July - Poem 5
Tea Time for Ghosts / Clayre Benzadon
Dearest __________,
I left one muffin crumb
on the counter, for you.
You haven’t been home
in ages. The house
is a mess. One silver shoe
oxidized outside the front
door. Clay dolls daintily
displayed on a shelf
in the foyer. Tea time
for ghosts. Saucers
honeyed mint in the sink.
All I’m trying to say
is I was eating break-
fast and a war plane
shook the walls
of this place, and
the fridge held
the leftover rice
salad with mayo,
chopped carrots,
manzanilla olives,
and boiled eggs.
On the couch
you left your head-
phones, water bottle,
a plate with a the last
half of a hot dog bun.
I’m not trying to be
patriotic, but I think
this is all a sign,
to remember
absence. How
all the things
you left behind
left me as hollow
as an empty pool
float, the last scrap
of you discarded.
I did not use the internet to write this poem / RJ Ingram
Remember when we greased up the swing set & hoped less friction would help us throw ourselves onto the roof? / We didn’t know anything about aerodynamics or friction but we knew oil made things slippery & slippery things travel fast / Remember the way rain would sneak into the sandbox & we would have to let it dry out in the hot August sun? / Grandpa would fill the green turtle with fresh sand every summer & I don’t think we even noticed bc we stopped playing in the sandbox in the backyard & started playing on the computer in the office / Remember when they turned the boatyard into a strip club & when we drove out to the water tower to watch the the sun set behind the Adultmart marquee? / The radio was turned up to twenty & we thought the guitarist was playing just for us as we watched the truck on the freeway burn down to the tires / Remember when the kids sailed into the harbor on their little ships & we threw confetti at them & the fish came up expecting the confetti to be more than strips of plastic & pieces of paper / When they warned us not to feed the fish they forgot to mention the confetti / Remember when grandpa would fall asleep in church? / We used to bury him in the cemetery & it would sometimes take him weeks to dig himself out he used to be so furious / Remember when we got caught cheating at bingo night at the YMCA? / Mrs. Newman couldn’t prove anything bc we ate up all the evidence including the prizes we won before she had the chance to call the police / Remember when we got so good at disassociating we could make our arguing parents just disappear? / Pepperidge Farm remembers.
two hundred and fifty / Kes Maro
we keep calling this period
of time ‘these times’ and i hear
myself saying it too,
referring to now as now
more than ever or charged or
maybe even divisive if
people are feeling combative.
how to sum up an era
of catastrophic violence
towards people and earth
as it relates to the patterns that birthed
it? as it relates to the relationship between
river and sea? pink triangulated on my chest?
a city shut down for new royal wedding
while the heat climbs outside?
we use vague terms like they can hold
every unvoiced shame and horror
in meaning’s vague walls. we talk
around what we mean. the poem fails us too.
i keep hearing 45. divided times. anthropocene,
we’re so delicate with our language, so afraid
to condemn. when did specificity become
such a burden? i remember
watching tv as a kid and hitting pause
when the crux of the drama, the plot of an episode
came from miscommunication
where someone could have said something obvious
and undone the whole issue. i called that bad writing.
who talks like this?
He Studied How to Stay / Azmia Ricchuito
It’s easy to miss things as a child
when you’ve never heard
the words depression
or anxiety.
The only melancholy I knew
was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,
a Smashing Pumpkins record
that you were thoroughly unimpressed by.
Billy Corgan,
after all,
was no Pavarotti.
I saw the books
lined neatly on your bookshelf:
Listening to Prozac.
The Noonday Demon.
But I was ten, so I thought Prozac
was some sort of authority figure,
like General Patton.
And I thought The Noonday Demon
was a work of fiction—
a horror novel,
something Stephen King
might have written
about the things that go bump
in the night.
And in some ways,
I was right about that part.
Years later, I finally understood
what you meant when you said
“The more intelligent you are, the harder it is to be happy.”
I realized those were
not just books about depression.
They were books
about surviving it.
I didn’t know
you weren’t studying psychology.
You were studying
how to stay.
How to quietly
carry your own darkness
while showing me
the tiny pinpricks of starlight
scattered across the night sky.
You taught me that
paying attention
comes with a cost.
You paid it anyway.
You spent your career
exploring the universe
at NASA.
But your greatest discovery
wasn’t somewhere beyond
our atmosphere.
It was teaching
a frightened little girl
that the universe inside her
was worth exploring too.
You taught me to
ask the right questions.
To look directly
at the darkness
And still
find the stars.
The Heart’s Chambermaid / Tammy Smith
Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know—
—William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act 2, scene 2
The last time I checked
my pulse, placed my finger
in the soft groove
between bone and tendon,
death was a faraway thought,
one of those destinations
eager, young travelers shove
to the back of their minds
like brand-new baggage:
lightweight, whisper-wheeled,
designed for easy storage.
How easy it was
to disregard the body’s girth,
to board a plane without measuring
aisles, worrying about seat belt extenders,
the nearest exit door
or defibrillator.
The last time I checked
my pulse, I guiltily wondered
if it was only
the heart’s chambermaid—
tidying private quarters,
drawing a bath,
changing the sheets,
washing out stains.
In Your Golden Dream / Daphne Stanford
Gulls & cormorants circle the sea stack—ancient monolith that’s been there longer than any of us has breathed—any of those among us now, anyway (here’s hoping no ghosts, that is). My stuffed puffin, Sailor Jack, nuzzles me with fuzz: plush velour; tufted ear-cheeks, emerging. For the birds, as some used to say. No longer. Walk in the opposite direction from hordes, despite fireworks, which Maya P. reminds us can problematic—depending who you are. Depending upon who has chased you. Depending upon the color of your skin/clothes/eyes/hair/teeth. The colors of everything will blend in the pyrotechnics. Golden retriever at the parade nuzzles his nose & ear into my pant leg, presses his body soft against my leg as if to say, “I’m here. No, everything’s not okay. No, I’m not leaving your side.”
