December - Poem 7

Prayer to St. Frances the Free / Kate Bowers

For Patsy Ann Walsh who always let the House Wrens’ nest in the pipe drain be

Oh dear one, lend me your spectacles,
I need their steel, 
The clear eyes behind them

Even better.

Lend me your fine white shirt
Striped with blue, rolled at the wrists, 
One size too big and 

Fragrant with juniper, 
Sun dried 
From the line,

Fresh.

Let me inhabit your 
Mercy for all things small,
All things secret 

A garden requires to thrive.
Keep them clear 
As this earth churns

Itself roiling, stripping,
Cracking open against 
Its own advice beneath my feet,

Not even a honeybee willing
To fly through these gathering clouds,
Not even a bird of discreet song, 

My spade still unflecked

With clay.

Obit / Katie Collins

There's an obituary in my pocket for a woman I never met.
I don't know how it got there.
Her life is three paragraphs long.  
Birth, death, and those that survived fill the first and third paragraphs.
But that second paragraph tells me more than everything else combined.
She became a lawyer because she liked fighting people.
She wore her mother's pearls to every case.
She never accepted that anything was over.
I like to think her ghost is still out there
Putting her obituary in the pockets of strangers. 

Two Great Barstools. Make Me an Offer.   / Ellen Ferguson

Do you say, "After the sun rises, it sets? Or, after the sun sets, it rises?"
It's a half empty/half full question, with time added.
It's the only question.
A person can ask, "How could you have wanted me so much and then not at all?"
But a thing can only wonder.
How, though?
We were sitting on the corner of 45th and Main, both of us great barstools.
You ran home, got your car, ran back — all the while saying something to the dog about 
How everything had changed now — that we were exactly what you wanted and needed.
What happened? There's this:
You thought we were what you wanted and needed
We weren't as comfortable as we looked
We weren't as stylish as we appeared
You didn't enjoy us as much as you did in your head
You missed the space we took up.
Yet in saying, "Make me an offer," you acknowledge our value.
Our friend the breastfeeding sign was given away for nothing;
Our buddies the Chobanis were abandoned for free on their last day.
If we have value, why not to you?
We were told people don't change.
If we complete your pathology, don't you need us?
If we enhance your pathology, don't you want us?
If we resemble someone with whom things are unresolved, don't you want them resolved?
That's all we know about love. We're barstools. We know what we've heard around town.

Power Grid / Chris Fong Chew

Do this and you’ll get There / Davis Hicks

Promises echo
as all hollow-hounds howl,
that quiet reply of all that 
eventually whisk-whispers itself away.
Volunteered with that false
victim-value of all 
dainty things.
Ask in a step-down stairwell,
calling once and again
for another
and another
and another,
each call younger and more valuable
offers of the great 
or the strong half-wound 
or the valor-value
of something brighter,
flashing to counter-offer even as the first
still rides the ear,
still lives on flickering scroll-screen.
Earn and
Do and
Be that
One more, one more, one more,
as if pick-pocket and picket fence together
could actually
build neighbors 
out of one and only one,
that the final and gentle and honest 
could be fairly traded,
could be anything above 
the stolen.

What Remains / Victor Barnuevo Velasco

Forgive me, brother.
I will not walk
just yet
the streets where
we once ran.
The cemetery
where we hunted
dragonflies must wait.

In the broken tombs,
the bones must spill
farther into the sun.
The grasses must grow
taller than your youngest child,
who knows my name
only as a promise
I cannot make.
As you do
every night before he sleeps.

Forgive me, brother.
The years between us
have become hills,
the hills mountains.
And mountains cannot cross
borders drawn by men.

Do you remember
the fiery flowers of the dapdap
where we hid
until we saw mother crying?
Was the rhythm of her palms
on our hands more painful
than her fear of losing?

Did etching your names
on my chest
promise that I can keep
you both forever?

My shoulder has grown heavy
with your names, brother.
I carry the sack
of unhusked rice we spread
to dry on the cement road.

We arranged each grain
as if sifting sand.
Unquestioning,
as if raking an ocean.

We hoped for bone-white sun
and burning wind.
We ended up hunting
beetles and dragonflies,
as mother hunted us
through the trees.

And the rain
poured everywhere.
Unannounced. 

Sometimes I Cry  / Jen Wagner

Sometimes I cry
Not often 
But when i do it comes it’s like a flood
As though every ounce of liquid in my body is trying to escape and find a home in my pillow. 

Sometimes I cry
Not often 
But when I do it’s on the floor of the shower so I can’t tell the difference between my tears and the scalding water running down the drain. 

Sometimes I cry
Not often 
But when I do I prefer to be alone. 
Unless it’s your shoulder I can cry on. 
Because that’s one place I feel safe to let go. 

Sometimes I cry
Not often
But when I do I apologize over and over and over for being a burden and showing my weakness when all I want is to be strong. 

Sometimes I cry
Not often 
If I’m lucky it’s because I heard a song that that touched a part of me that hasn’t been felt in a long, long time. 

Sometimes I cry
Not often
But every once in a while it’s because I am bursting with love that I can no longer contain. 
Why tears though?

Sometimes I cry
Thank God it’s not often
But sometimes it’s because I’m filled with such rage that it will eat me alive if I try to contain it. 

Sometimes I can’t cry
No matter how much I want to. 
No matter how bad it burns in the back of my throat, the release will not come. 

And those are the worst times. 
When such sadness strangles me and all I want to do is let it go but it chooses to stay with me. 
Sent from my iPhone

runneth over/ Stacy Walker

“containing or holding
as much as possible…”

cabinets, pantries,
closets, drawers,
purses, tables,
nightstands, desks,

cupholders, pockets,
countertops, calendars,

it all feels
full.

phone storage,
computer memory,
my memory,
my brain,

notifications flash,
“storage is full.”

“my cup is full,”
or even
“runneth over,”
no longer
sounds like
satisfaction. 

all I’m holding
is holding me
hostage,

“…having no empty space,”

too full,
too easy
to spill,

every bit of me
overflowing,
the next
thought
need
feeling
question
moment,
with nowhere
to go.