February - Poem 16
Auto Renewal / Kristine Anderson
The following have been renewed automatically:
Dental exam. Dermatology / skin cancer check.
Annual wellness exam & gerontology blood panel.
Agreement shall be renewed automatically
for succeeding terms . . .
Birthday cake (with candles!). Family Thanksgiving
(trimmings included) around a long dinner table. Wedding
anniversary (thirty-three years & counting).
. . . though the Party may give notice (or not)
prior to the expiration . . .
Yoga, twice a week. Daily walks, some with the dog
pulling on the leash. Phone calls with a grown son
living half a world away. Listening to music. Laughing.
. . . of Decision-Maker’s intention not
to renew pursuant to bylaws . . .
Avoid chocolate chip cookies, glazed donuts, Jolt
Cola (do they even make that anymore?). Keep the cork
in the bottle. Thank you for not smoking.
. . . otherwise to be renewed upon like terms
for successive days, hours, minutes . . .
Automatic renewal: Waking up to the familiar scent
of coffee. Warm slippers on the cold kitchen floor.
Dog jumping in my lap. Your “Good Morning” kiss.
Alone Together / Barbara Audet
Dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe and My Father On His Birthday
“From childhood’s hour, I have not been as others were … ”
Poe believed this.
I guess it must be so,
as explanations go.
My father never said it,
but he lived it.
And that makes it so.
These two gentle men,
now gone to souls alone men,
There's so much more
I long to understand.
What weighed you down
beyond survival buoyancy?
How soundly did your sorrow
harbor within you?
Did it lap hard against your sanity, seeking
Footholds to stay you far from calm liberation?
When men die young,
we must have answers.
For forty years,
I've needed answers.
Across these two disparate,
desperate lifetimes,
I see a bond, a linked apartness,
that shakes out the why
of their compulsion—
the need to be other,
that held faster than family,
taut like new stitches.
Poe could see,
but never understand
the cast of demons
breeding in his mind
that fueled the separation.
Your demons, Dad, were more highly strung,
dressed to drink in suits, mocking ties,
the sort that energize and grab the best of you
like a magnet made of maelstrom.
In my childhood’s hours,
I watched helplessly,
As that storm of ambition
aimed to own the brain I envied,
cultivated as my own.
But you, like Poe, put your trust
in never-ending storm clouds.
Call it dedication to addiction.
Outsiders are timelessly available
to abandon empathy for indignation.
Children in contrast try to understand why
They must witness death sure to rise.
The wind died,
the last breath gathered all
the happiness, the anger,
The ongoing agony of the man
who gave you life.
I never understood, not really,
at least,ALASKA / Ashby Logan Hill until I came to see you,
that one last time.
You said you were afraid to die.
I did not believe you,
because I knew you.
Passion has no time for fear.
You taught me that lesson in my crib.
I suspect in that closing of your living,
You told the greatest lie.
ALASKA / Ashby Logan Hill
At the Monet exhibit I asked you about Alaska, the cold you don't remember
because you were just a child and moved to Florida, then Minot, North Dakota,
then Paris, France. You said you liked living in France and remember
at the elementary school on base, or somewhere close to your apartment,
a field full of poppies. You sat in it all day and told me your mother didn’t even
know where to look, that you liked it that way, face up, laying between the
stems and lady bugs floating, looking into sky and making shapes with the clouds.
You always stood for this and wanted your imagination, the imagination of
others to become their own reality, a suitcase in the grass by the pond,
a day in the rain and cappuccinos by the Seine. You were still little then
and stayed a while before heading back to Alexandria. Maybe this is when
you got Petie? Maybe this is when you first found out your love for lavender.
Wherever it was, it wasn’t anything like the redding fields from moments ago,
not even the roses could compete, a dalmatian and carrier pigeon, friends.
Kindly Disorder / Amy Marques
present kindly
disorder
remember
forgotten complaints
carefully
record
the complete word
found
Source Material: A Tale of Two Cities
Fever / Sonia Sophia Sura
I check my temperature every so often
Just out of curiosity
It’s still here I know that
My head is all woowoo and my body is warm like a furnace.
I cry and wipe my tears all over my face.
It cools me down.
My dad sent a picture of my mom and our dog at a restaurant for Valentine’s Day dinner. She is so beautiful, I look at her and remember everything. Everything that was and no longer isn’t; everything that didn’t happen.
I am in bed, alone, missing a home I didn’t properly fit into.
Walking Along the Spine / Samuel Spencer
I look back and see you
Misplace a step, hesitate,
And freeze in place, the snow
Beneath you boots seeping
Down that rocky edge.
For once in my life
I regret not being alone.
Alone I am safe with my stupidity,
Safe to traverse this ledge
With only my own fear, my own
Mortality. But not with you.
I see the fear in your eyes
As they look down at your feet
And back to me. I am afraid.
I search for the words
I would tell your wife,
And come up with nothing better than
“It was my idea.”
We make it, our fears instantly trivial.
The mountain rests below us,
Only the clouds and sky above.
It's all fading away
Like a dream I am already forgetting.
