July - Poem 19

Foreshadowing  / Clayre Benzadon

-after Sarah Green

Bins of shit 
strewn across 
my room.

Soccer match
gaining traction,
rivalry, political

battles. Stem
of a honeysuckle
knotted through

the back of my ear.
I hear sirens plow
through the neigh-

borhood, all the time. 
Time is an ice cream
truck whistling Bad

Bunny’s “Callaíta”
On the street, I sing
whims of beach,

try to get back
to where I 
 came from.

Calisthenics   / RJ Ingram

Pick up the pace she shouted & Erica reached out for him but couldn’t grab him & for that Erica lost her life / I don’t need you alive I just need your talent mother would warn us between stops at the gymnasiums / Pick up the pace she would shout again & another pair of hands would grasp at that little golden tapir / The pace was an anxious animal who could hypnotize anyone who looked at him which made him an excellent escape artist / Mother would notice his absence & draw a card & knew exactly where to look for him next / Pick up the pace she would yell as we approached / I got him I got him I got him! / We gave him a washer tied to a string to help him focus his talent but it only made him more unwieldy / The slippery sucker’s gone again but we’re going to circle back mother would shout from her alter in the caboose / The pace was back for a day or two before he would slip off the train wandering the countryside looking for his children / Erica loved him more than the plants that hung in her cabin / But she was so short / He’s on the right side this time pick up the pace! / Erica used to call him Hypno bc of his talent before she lost her arms reaching for him out her window / Now we don’t call him anything but grab him & quickly when mother tells us to pick him up.

Foreshadowing after Sarah Green / MeraBaird Kuar

I see Chaka Khan everywhere after
I dreamed of her the time I woke up
and said “this was not just a dream”

I sign up for open mics, and arts festivals
every week

the terrier from two doors over scurries
onto the porch, scaring my infant son

he’s always trying to slide out of my arms
to crawl on the ground and palm something
to his mouth

there is only 1 sunflower left in the garden
but it has 3 more blooms, while its first
head hangs lovingly in watch and waste

it’s full of heavy seeds, it is drying and dying
but meanwhile, it keeps birthing blossoms

this year my husband and I both work
in the garden while we process 
the ramifications of the months last year

when I was too sick to move from the bed

the children built a chaos garden all over
the backyard, in the closets, under beds

I forget that life kept moving
it felt like one long day 

I missed so much sunshine, watering
pest control, even trellising

my husband had luck with the tomatoes
but he lost most of my other seeds

the youngest children always leave me
when he wakes up

I keep finding blankets I forgot about under dirt
my favorite wooden furniture is rotten now

the older kids don’t ask for my advice

the tent is still out since the hurricane
the fire pit changes its occupation daily

the little trampoline turns the big trampoline
into a castle

just add beach pails and Legos

clean up takes more time than playing

I ask the kids why they don’t listen anymore
I forget I abandoned them for months

I was too busy dreaming and drying out
it felt like dying but it was more a hibernation

my brain told me I was alone
I didn’t see all the things growing around me

distance, contention, depression, clutter
now that I’m upright again, 

I’m armed, up early every morning
cutting it all back

If I keep it up it will bloom again 
the way it should

artichoke / Kes Maro

green thistle.
once i dreamt
us swallowed
by unpleasant
waters. it was
a relief then.
i woke up &
you were out-
-side yourself.
artichokes grow
furry spines
around their hearts.
they bloom as
purple arms. to eat
them, use the dull
edge of a spoon
to scoop out their
sharpness. steam
in a shallow bath
of lemon & water
i orbited you.
i don’t understand
meter, so i make
a sauce with fennel
seeds and tomato
to eat with white fish.
i scrape the buttered flesh
off the artichoke leaves
with my teeth. i eat
the heart. i feel like
an animal. i was out-
-side myself. i’m
nineteen again. i drink
orange vodka & tap
water. i am caught
in the rain with holes
in my shoes. i have
never searched
for your obituary
but soon i will try
to make myself
the dull edge
of a spoon. soon
i will try to be gentle. 

Google Maps Can Never Find Me Now  / Azmia Ricchuito

I gifted you
a map of my wounds;

but you crossed
every line —
even the ones
you drew.

We move past
each other, 

our histories creating
friction, grinding
salt into the wounds.

You run when
the earth shakes,
abandoning the safe house,

splitting the ground
between us.

But it’s me who
lives on the edge
of the middle you
destroyed.

Whose fault was it
when the San Andreas
tore through us,

opening an
all-consuming abyss
that swallowed us whole?

Where were you
when I was
mastering cartography,

alone in a dark room
with no sunrise for
a compass…

directionless?

I’ve learned the language
of wounds so well

I know the name
for everything that hurt you

while forgetting the words
for what you did to me.

I forgot the words,
but my body remembers
when the whole world
shattered. 

Triolet for The Weight We Carry    / Tammy Smith

Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Both are a burden to carry
across the bridge pain has built.
Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Suffering has become this quilt,
a patchwork of pain we marry.
Does despair weigh more than guilt?
Both are a burden to carry.

Letter to My Eight-Year-Old Self  / Daphne Stanford

You were fearless. You rode your red bicycle around the neighborhood without knowing which street to go down, but you didn’t care. It excited you, the not knowing: beachside air rippling shirt sleeves, sandy brown bangs. The way your toes dug into the damp waterline, how you scooped up sand crabs, felt them scurry from your grasp back beneath their saltwater mirror, sand bubbling its surface. Your yearning to become a seabird lifting off with its gull brethren, white wings flapping higher toward the sun till they’re soaring over sparkling ocean, out past the buoys, toward the next shore. I want to say, You can still join them. You can do anything you want to do, sweet Daphne. You don’t have to go it alone.