February - Poem 19

Anniversaries / Kristine Anderson

Three-fifths of my family will have birthdays
somewhere else this year.
By family, I mean the family I was born into.

Not sure where they are, these other family members.
I know where my brother is, and I know where I am.
A few months ago, my brother turned 60. He’s in

the Pacific Northwest. We talk every week.
This year, I turn 70. I’m in the Northeast.
I live with others: my husband, our dog.

My husband and I have a son. Our son lives
elsewhere in the world, creating a life. That’s good.
I know where my brother is, where I am,

where my immediate family members are.
But three-fifths of the family I was born into
are somewhere else. And honestly, they don’t

have birthdays anymore. Some folks claim
they know where people go. All I know:

They’re not where I can see or talk to them.

Sure, I’ve visited my mother’s grave in California,
brought cut roses and sweet-smelling jasmine
to lay on the grass. When I travel back another time,

the flowers are as absent as she is. She’d be 100,
but we stopped counting forty-eight years ago.

It doesn’t matter that I haven’t visited
that hillside along a bumpy logging road
high in the Cascades where my sister, brother,

and I scattered our father’s ashes. Even if
I remembered how to get there, even if I found

a remaining ash blowing in the wind, my dad

isn’t there. If he were still having birthdays,
he’d be 104. But that was thirty-two years ago.

And although I’ll someday stop by the cemetery
where we buried, next to our mother, the brass urn
decorated with mother-of-pearl containing

my sister’s ashes, I know. She’s not there.
My sister would 71. It’s been only two years.

Clarity / Barbara Audet

Every once in a while
I go too far, I see the dilemma.
Buying one too many pairs of jeans,
Thrifting one too many ancient dishes
at the store when I know I need no more.
I cannot understand why I try
to surround myself, this life
with such an overflow of what
cannot mean much of anything
to anyone other than myself.
Pare it down. Pair it with humility.
Let less be a less ambiguous
mode of catching happiness.

Daydreams about Miyazaki  / Bee Cordera

and Love at the end of the world

 AMERICAN PARROT / Ashby Logan Hill

This beauty seemed to speak to me nightly in my dreams.
A few caws at three a.m. and silver trinkets — “Never feeding
you again,” I said. Two feral cats howl at the last waning  of the moon
and little droplets of early morning rain bless the shingles of my roof.
“That’s fine. I don’t want any more fruit  and crackers,” it squawked.
“I’ve never really liked Ritz with cheese or grapes with my Saltines.”
I was flabbergasted at the way in which it could do basic math.
“I’ll have you know I’ve always been quite skilled at ancient arithmetic.
It was as if we had both almost begun to swap our intelligences.
Trading places with a bird like that didn’t seem right I thought.
Now I was somehow perched atop the woven stone-thread frame?
Like Herodotus, I had to write my myths and reckon with pebbles.
And as such, we were both left there stranded in the sand or dust.
So, feeling enlightened, tonight we slept with both our eyes open.

Worn / Amy Marques

I

Perhaps we are worn
out with thoughts
and dismal gallows.

II

Perhaps we are
worn out
with
thoughts and 
dismal gallows

III

We are worn out
perhaps
with dismal thoughts 
and gallows

IV

We perhaps are dismal
with worn out thoughts
and gallows

V

We are perhaps dismal
with worn out thoughts

Source material: A Tale of Two Cities

In the Future of Time / Sonia Sophia Sura

It is morning when I go to sleep. 
For you, I mean,
You are in the future of time, 
Somehow having gotten eight 
Hours of sleep before I have put 
My head on my pillow. 
I check the clock in your city. 
I wonder why I forget how hard it is to 
Speak on the phone together. 
I don’t even dream about you
Because you’re awake when I dream. 
It takes 8 hours to cross the sea 
(for the sun, I mean). 
I could ride it across the water and 
Show up in the sky for you,
Wouldn’t that be coool? 
To be the light you’re looking at, 
When you’re wondering where I am? 
And what-ever-am-I doing when 
You wonder what I’m up to? 
I’ll be playing guitar or 
Drinking tea or 
Dancing in circles or 
Looking at a picture of you. 
Kissing someone else. 
Sleeping alone. 
Don’t except we’ll stay as we are. 

Ghazal for Zion  / Samuel Spencer

You were born in every way different –
skin and hair and eyes and name.

But ‘same’ does not mean family, or at least
it shouldn’t. Someone left you without a name

and unclaimed you at birth. That was your
introduction to the world, a place whose name

was found not given; quite like you. Today,
at the courthouse, they signed papers with your name

next to ours. Your name is Spencer now, and the only
‘same’ that matters is that nothing will be the same

every again. Like the Earth, we are made of dust. Please accept
this love. It is packaged in the form of your name.