June - Poem 2

For the Ones We Outgrew / Kristina Byas

I’m sure they’ll haunt us.

Not to be redeemed
or resurrected,

but
mourned,
honored
for having survived what shaped us.

Ode to DoorDash / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Making love is like making dinner. 
I can’t stand the prep— 
all the measuring and chopping,
getting my hands dirty. 

Maybe there’s kneading, maybe 
while I preheat the stove someone 
boils water for something. 
The chicken, moist and pink, 

turns brown in the pan,
and the air is perfumed 
with butter and spices. 
Yes, there’s pleasure in that, but 

there’s pleasure, too, in picking up 
the phone and scrolling through pictures 
of food already made, already plated.
Convenience, like a clean kitchen, 

is also kind of sexy. Something hot, 
delicious and dropped at the door. 

severance - a cento  / Jess Gleason

lines from Much Ado About Nothing and Star Wars: Clone Wars

I learned from watching you
now I have a future.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.

These are strange times
that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man
I learned from watching you.

Don’t insult me.
I love you with so much of my heart that
there’s nothing you have that I could want.

But I’m not that person anymore.
I want that back.
I learned from watching you.

I love you with so much of my heart that
once I was just like you.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.

You’re wrong. I was terrified.
It seems to be what you do best.
There’s nothing you have that I could want.
I learned from watching you.

SHOULDER / Shane Moran

striking a match across my front teeth to dance with you—
how many times did i hold you in the air?
our jelly fish tongues like cleaning a seashell—are most
useful for this.  sleeping with you was   
like a half-dollar rattling the floor til’ flat.  hand-holding and
disappearing in the morning.       you, with a life so like mine,
explain what i could be for you: not hot coals, not the cold smoke
rising off dry ice.  —   serious   —  we’re mute ash.

Conversation with Metaphysical Dog / Jingyu Li

MD: Was it difficult to birth me?

I: Not rushed landscapes nor a waiting stork, you came natural as pebbles.

MD: It was a coincidence then? 

I: No I must have willed it, but then it was unexpected all the same. 

MD: Sometimes I get hungry and it is tricky since we share a mouth and a bark.

I: My mouth is your mouth but your mouth is somewhere outside my mouth.

MD: I am chewing right now.

I: —And I am not.

MD: I’ve been chewing for quite some time, you must tell me to stop.

I: There.

MD: Thank you, my mouth has stopped moving.

I: I did not do a thing.

MD: Tell me then, when do we move together?

I: When you will it or I will it.

MD: So we’ll fly then. I say we’ll fly.

I: See, this is what I mean. You can will things in me I cannot do otherwise.

MD: You are optimistic.

I: I like to believe in better things than we have.

MD: We have this world and that other. 

Load-bearing / Stephanie Zito

My bedroom chair bears witness
to the loads of life we’re living
the many layers of any given week.
Some gathered, washed, and waiting
Some tossed by the wayside of morning’s mayhem.
Find your sleeve or pantleg. Give a sturdy tug.
Be swift as a magician with his tablecloth trick
lest you risk the deluge of scads for the sorting.
A quixotic rendering of myself 
has a real knack for tidy folded stacks. 
But lately life is in a routine of hampering my capacity.
So I gather, wash, then jettison. Rinse and repeat. 
As I iron out my course, the clothing can wait.
For now, I’ll push the limits of fiber sculpture.
Cumbersome. Monotonous. Impressive in scale.
My well-intended friends offer 
instructions for care, beckoning 
I lower the heat
opt for a gentle setting
a free and clear moment to pause.
But to find my seat I first have to fold.