December - Poem 4

Drinking Microplastics in the Space Age Tabular/ Kate Bowers

Your Voice / Katie Collins

Your voice reverberates around the room.
I haven't heard it in a while.
Your ever running mouth was the soundtrack of my youth.
I never thought I'd miss it.
Six months ago, I called your phone.
You didn't answer.  
I didn't really expect you to.
But I called anyway.
Then I heard your voice on the answering machine.
I cried in a way you'd tell me not to.  
If you could tell me anything.
And now you can tell me things.  
A few, select things.
Names, places, curse words.
Progress is slow, but it feeds the hope we need to keep going.

Free Small Bluey House: It’s smaller than a cereal box for reference. No characters, but some furniture. Picture attached. Let me know if you’re interested - pickup on campus.     / Ellen Ferguson

When you were young
You played with a dollhouse made of metal that resembled your house.
When you were old,
You parked a dollhouse made of wood on the windowsill in your classroom.
But me? Me, you jettison?
Is it the plastic?
I couldn’t help but notice you stopped coloring your hair.
You also do that weird thing where you buy nothing. Narcissistic tendencies: you think you matter.
Why don’t I?
Some things are made of plastic – we last, you know, your plastic enemies.
Like cockroaches carpeting the earth, we’re not going anywhere.

Origin Story / Chris Fong Chew

Our drying houses are dying / Davis Hicks

Cedar-siding, that’s kind to the eye
and gentle to the hand,
not clapboard but gabled,
unpainted and untainted,
the ones who remove from the rain.
Who hold with two-story frame,
even to protect the cancer-carrier.
The deep green of July had aged them,
broad, fleshy leaves crowned as days grow shorter,
dancing to the flue-cured flute.
Sides-shuttered,
Hewn timber is the signature
of our tobacco belts.
Golden leaf left as laurels,
drying in the handful of barns
still willing
to altar.

My brother, the collector / Victor Barnuevo Velasco

My brother, the collector.
Of bottles he emptied.
Of shoes he wore out.
Of old shirts he folded
but would not wear again.
Of letters he drafted
but would never send.
Of feelings he filed away
but could not name.
Of scraps he swept
when the dinner was done.
Of stares he kept
when everyone was gone.

Shadow Dancing  / Jen Wagner

Rambling voice messages 
for hours on end. 
Heard. 
But never seen. 
It’s OK by me. 
May the reputation of the intensity of my being
Always precede me. 

Dim lighting 
where darkened thoughts 
finally come to play. 
Our shadows
Dancing. 
Gripping 
With bloody fists
So the night may never escape. 

Don’t fall in love with my face. 
She will deceive you. 
The shape shifter that she is. 
Instead—
Dance with my shadow, 
Until the morning sun chases them away. 
Put me to bed in hopes we can dance again,
Some other day. 

Just Go / Stacy Walker

I am envisioning
    A quest
        Towards freedom,
            An adventure
              Where I’m willing
            To take a chance
        On me;

    A journey
Beyond seeking,
    Further
        Than discovery,
            Where my path
                Takes me
            On a pilgrimage
        To the abundance
    Inside me.