July - Poem 9
Dream of the Deep End / Clayre Benzadon
Inside of me lives: musk, all shades of olive and teal, the dream where I reconnect with my three old (dead) friends, the obsessive young dream of imagining I can swim towards the deep end, honeysuckle season, night jasmine. I carry rainrods in my stomach. A torch of sandblossoms tied to my wrists. There are ways to measure a body’s burgeoning. A nostalgia that never leaves, shakes with rice and beans and beads that I accidentally swallowed when I was a kid, pennies especially. Outside, I plant peonies, lined neat fuchsia folds budding at the tip of soil. I’m in the season between hurricane and ski-time. I blindly reach for a shade of matches, a shadow work of my own devices.
Inside me, I dream: olive, swim, honey, pennies, peonies, a fuchsia that never stops burning.
14 Facts About Viridian Forest / RJ Ingram
1 The train doesn’t stop here.
2 The bugs are so big they could total your car so you can’t drive here.
3 Dana was the children’s den mother & took real good care of them.
4 She asked for the tree’s forgiveness before she cut into it.
5 A real dear.
6 A foxcat guided Dana into the forest to live among the bees.
7 Children seek her out by opening & closing their palms.
8 Grasping for merit badges.
9 Dana doesn’t deny any of them what they want.
10 A bookcase full of novels.
11 A swinging tree in the backyard.
12 A foxkitten of their very own.
13 Write a poem then
14 come & get your merit badge.
Before I Cry Again, In the Kitchen / MeraBaird Kuar
Four is a lonely number
tears a peculiar collectable
pink a sharp signature
Cherries pack a sweet tang
a heart a tart temptation
birth a tender test
Twenty is a sneaky start
Anger a chokeberry
nature a nurtured curse
A peace sign gets a blurry nod
life is a curated exhibit
a smile–smoky ice
A baby is lavender unflowered
to bring light, water and food
is a responsibility beaded in magic
Believing in magic is an innocence
dinging doubt as in pinballs through
the museum of everyone’s body
Doubt is your doggy paddle
in a pool garnished with debris
Who will bring the net?
catalog as erosion / Kes Maro
green. carnation. wilde. wolfe.
wolf. wood [forest, morning].
maine. lighthouse. buoy. jetty.
running barefoot across wide
flat rock. frost. marshes. red-
winged black birds. black-eyed
susans. finger paint forget-me
-nots. mourning [doves, straw-
-berry shortcake backpack,
man-made ponds]. new jersey.
hydrangeas. purple [hyacinth,
angels, people-eater]. drawing
blush onto a doll’s cheek with
red crayola marker. waiting for
books to visit my dreams from
under my pillow. waiting for
wings to break open my shoulder
blades and for fairies to take me
back to the other world. night
lights. running away. mulch.
furby. possession. making a ouija
board out of recycling with h and
k and speaking to a demon. arm
hair [mine, k’s].
I Survived the Wreckage / Azmia Ricchuito
Eyes that glisten
like broken glass
shattered window
Barefoot
walking on broken glass
Put all my hopes
Into a heart-shaped locket
This was an 18” chain
How did it become a choker?
Somewhere on interstate 95
is where legend says I lost it
A quarter mile at a time
horses under my hood
a black stallion for a coffin
You’re inside me
under this skin
that I’m trying to crawl out of
there’s only room for one
winning is winning
whether it’s by
an inch or a mile
Proof of life
I survived.
But did I ever
really live?
If I Talk About This Today I’ll Cry: A Villanelle / Tammy Smith
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs
when I ask him about his son. He turns his head.
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry.”
It isn’t what he meant to say. I know he tries
to open up, though therapy tears him to shreds.
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs.
Every Wednesday, I help him recognize
the battles his body can’t shake: insomnia, night sweats,
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry”
about the war. He struggles to describe
rice paddies, leeches, close calls with death.
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs.
I blink back tears as I watch him agonize
over why he lived when his buddies died instead.
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry.”
Every Wednesday, I do my best to empathize
with his grief while he catches his breath.
“But that’s another story,” the veteran sighs.
“If I talk about this today I’ll cry.”
In Our As If Dream / Daphne Stanford
As if we framed our faces with muffin tins, bottoms cut out of them, eyes fitting inside two muffin rounds, nose fitting one below. As if jewelry. As if patrimony. As if we actually needed some token of partnership to prove we exist outside tacos or selfies or pictures of things: tire-crushed cans in a Winning Company parking lot; baby shoes left behind after a picnic, before the rain; blurred outlines of tunnels in caverns, pitch-black, full of stalactites & bats-–upside-down but right-side-up, asleep.
