March - Poem 28

Feel vs. am / Kathleen Bednarek

Everything is changing. 
The tangerine is softening.
The tangerine is softening there.  
Pulling from the waxed light of its porous 
           surface so much like still life. Pulling 
           moisture reserves inward, 
           into the cellular structure of its white 
           threads and pith. 
Fibrous, elsewhere split apart 
by the teeth of expressive monkeys 
and a separate catbird. 
Taken in 
and cast aside, the bitter rind 
rolled in dust 
skin up.

FOUR INSTANCES OF CELESTIAL INTERVENTION / Susan Hankla

On that flight to the manuscript conference
in the Berkshires, the red sweater
featured on the cover of my poetry book 
sits down and flies beside me. We arrive 
to see Yankee Candle's HQ, "The Scenter 
of the Universe."

Christmas one year after Mother died,
on December 26 I call suicide hotline 
just to talk, but no one answers, so I call 
the number for vets, and Dreama picks up. 
Hearing her Appalachian voice slows 
my racing pulse.

When I see the male lead's distinctively thick
mustache in the movie Chicken with Plums,
I email Lincoln Labs at MIT and my lover
answers it after forty years. A connection never 
broken, because of the red thread that binds us.

Waiting outside an Italian restaurant,
in a downpour in Littleton, our first sunset 
at Frost Place, like the magician's dollar bill 
centered in an orange, folded typing paper in a bush
catches my eye; it's the poem I've been looking for
so very long. Eight poets gather to eat, each served 
one at a time, as if there's but 1 plate, 1 fork, 
1 knife, 1 spoon.

Broken Sleep / Christina McCleanhan

Raise a glass of milk,
cry out, “here here,”
go to bed.
She was taught to barter by
strangers seeking commodities
sculpted by her personality and flesh.
In the beginning, lived her smile.
In her smile lived the truth.
As she ran, the panting wind
left her parched.
Good water left by tepid people
trailed sediment along her throat.
Once, twice, she coughed.
When her throat did not clear,
their hands were still
out of reach.
She understood.
Ugliness made them
feel helpless. What is
seen in the dark is not often
forgotten in the light.
Can I be enough, she thought.
Stay calm, stay still
have the wisdom 
to wait.

I still can't speak for the wreck / Alexis Wolfe

I still can’t speak for the wreck / windless field /  closed window against worn sky —

I want to lick creek bed 
after creek bed after creek 
bed dry, until

little red flowers sprouting    
into brightness