January - Poem 18
On the Brightness of Pain / Haley Bosse
Like a peach pit rattling loose
In your pocket, overalls
Several days unwashed, wet
From creek forging
And sweat soaking, perpetually
Drying and re-soaking,
Silk of saturated skin rubbing
Raw on the split seems,
Fingers curled into rough tools,
Face tilting in the blister
Of the sunlight, cloud bursting,
Break in the trees biting
At the roots of your eyeballs,
Sharp creak and rustling,
Every call of an animal,
Much too small and alive.
sadie / Jess Bowe
i’ve read that circles
don’t exist to perfection
in form, yet you, held
up to be seen, first
light of my eyes — new round face
a slow-blinking sun.
mathematical
equation pulled from stardust,
i’d sit with you, glass
between hand and Love.
seventeen days of praying
for air to fill you.
i laugh at infinity,
electric beneath your hair.
Not pictured in this image / Joanna Lee
How through the long afternoon we sit
in a back booth at our favorite Mexican joint holding our eyes
against the little vestibule that serves as entryway.
We head out only as the daylight burns itself off,
turning our noses to the sky, the wet smoke of snow
maybe to come, the prayers traced on our breaths reaching
out into the young night like slight child’s fingers—afraid
of what the darkness touches, eager
to find a solid door between it and home.
When they don’t know what “terminal” means / Thomas Page
Reviewed test results with patient // & diagnoses // & care plan // & new medications // asked patient what his preferred pharmacy was // he nodded // explained that the dosage would upped // based on the recommendation // of the cardiologist // he nodded // asked if his living will was up-to-date // he nodded // patient asked if he needed a referral // I explained that the surgeon would probably not do the procedure // due to his age // & risks // & potential complications // he nodded // said that he also thought // that it wasn’t necessary // asked if he had chosen a proxy yet // he nodded // said that his eldest had volunteered // to make any decisions regarding that // that she had asked him // to outfit his house // with ramps // & said // no // I’ll be fine // asked if he had any final questions // he nodded // & said // no // I’ll be fine
Five Ones / Sarah Paley
When it’s cold we wear long johns
and over them snow suits.
Thus padded we have trouble moving.
There is comfort
and discomfort in it.
We step like astronauts out in the snow, crunch through the crust
and sink into the soft stuff below. We. make our ways to the bank
of the Mohawk River, breaking the pristine plateau into one path
with two narrow gullies – five left feet in one,
five right feet in the other.
One will be sent out as a probe on to the ice. If safe, one will go ahead
with a shovel creating corridors that form a giant maze.
Two are instantly graceful – one stumbles,
one assumes a racer’s stance,
one pops an imaginary starter’s pistol.
If there is wind we unfold the old sheets carried under our bulky arms,
one grabs the top and bottom corner, the other one the opposite corners. We stretch
our arms wide and make sails – catching gusts
to propel us to the big island
and beyond.
Four = two human ice boats.
One chases after them, gives up
and makes
circles
ever
widening.
The Smoke of the Copal / Amy Snodgrass
after Jim Simmerman’s Twenty Little Poetry Projects
The howler monkeys can be heard over the sound bath tonight: my former lives
swinging back around. I isolate the sounds perfectly and pour each one
into its own glass beaker. I smell hope in the smoke of the copal and watch
its wisps spiral. The mint I unwrapped in the car lingers on my tongue.
The beads on the pillow given to me look lovely but feel rough and pull my
hair like taffy if taffy carried a syringe. I taste the prick and flinch. Francis next
to me catches my eyes in question but the rules of La Senda are clear: silence,
introspection, eye closed. I smell despair in the copal and watch its wisps come
at me in revenge. For what, I don’t know, but I think one of the monkeys
could clock it. I need to find the right one since our dinner depends on it.
Quero uma garrafa de água gelada. The sparkling beakers of promise sit
in a line filled with my past. One could chug them like poison but this is
not that kind of story. Instead I latch onto the smoke of the copal and wisp
my way out of the dome. No one notices la chintanita is gone, because
of the rules. All eyes will remain shut, all souls will keep introspect, all
voices will continue in silence. The promisingly predictive monkeys watch
my swirling self approach. (Do not believe any of most of these lines.)
The trees absorb me before I even come close to the howlers. “They
have moved on,” the trees say. “Let them go. The revenge was a mirage.
You have come so far to become it and it is no longer. Look ahead,
walk on.” Back on my blue and beaded pillow, I smell love in the smoke
of the copal. The beakers have been tilted and spilt by unseen paws.
