January - Poem 28
Three Decades Cobbled Out of Half-Lives / Haley Bosse
Half-life (noun): the time required for half of the atoms of a radioactive substance to become disintegrated
The girl who bruised my brain
Brought caesium
And when she left
I dredged up fermium
By dancing in the chill.
I caught curium
With a wide-faced spoon,
Sifting through
A steaming bowl of ramen,
Fluorine filtered
As I mouthed at empty air.
These days, I count out bismuth
For my neighbors,
Polonium for my nieces,
Figure if I’m dreaming big,
Berkelium for three more goes
At basking, animal
Beneath the setting sun.
Really, I would settle
For one more thorium
Or even francium
Or the very tip
Of my finger,
The half-life
Of a single fleck of skin.
See:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_nuclides_by_half-life
holy house / Jess Bowe
rain shivers down,
heavy and muffling
the grass, hostage
under the weight
of minute globes;
the after-dinner choir
sings its final encore,
chimes and bells
etch their praise
into the ceiling
thick and gray,
dirtied-down
and huddled close
to the ground;
casting out a ribbon
of sound, impersonating,
for a note, the midnight owl
in muddied daylight.
she fronts the chorus
from the black wire,
electric surging
beneath her fragile
feet, praying for all
she sees, for all
we fail to see.
from the height of her
perch, Sun slopes
into Mountain’s chiseled
arm, pushed by her
swallowing cry
looming through the halls
of branches, of night-readied
nests, of ordinary mothers
wiping the ashen dust
of the day from their palms.
The mirrored shades of God / Joanna Lee
Two neighbors, whose names I don’t know,
slide across the street to help
rock my car out of the ice
cage its parking spot has become.
My foot on the gas, the alarm in me rises
with the violence of each convulsion,
their laying on of hands.
Through the windshield, the sun
leaves a slow sinking trail across a landscape
that could be a desert on the moon,
the street ahead slick
as the mirrored shades of God.
The roar of the engine is a dare.
With one huge heave, the rear tires break
free and I am sailing, sailing
on a diagonal across the intersection,
all four wheels purchaseless, un-
tethered by friction,
an ungovernable force all my own.
Our street corner frozen in time, its eyes
out. The light falling, the moment
stretched like a kitestring as the wind
picks up, nothing
between me and a glittering chaos but
classical mechanics—the slowing momentum
as I ease off the gas and let the spin
find its silence. Grin into the hollow.
Look back, then, at how we got here,
grateful for this day, for so many
small miracles across its transept.
Cabin Fever / Thomas Page
When was the last time that I felt comfortable enough to leave you unsupervised?
When was the last time that I felt comfortable enough to leave you?
When was the last time that I felt comfortable enough to leave?
When was the last time that I felt comfortable enough to…?
When was the last time that I felt comfortable enough?
When was the last time that I felt comfortable?
When was the last time that I felt?
When was the last time that I?
When was the last time that…?
When was the last time?
When was the last?
When was the…?
When was…?
When?
?
When You Go Looking For What is Lost / Sarah Paley
Everything is a sign.
The holy ghosts won’t stay put
but if the light stays green long
enough for us to cross the street,
if there is just enough milk
for the morning coffee,
or to find money in a forlorn pocket...
Well, I’m not saying it’s definite
but it’s pretty obvious
that something will give
and free the mind to find
what it is that needs to be found.
Good News / Amy Snodgrass
(for Amy Jacobs and with thanks to @winningnmindset)
In Norway, there is an island with no clocks.
In France, short flights are banned if trains travel the same route.
It’s a relief to know so many ways exist to resist. Call your senator.
Walk frigid sidewalks as one link in a human chain of truth. Know when
your neighbors are huddled and scared behind blackout curtains, and
sneak them a beef broccoli casserole– your mother’s cherished recipe–
and a gallon of milk. Don’t forget the Hershey’s syrup. Marshmallows.
Dutch engineers built an ocean-plastic vacuum cleaner.
Pandas and green sea turtles no longer land on the endangered list.
Use your talents and energy for love. Dream up, design, and build
an Instagram page that highlights good news: save all our nervous
systems from shutdown. Fill up your car and create a safe-ride network
for wary children too shaken to walk to the school bus. Play Shakira.
So many ways to resist. Learn them. Teach them. Do not open the door.
Elephant conservation efforts in Botswana have been wildly successful.
In Ethiopia, in one day, citizens planted 700 million trees. 700 million.
