June - Poem 29

Reflex / Kristina Byas

I stopped

listening to the rhythm of their breaths,
trying to read their faces.

Stopped measuring their silence
only to be mistaken.

Stopped believing
I could outrun
what someone else
had already decided.

As if I could bargain,
trade their truth for mine,
and call it understanding.

Anniversary Poem / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Though we don’t make
up make
out make
sense make
love make
room for each other
on the couch anymore,
we make
believe we
make do
we make
dinner.  

astronaut apéritif   / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

When I walk into boiling summer days,
the air soup and dampening sound,
my heart is cold with the crisp quiet of winter.

My heart never arcs with static desire for cold
more than in the pinch of winter storms,
when the air reflects the cream-sounding light 
of streetlamps the world, a crystal
halo. Here I crave
a deeper cold to sink within –

some sort of marrow-spoon to hollow me,
soup me up for the snow to eat,
reclaim me into clouds.

So, toss me up, lathered on toast,
to brush across the edge of space.
Let the black matter of the universe taste
what I offer and let me savor
what true freezing tastes like in return.

AUREOLA  / Shane Moran

Grow up with earth   -   eyes closed
Build the palace  -   the sky  
mourn more of your learning
Who learns to sing and does not know

The garden rocks reek of jasmine breath
Bulbs gladdened by a smile become one 
endless ribbon  -   Stars get tangled 
in her hair, comb them out for dinner

Teach kindness as a butterfly would
Become of the finest gifts   -   Chance 
to rise or kill what sprouts out the dirt
of you  -   One can lose   -   only illusion

Window / Jingyu Li

When my grandmother died, my father wrote her name 
in a notebook and drew a circle around it since 
no one can step outside of death. 

When my grandmother died, 
my father drew a circle around himself 
and looked at us through the thick window.

In the nights, he stepped outside the window. 
In the days, he stepped back in.
One day he asked me if he could hurl himself from it. 

What would I do if he jumped out the window and died, 
he asked me. And since I was young, I had no answer 
but I remembered the window.

There were times I forgot about the window
and tried to reach through the air for him.
There were times I believed we were on the same side 

of the window. Or that I was him,
that I was the one about to jump.

Some days I turn my back to it, him and the window.

Cherish  / Stefanie Zito

We sat together
You in my lap and me on the armchair 
Which held us through it all.
Our home’s baptismal furnishings
The inaugural provisions of postpartum rest 
Receiving the mess of waterweight 
The milk that came in 
The tears that followed.
We tested the limits of space 
As we grew two by two 
Canines and kids alike
My capacity stretching along with it.
Our yellow chair, the color of joy– 
Forsythia, dandelion–
Early markers of spring.
Seasons have shifted, bodies growing 
in time under tension
Fraying warp and woof
A slow shredding into disrepair. 
Our trusty, rusty chair sat itself on the curb 
We curled into its final embrace.
and carried our sorrow inward.
November’s darkness hung thick overhead
I turned on my heel and tore outside
Sheers in hand, tears on cheek
I stabbed the chair in its backside
Cutting to the heart, a swath for the savoring \
Running back inside waving 
a victorious yellow flag of revival.
With my needle and thread
I wrote its next chapter
Piercing precious remnants 
Two heart-shaped pillows 
With which to bolster my children’s spirits– 
A new and reimagined place to land.