory / Ashley Howell
passion only stays as long as desire
and ghosts of friends only linger
when the mind calls or nights alone
i suppose we are the ghosts of yearnings
and while mountains shift with each step,
and each step melts in snow,
and each body moves to clay,
clay reforms to mountains
and i suppose i’ve lost control
boots sliding in mud
Monophasic Sleeper / Dahhee Chung
I took a nap today
No dreams
The heatwave,
Taught two classes,
Took a heated sculpt class for the cherry on top,
Last night’s double feature
Slasher films and fog,
Two hundred fifteen unchecked messages,
Eleven thousand seven hundred eighteen unopened emails,
And wedged between the breeze from my window and
The oscillating fan at the foot of my bed,
My little boy running in and out between consciousness,
“Mommy are you ok?”
Downing the ice cold water from my emotional support water bottle,
Gurgling from the straw, “I’m done, fill me up.”
“Mommy are you ok?”
“I’m done, trying to fill up.”
But I’m Just a Frog / Ash Kemp
The pond is full of sound and fury,
but I’m just a frog.
I see them across the clearing
leaning closer, closer—
She cups his tiny cheek and pecks him
right on the lips!
A blinding light,
And then…
I don’t know what I was doing.
I’ve forgotten who I am.
Where is my mate
Do I have any children?
Chirps and caws,
reeds swaying, a heavy sigh escapes me,
I see the two unfamiliar people walking hand in hand
out of the meadow.
Arts & Crafts / Hannah Page
One of my ex
best friends taught
me how to apply
press-ons with super
glue rather than nail
glue because then
my coffin-shaped
fakes would hold up
for a month rather
than two weeks max
like all the sets
promised on the box.
My sharpest
pinky nail unpeeled
from concealed flesh
and nub on the day
she cut me out
like vinyl letters on her Cricut:
messily. Without regard
for proper borders.
My body is still a craft
project but I buy
proper supplies.
Beyond the Field / PF Potvin
when coyotes sing
the dog searches the house for
babies in blankets
finding only kids
he lowers his back and pulls
hair from the Barbies
but stops when someone
in the kitchen barks his name
and whistles his song
Sensei / Janette Schafer
The way I see blades of grass
has awakened. I hear the crackle
as they emerge through the dermis
of the ground. Can you hear that
music? Feel their green tips stretch
towards the light. How each sweet
tender green nib delights in, makes
love with liminal dawn-water. Oh,
I never knew. No, I never knew.
BRAIN ROOMS / Kate Thuma
The feeling
of sending my heart
outside my body
and letting it make
a safe room
to be free in.
This is how I built a new brain room.
It didn’t have a door, it had veins.
The door didn’t open, it bled.
And I filled
every corner and crack
with softness.
And sounds bounced off
the padded walls
and back into my body
in echoes.
