March - Poem 10
this kid / Kathleen Bednarek
(for K.W.)
the edge
of the moon still visible
padding the earth body
with its rounded blanket
those storied wishes
a vision of a world beyond us
barely disappearing
circling the neighborhood
looking into the backseat
seeing part of my face
what am I going to do
returns
holding you under your soft arms
my palms under your armpits
my lips in your hair
lifting I don’t know
in a dream seen through
the dark with you
For that relative who'd come to stay / Susan Hankla
summering at my grandparents,
who took her false teeth out
for the boarding house repast,
leaving them on the table,
later saying, "That sure was good."
How else to show appreciation.
Coming from Stone Mountain
to dry out, she didn't know
better. I bet Opal laughed.
I bet Willie didn't. It was someone
related. He feared he'd used up
the good will when he'd asked if
his sisters would look after his five.
Come from Indiana to Virginia
after Lulu died, there was talk
of separating the girls. But he married
Miss Opal, and nobody ever talked of loss.
Opal sewed a dress every day some weeks.
Made the girls face each other, and sit
in hard chairs when they rough-housed.
She lost a brother Elga by him drowning
with his new wife in Lake Louise. The little boat
capsized in the wake of an ocean liner. The obit
read: The Sad Death of an Unhappy Man. She
was grieving him when Mom was conceived.
The summering woman did dry out.
She went home fat.
Get Lost / Amy Haworth
I'll consider it
Maybe we've got it all wrong
I won't rule it out
This current state of progress
has removed wondering
We pin locations and know the fastest route
Efficiency or ease winning out
Now getting lost is a malfunction
We've been told the way
Shown the path
And forgotten what we no longer consider
We were made to wander
To look up
at the stars
Instead of down
at our phone
Can you imagine?
What did we do when we spread a map eagle-armed
Obscuring the road to see the route?
I'll consider this:
We were made to forge trails
not follow them.
Once upon a time
getting lost
was our way of being found.
For the Quiet Nightingale / Christina McCleanhan
The night cold has come home for a visit.
Frost on the windows,
damp on the front porch swing,
fog clinging to the iron fence posts.
Where did she go? Has anybody seen her?
Darkness hums in stillness, waiting for the rain.
Your sweater is inside,
near the out-of-tune piano,
but it’s best to hideout by the brick pile.
There, no one will
touch your skin-cracked bottom lip,
laugh at your swollen ankles,
witness your overdressed misery.
She’s sad again. Go check the bathroom.
Moonlight slips between the porch boards,
lightening strikes, a sharpened sailor’s curse.
You tried to decline the invitation,
now you’re frozen and wondering,
how much longer will it be
until you can go home,
open the kitchen cabinets,
pull down one of your grandmother’s old plates
and cut a leftover chicken sandwich,
toasted and gravied,
into triangles.
Wait! She left earlier, before dinner.
Frost on the windows,
damp on the front porch swing,
fog clinging to the iron fence posts
The streetlight blinks as her shadow passes.
Bursts / Elizabeth McGraw
I am trying to encourage small pops of inspiration cause that’s all the space I have. In bips and bops they are revealed. They emerge, burst, then disappear.
You gotta be ready because when they appear. It’s just for a moment then they travel and unravel and leave but just a trace.
An image, a memory, a smell, a taste of the feast that was promised.
I am lost without them. Discovered anew. These small baubles of choice.
It’s a capturing, a rapturing, and a voice. To be heard but mostly just remembered.
Nan taught me / Alexis Wolfe
(Hi kirsten<333)
Nan taught me to
pucker up put the sun
in a headlock seek the blade
beneath the mattress
I was there and she
was there but staring into
her stills I was
underneath sure
those polka dotted tulles
glabella squinched
temples prodded by
knockknees peering
at the certain
violet: me crushing
the Coors can
me balancing paper
plate of friend’s berry
pie my eyes matter
of fact blood-blackened
me one hundred
years old pigeon chested
and counting me
tits out for Jesus
my work was once called
sophisticated—untrue
the most
embarrassing thing
in the world to be
a poet but if I could
take you for a spin
on that?
not tell you show you
to hightail it to the elevator
knock on any door no
it’s not your birthday
maybe it’s your mom’s
say this is my only night
in town do you have
Purpose? I’m it
