July - Poem 29

Within the Margins  / Clayre Benzadon

I think about skiing at the end of July, how I could use a slap of winter on the face and even brace myself for the claustrophobia inside gondolas. I’m trying to write squarely this time, within the margins of a page, but I can’t ever successfully come up with what to write next; I’m having a difficult time breathing within the space-lack. In a more “normal” poem, words appear based on the measurement of a line. Back to skiing: I put on my goggles, stomp my

boots into skis, and glide my body against whatever form of snow is existent in my fantasy (powder, most likely).

I fancy fries and a Mountain Dew after, or at the top of the hill, for lunch. I visualize in double time.

When I reach the bottom, I’m back to reality. I read my email: I’ve received a rejection letter. I settle for Starbucks instead of a local coffee shop. I burn my tongue on the bitter water that is supposed to be a bold brew.    

    I think about it, this life, what we have and what we miss.

I did not use the internet to write this poem / RJ Ingram

I am honest about my background in necromancy I don’t feel like it’s a stain on my resume or my reputation / I’ve stitched years back together with the libraries of the deceased & the clothes they leave behind oh! The clothes they leave behind / Brands our parents could never afford & mountains of neglected toys / On bad days I remind myself we are doing the labor for Moonracer the guardian lion of the Island of Misfit Toys / We bring people back to life too / We give them a place to go & slip secrets in their pockets when shaking them out looking for loose change / Shoes walk again because of us & that’s the magic that’s the necromancy the church doesn’t talk about / The magic that could run them out of business / I met a necromancer once a strawberry blonde with a gold tooth who reminded me of annihilation / He braided his own hair I thought that was so cool / He could find a real coin in a barrel full of fakes in thirty seconds / He only stayed in town for the summer / But I swear I’ve seen him standing out in the field on the other side of the horizon / If you make it there check the scarecrow for a golden tooth.

Please Stop the Noise / MeraBaird Kuar

Let us all choose a side
as quickly as the road degrades

as carefully as our state spends
the tax dollars to fix them

as loudly as the teachers yell
at our kindergarteners

as openly as a combat veteran
shares the colors of his war scenes

as heavily as his eyes water
when the stories clack and collide

as easily as we separate the truth
from the albumen, collect it in its shell

pour it into the bowl of dry ingredients
whisk it into something new, cook 

and eat until we believe this is the only
way a side should ever taste. Pass on

any other version of this cooled dish. 
Don’t think too hard, don’t step on a crack.

Portrait of My Grandmother and I With Wallpaper / Kes Maro

The angels of the raspberry wallpaper lived
in the paste in Nana’s kitchen for thirty years    
          They were a mess of bramble & macerated

berries          Their songs took tongues from orioles
& the hum of cars down Montauk highway
          Once     I sat at the counter & begged to eat jam

with a spoon          I felt that everything we ate was plain
cereals     oatmeal          The angels shut their mouths
& turned their eyes from me          She said I would make myself

sick & later it was a gentle I told you so     but she smoothed
her palm over my back & the angels chattered again
On my tenth birthday I wore a navy blue unicorn

sweatshirt that shed glitter all over the couch          She gifted me
a necklace with the Virgin Mary’s portrait & told me
she had been gifted that same necklace on her same birthday

          The chain broke immediately          We got on our knees
& never found it          I feel where she rested between
my collar bones     a hot shame          I find

a photo of us on the beach     I am in a bright blue bathing suit
& her hair is tied up          She is so young
         The sand bleached     photo ink almost melting off the paper

          Nana renovates her kitchen          She redoes the floors
     the counters     tears down the wallpaper          She paints most
of it blues     covers the dark stained wood     & gets rid

of the green furniture          She hangs paintings
long lines of morning beach light          The angels
get loose & move out to the yard          They grow

roots from their spined wings & become
everything     blooming bleeding heart     a row
of pine trees     rabbits burrowed
under the aging porch

What Strength Questions  / Tammy Smith

Whether you think you need strength

or fear you don’t have enough

hardly matters when you’re stargazing,

searching the sky for a lost love.

Don’t be fooled by fullness—

even the moon goes through phases:

a sliver of light grows, then shrinks,

before the naked eye

blinks shut.

If only strength
could be lassoed
the way George Bailey promised Mary
the moon,
or pocketed like the flower petals
he saved for Zuzu.
If only strength
were all you needed
to outrun darkness or desire.

I prefer Mary Oliver’s question:
“What will you do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Strength is the soft animal
of your body’s answer.

After-Elegy / Daphne Stanford

About the first David
The one I was born to

After whose death I went

Numb, then couldn’t
Sleep, then drove to the
City of my undergraduate

Years to reclaim pieces of
Myself I believed I must 
Have left behind in some

Green canyon, forested 
Park, or basement library
Stacks. Always relegated

To basements, I was—& 
Am. Easier to dig toward
Middle Earth, further down

I’ll reach the sky eventually, 
Right? When I get there, 
I hope I’ll hear you singing.