March - Poem 23
Tanka / Kathleen Bednarek
A pear tree reaches
Higher than my tipping toes
Your hands lifting me
My fingertips weigh the air
Capturing soft fruit
Snapping against your
Arm—you steady this body
The waving sheets
Lower me—my arms are wide
Sky—floating with two pears
This was not the way I drew it up in my Coloring Book of Revelations; / Susan Hankla
when bent over it, filling it in with paints,
I feel I am right with the Almighty,
and then when I stop coloring, I'm
losing my way again. No one can color
all day except Leonardo de V, his puffy
shirt glued by his sweat to the scaffolding.
But is it unseemly for a girl to do like that? I ask and hear a voice that says do it anyway.
Planting Season / Amy Haworth
today’s pause at the kitchen sink
peeled my eyes to the out back
imagining how someone would see it
if
they stopped by for sugar or an egg
might be surprised to find
a hot reflection bouncing
corrugated steel
filled with fickle soil that loves carrots --
but the spring, when it comes, tastes like sunshine.
Here in Consolationville / Christina McCleanhan
The unspent laments of vertebrates and fishers’ grief live in
the hollowed timber of vulnerable shorelines after receding
waters deposit their haul on consignment until the next
storm swells the limits of its compassion.
Lines that live in faith,
Lines that live in courage,
Lines that dance with maracas and failed dreams and
acceptance and resistance, and tympanic precision that
directs the balancing spin between what has been and what will be.
On a quiet walk, toward the blue cottage, notice how
shadows hang from leaves. Consider resting
near the snowball bush; the old, black cat’s ghost will follow.
Us, without words, we do understand each other.
Us, who are the missing
socks, useless bottle openers, slim phone books, forgotten
leftovers, empty ice trays, and worn treads of
circumstance, will sing willingness louder
than the ticket-takers care to listen.
Places I’d Rather Be / Elizabeth McGraw
It’s Spielberg, no wait, Richard Cunningham.
You emerge from the barn having brought a new calf into the world. Wipe your hands on the apron that’s been worn all night long. Your hair is frizzled and relief shines all over your face. You’ve met life at the moment it starts to walk. My god. The moment it’s been given movement and the gift of survival and discovery.
You are greeted by an outsider asking why you aren’t more in. Your holiday over, you shake his hand.
When mail comes I drop it / Alexis Wolfe
Smurf tells me he’s been recommended for
another six months in solitary but sends dreams soft
as the backs of hands—once I came to him talons tied
with blue ribbon once I was an owl nesting brown
on his shoulder when awake he is cold and I am cellless
I am cells driving my car complaining about peanut butter
additives the leak in my coolant reservoir days running hot
smurf signs his letters to beyond
the gates teaches me creole but forgets the seasons
pledges allegiance to Selena remembers my birthday
and works for greeting cards one call per x week
what x week is it? more than five hundred and forty
have passed he tells me he is Miami finds hope
and utility in birds this my alarm this my radio
sometimes says Him believes in Unlucky
doesn’t say sparrow says sak pase
has always wanted a Kawasaki
last month his sister flew in from Japan
they didn’t like her dress, wouldn’t let her through—
now tell me, what is usual and uncruel?
