August - Poem 22

Joy Machine/ Zoe Berger

Our joy machine 
keeps pumping out tickets 

     I could spit right there 
and something would grow 

     Love keeps 
going like that 

     Hope is a chain 
no one can break 
     Not even me 

     I do not plan 
on dying 

½   / Ashley Howell

two half rainbows

on my drive home 

a promise broken

across half the sky 

Murmur / Dahhee Chung

Mysteries in the mundane moments
Make memories, 
Which once felt mute,
Marvelous.
Like the new moon,
A phantom in the dark,
Smiling madly,
Mocking,
As eyes scan the sky
For a spot to still their stare,
Until specks spark arrhythmically,
Reliving the memories of the dead. 

I Almost Cried Watching Drunk Shakespeare / Ash Kemp

Asked my friend if she wanted water and realized it was already leaking out. 

Pouring from a girl afraid to laugh for being seen. 

Afraid to draw attention with an ounce too much emotion. 

She has nine lives but is on the last one. 

Making it count, listening to Kat regret being born in this body, with this brain, with this

Feeling. 

Over Jersey City / Hannah Page

Tonight the sun melted
into an orange bar above the
horizon, stark moon
in profile against
faint neon scribblings
in the clouds, and after
I yawned and yawned
to the rhythmic march
of the oncoming dark.

At The Desk / PF Potvin

pic of a phone
pole with 3 boards
black painted
SLOW DOWN
PEOPLE
BREATHING
Van Gogh straw
hat magnet The Writing
Forge podcast clip holding
niece’s high school graduation
picnic pic siblings ordered
randomly left to right
same as Thanksgiving
45 years before gray rabbit
magnet holding Grammie’s hair
contagious beaming glasses
beaded necklace Christmas
card shy of 99 th bday academic
year calendar sea
turtle pig goat zebra
llama holding pics
red tongue stained
|out eyes wincing
sour raspberries Halloween
Santa & Mrs. two dogs
grinning sun on backs
sticky note class
credit permutations
daughter radiant in Yellow
Submarine tee clutching
plush horse
black mohawk son
blue striped tie on red onesie
hand resting on thigh
flipping the bird
drawn colored frame wedged
father’s day kindergarten
cutout fish backs carrying secrets
(pink) “Thank you for cooking stir fry!”
(green) “Thank you for teaching me cursive.”
(black) “Thank you for letting me plant the last seed.”

A kami in Appalachia  /  Janette Schafer

after a photograph by Keith Hileman

This morning, a tree in the wood
near our homestead let me see
his face, gazed at me a moment
with his black hollowed eyes
before the kami hid again,
disappearing into wet bark.

SELKIE    / Kate Thuma

Stepping over mermaid’s nipples 
reminds my skin of its second, 
sleekly furred spirit, 
the way I am when there’s nothing 
between me and the questioning, 
opening sea. 

When my toes tangle in bladderwrack, 
my metatarsals slide like tiles 
into stronger, more seaworthy shapes. 
I can make myself beautifully monstrous
to live both lives. 

She is me and I am her, 
and we will lure a thousand sailors 
to the rocks to feel once more 
the slipping waves transform us 
to a being that watches with eyes 
only half above the surf, 
whose blood rises and falls
to match the moon.