February - Poem 12
Variations on the Word Fat / Kristine Anderson
I.
. . . chance, same as
“slim chance” same as
“no chance” same as
“Stop dreaming and get to work.”
II.
Chew the . . . as in
“Whatcha been up to?”
as in
“Nice weather for ice skaters, huh?”
III.
. . . city, meaning
grocery cart full with
carton of eggs (18 count),
quart of orange juice (fresh squeezed),
Peet’s Coffee (two bags!),
four sticks of real butter . . .
all paid for. In cash.
IV.
. . . of the land, paired with
Living off the . . .
such as
all the time in the world—
sitting in the sun, phone silenced and stashed
in another room, book open in my lap,
sleeping dog at my feet.
Year of the Horse / Barbara Audet
I have ridden a horse. More than once.
Galloping. Posting. Trotting. Sweating.
Swimming. Birthing. Running. Racing.
Snorting. Nuzzling. Lugging Carriages.
Warring. Glueing. Left To Withers
Forelocks. Flanks. Fetlocks. Loved.
I was born in the year of the Horse.
A lunar expletive.
McCarthy. Segregation. America Beautiful.
Postwar. Nuclear War. Cold War. Pick a War.
Television. Siblings. Suburbia. Survival.
Kindergarten. Kennedy. Khrushchev. Kentucky Derby.
I rode my first horse, on a Girl Scout expedition.
I was too small to stay in the saddle properly.
I have never forgotten holding on and feeling
Myself falling backwards, petrified I would die.
My son was born in the year of the Horse.
A lunar miracle.
Afghanistan. Operation. Desert. Shield.
Hubble. Mom. The Universe.
Genome. Human Catalog. Web Server.
What Happened to Yugoslavia?
I have ridden a horse in Texas.
I rode my second horse, a gray.
On a day with fellow teachers on retreat.
Along a stream line in the town of cowboys.
This time I held on, less fearful, but still suicidal.
Somewhere in between, in an off year,
Ox or Snake. Rat or Rabbit.
Dragon or Pig. Goat or Tiger.
Monkey or Rooster. Or Dog.
I watched the horses swim at Chincoteague.
Long after I read the book that made Misty mine.
My cheers had guilt inside them on that day.
Learning terms. Hoof and Pastern. Hock and Stifle.
Gaskin and Croup. Barrel and Back.
These are the horse.
Wilding. Taming. Branding.
Breeding. Betting. Breaking.
Another year, I marveled,
rejoiced for horses.
Secretariat. Odds Defier.
Farm Saver. Triple Crowner.
Loving Life.
Large.
Life seems to have gotten smaller.
Even for horses.
So we must make up for last year’s
Snake in the grass.
Nations are in transit,
No longer needing horseback
To celebrate the Moon.
Steinbeck described
A previous moving humanity
in Grapes of Wrath.
Go high enough, go to the Moon.
It's what they want.
Look down.
We are like ants. Not horses.
Neither of those ignoble.
Not like the lookers.
Who are just moving in time
that should have moved
Beyond all the nonsense.
Horses understand.
Harnesses. Whips.
Shoeing. Corralling.
And just like we shot horses,
We shoot ourselves.
FIRST BEFORE MORNING / Ashby Logan Hill
For Emily
Waiting for the clouds to break, no direction home, a complete unknown,
you’re stopped at a traffic light in Crozet, first before morning and never
once looked up before into the dark like a road toward heaven, night sky
to see your guarding angels, a black bear dancing while Orion and Cassiopeia
hash it out, something you wished for of the miraculous, the fantastic, your
grandmother sitting on top of the soda machine humming at the gas station
when you walk in to get some apples wanting to tell you she hadn’t forgotten your
persistence to knit a wig, the concept of crocheting missed on you for the
dropped stitches between your perfect pearls, a star’s circumference you’d
come for and circled back to as reflection on the way the absence of moonglow
suggested the presence of the midnight sun, Shenandoah, somewhere where
the tall trees, and like her, the daughter of the stars again is up before
breakfast, what was said at five o’clock mixing with her paper-white hands
another batch of dough for dinner rolls, at least that’s how I's told to tell it
italics from Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"
Masked / Amy Marques
A mask
beautifully
changing
attention
was remarkable
consideration
Source material: A Tale of Two Cities
Mother haiku / Sonia Sophia Sura
I wonder what my
mother hoped for when she brought
a child onto Earth.
Initial Descent / Samuel Spencer
We’re falling out
of the night sky.
Not quite a shooting
star, but some child may
have mistook us
as some celestial traveller
until he or she saw the
pulsating red lights
along our wing tips.
How lonely
it must be
to be
a shooting star –
cutting up the blackness
all alone,
leaving only a memory
of light in your wake.
