January - Poem 6
No Violence Without Harm / Haley Bosse
You waited patient
For your first stretch of seam,
You dreamed of perfect
Settling over you in the night,
Friction smoothing crystals
Malleable and ready to be rolled,
Your body doughed out
On the counter,
Whole ranges of ancient mountains
Parting at the touch.
salt / Jess Bowe
i used to run from her,
the fish with my mother’s
name, chasing me through
waterways of a dream;
the mouth, gaping
and toothless,
sound waves swallowing
my safety— i believed
this was anger as big
as a planet,
formed in a fist of cells
and sea-life,
made in the image
of its origin—
until today, waking up
with saltwater dripping
from the blades of my back,
stolen dolphins circling
the tank of my ribcage,
their prison song wrapping
its grip around my bones,
cracking me open
like a lightning knife—
i’m swimming to an illusory
shore, sand reaching out
with thirsty hands,
brine pool at the bottom
of my first-born fear.
in all of this thrashing,
thunder and roar
of fins slicing blue,
my small voice feels
blindly
for boat bellies,
for boards
turning waves
into tunnels of light.
Excised / Joanna Lee
Look, I have cut out the words
to make room for you.
We used to say such heavy things,
whole bloodied histories,
devilry and romance. Which we stole
from something someone wrote once,
a soldier, maybe. Maybe Neruda
who dreamed in train whistles,
tracks. The past, though, is never
really past: someone’s dad’s always yelling,
there are forever
sirens. The Roman coins
tucked in the bottom of my dresser
you gave me over
all the years, I see now:
ferryman’s wages.
We never know how close we are
to becoming another statistic.
Just yesterday, for example, I fell in love
with the gleam of this place;
today I fall with its grit.
The same train still passing.
You, still
gone.
Getting twenty-seven cards about you didn’t make me feel better / Thomas Page
How can I fault them
for trying to make me feel
better about the way
I had to leave them
to attend to matters you
had no reason to
want to happen? I
received a stack of twenty-
seven cards, hand-drawn
“In a better place
nows” with smeared clouds and wings
of angels harping
gilded strings, happy
with the results of your place.
I force a smile
and a soft “thank you”
at the big stack of twenty
seven earnest pleas
for me to return
to normalcy. Bereavement
lasts only a week,
apparently, so
I take my twenty-seven
cards, in purples, pinks,
and baby blues; dyed
with markers; colored with pens
to my desk back there.
I Stop Somewhere Waiting for You / Sarah Paley
(Sestina for HDP)
Do you remember me doing a som-
ersault for you? My body
curling up in a ball. But you died,
just as all & every
body must. I stopped then, for
what seemed like good but was mere seconds
in the scheme of the afterlife; heavenly bodies
& such. You’re wandering while I try di-
aloging. Remember that Christmas Eve
when you threw a bat at the cat for
taking a shit on your table saw? A sec-
ant! You had excellent aim. Some
sibling, trying to soothe things over for every
one, drew a cartoon of our Mean Dad. First four:
two sons, two daughters. Then me. I was your second
favorite. Later that year in the summer
he, the cat, would reappear. His terrible body
ravaged by living in the wild. A miracle he hadn’t died.
Images & words float up when I stop & wait for
you. Corduroy jackets, ring-a-ding-ding, your rusty sec-
ateurs. You loved moving earth. Hoeing, digging, some
times making us all join you for hours & hours. Everybody
griping about planting saplings we thought already looked dead.
You know what? I am now older than you ever
were. Seems rude & dangerous to say. I want no seconds
taken off my clock. You didn’t either. Though there was some
thing off, wasn’t there? That sadness got your body
to just quit. Street urchin, loved son, card player/die
roller, soldier, port captain, husband, father & at every
turn never resting. Forging ahead. What did you say? For
Christsakes! Yes, often & with your lower lip bit. Some-
where. Are you out there? I’ll stop and sit my body
down and wait till you pass. When I die
I don’t expect to see you. I do that now, every
once in a while. It’s been what? Forty
plus years since you split in a mere second.
Somebody dies every four seconds.
Solitaire / Amy Snodgrass
for Louise Glück and my mother
the cards are glossy and slip
count to seven and over again
sliding the three of hearts
that can save the game
the quick flip and tap
is my mother
reborn into the air
around me
and I gasp
synapses grasp and find their hold
this game I decided
would save me
did not save her
what did I expect?
count to seven and over again
the sliding and scooping start
shuffle and arc and flaring fan, fast
and impressive although it’s all I can do
and within that line she sits
across from me, ashamed
count to seven and over again
and I gasp
and shut
cutting the cards, a satisfying
drop sets new plasticity into place
she hovers lightly and haunts
she never ended her poem
the glow of the bluelight dissipates
into a cushion, cozy and sure
count to seven and try again
