May - Poem 21
Body Horror: 4 and 5 / M. Anne Avera
4.
Can you hold yourself in
loving embrace?
Can you reach beyond words
to find what is true?
Can description ever match
the meaning?
5.
The animal in my body seeks out a home.
I do not like these limiting factors:
my need for category, for boxes,
for black and white thinking. Clinical,
this descriptor. Part of a problem and half
a solution.
All the Things We Hold in Our Hands / Desirae Chacon
Of all the things we hold in our hands
what draws you the most
out of all the facets
of this old world
which one do you deem most important
Of all the things you hold in your hands
which is valued at the highest price
& this is not a mere monetary weighing
this is something of a much higher appraisal
something that can never be compared
sold
bought
lost
or stolen
out of every single precious stone
in this
dynamic life
of all gold, treasures & esteemed paper
what is all this without
a warm smile
the bright company of another
a hand that gives back
what was generously given
arms that embrace
eyes that light up
because of enlightenment
upon greetings
a heart that holds you
& a love to color every moment of life
A Key Change / Heather Frankland
I love the in-betweens—
when day becomes night
when night becomes day
the cicada shells marking change
the dandelion seeds
before they blow away,
the heavy clouds
before a thunderstorm
the cold crackling air
before the snow sets in
the moment when—
life feels a transition
an epiphany of old-you
to new-you—but
old-you had the words
and new-you is just
learning to talk,
so, it’s silence—
the pause before the music
that breath before the singer starts,
that gathering, gathering
before the muscles
remember their agency,
then you start to lean
into a new note
a key change—
it sounds so good, that shift,
even your bones are vibrating
even your mind can sense it—
something is changing;
something is different.
Waiting for a Train / John Hanright
II.
In the mirror
Specter of responsibility
Points to me
Encumbered will
Creative impulse, stifled
Sterilized society –
Amalgamations of antecedents:
Families, indoctrination, professions and occupations, money, thrift, poverty –
Repressed being
Destroys rather than builds
Complies instead of defying
Drive of the will
Battered and bruised by conditions
Beyond repair or reproof
Drive to create
Inverted and corrupted
Drive to cease
To be…
Continued
Firstborn Jesus / Jillian Humphrey
One time your dad said he was happy with you and you lived off that approval for forty days. Another time he said he was pleased, your face turned into the sun. You know what it’s like, don’t you? The easy grace that alights the shoulders of your younger brothers will never fall upon you.
To You, from Your Secret Admirer / Shane Moran
I love the conversations we have, before making love—
of course that is just me, making up love to my father
on the phone, revealing what it is to talk to you,
to love you—though I don’t really know
you and must correct myself each time
I say I do. It is my way of telling
him—I crave the dream
of knowing you, M. At home,
I pull on my banker’s lamp and write, calling you
an angel in green light. You carry peace
on you—like a brilliant studded dome ring.
An heirloom. When will you inherit me? I ask
the page, writing each word like I were signing
a contract. In bed, I wish
you goodnight, blowing out
St. Michael’s dancing flame
on the nightstand. I smell your perfume,
sense your wild curls itching my back.
I’m so tired of waking up alone,
I want to cup your breast, pull you close,
kiss your cheek in the morning—
I want to feel what he must feel,
grasping peace still asleep, exactly
where he left you. I want to go
back to Paris, since you have not
gone—and I want to, together,
do all the sightseeing I’ve saved
for you, the five times I’ve gone,
I want to wear barely any clothes
and first kiss you dans le Champ de Mars—
no broken commandments—no war!
Open borders! Liberté! After crossing
an ocean and crossing our hearts—I will want
only you in the City of Light, I will want
to watch only you as you admire iron and gold—
I will want to dance with you—drunk on you
and cheap wine. I will want to stay
out until the metro reopens. I want
your tired face wobbling on my shoulder.
Confession / Christina Vagenius
The Nova sat silent. Mom’s Doral, a rattle
in the cage, white dwarf warning be back in ten.
But I already know how much time it takes to walk
the rows — sit unshifted by God’s will. The wrecked
palm rising to the wound. I wanted. I wreaked
of willingness. The scent of holiness. Stitched banner
bravado. My broken needles, let me please her.
A two fisted sponge for my dirty tongue. Take me
too, for I have sinned. A miracle laced between
the nuclear — steel holes, skin swelled perpendicular.
How long have you been here? Counting lies, stories
wired together. Look a little longer, stand taller when
I ask her to kiss the bruised moon. Assign starlit slips,
permission to gaze. Your fingers, the whistle through my hair,
again. My arms, a pledge of pressed petals — Mary’s womb
a room. Rosary crowned confidence, penance paid for slow hands,
words pressed too hard on the table. When you want the warmth
of a mother, you’ll settle for stone. Sit silent beside the son of God.
Call her home.
Late Spring in Olympia / Sonya Wohletz
This is the analgesic angle of the earth—
for a moment, there appears to be no struggle.
For now, the Ginko lays claim to the balance, opening
its vulgar fan in our faces. Doping the air with feral odor.
Every season has need of its own medicine.
Perverse geometry arrives to stun the senses.
Dogwoods stack their flowers. Their cream petals
slide towards streams. Fish stencil
the surface of the stormwater pond.
A jewel moon opens,
if just slightly.
The evenings sway together like paper
lanterns in procession, and red cedar call out to each other
in a language legible to the insects.
They grow legs from our scars.
To the warm earth,
sky flattens her palm like a mother calming
the fevered infant. But there is no fever.
There is nothing left to break.
