May - Poem 25
Body Horror 5 / M. Anne Avera
My eyes perceive more than their size
can contain. They are remnants of single
cells, their animal glow in the camera flash.
My mouth is a cave of form. I force
the human syllables out and suck tastes,
textures in. Bestial, my saliva’s drip.
Over Again / Desirae Chacon
Red roses turned black
on the window
became a template for my
life
of the sort
a fresh hopeful perspective of love
twisted by pain & thorns
of loss, torment and apathy
blackened by withering
days
of falling throughs, if only & almost ifs
whatever
i say know
feeling the deep pain inside
saying this is not you
so i try to keep head
above
waves of despair & hurt
try to keep my eyes upon beautiful skies
because destiny says that
someday you’ll be waiting
upon the sands
standing on the golden shore
I Talk to Jeanine About Indiana / Heather Frankland
If one poem were to contain Indiana,
it would have to have sweet corn in it,
the corn purchased on the roadside
later boiled and eaten with melted butter and salt
meanwhile a crow, in the background, says
there is more than corn in Indiana.
It would have fireflies
in the evening—sprinkled inside,
the humidity that felt like a wall,
and cicadas singing in the distance.
It would have the bright red cardinal
looking unusually bright on gray mornings
and clover necklaces and trees you planted
when you were young.
It would have the sound of trains
always going elsewhere,
and the breeze through the window,
and the pet cemetery in the backyard.
It’d have the screech owls
by the green clothesline—
and the one milkweed growing
big enough to attract the butterflies,
those beautiful butterflies
who wear their big hearts
on their colorful wings.
What is “Political Violence”? / John Hanright
CW: references to policing, racism, supremacy, and other types of violence/oppression
Othering results in
Punishment, that originates with
Policing and law enforcement – such as
Racism in rent and
Exclusion (from shared spaces, the workforce, etc.) – which itself comes from
Supremacist thinking, producing the delusional idea that
States have a monopoly on force – historically used against
Indigenous, Black, and non-white people, often manifested through
Ostracism and
Nationalism (specifically the white variety)...
Institutions like bail, for-profit prisons, and the military-industrial complex are examples of
Systemic injustice – and that can often look like…
Payday loan sharks,
Outsourcing jobs to totalitarian or colonized states,
Late fees and credit card fines,
Infractions (ex: speeding tickets, loitering, jaywalking, etc.),
Torture (ex: at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay),
Intelligence agency operations,
Colonial caste systems,
Apartheid laws (ex: in South Africa and Gaza/Occupied Territories),
Legal codification of racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, etc. – all of which
Validates itself in the media and culture,
Insulates itself from responsibility,
Officializes oppression and gives it faces,
Lends to itself justification in place of justice,
Exculpates persecutors and gangs of all varieties,
Nationalizes enforcement and punishment
Capitalizes on climate destruction, which left unchecked has the power to
End all life on Earth – this is why oppression is political violence.
I don’t leave what’s left me / Jillian Humphrey
I drag my dead sister to the park
because I want to swing. I hold her
heavy in my lap
and turn my face.
It’s hard to go
down the slide —
first the ladder;
then her body yanking me
toward a long drop
over the metal edge.
And on the merry-go-round
she’s pulled, purple, through the gravel
while I spin and spin,
but she can’t feel anything. I can
and I want to keep moving. If I stop
to snip the bit of skin
that conjoins us and so free
myself, what remains –
not anything
worth saving,
just a bloody mess
for me to clean up alone,
sisterless.
SANTA CLÓ EN PLAYA PEÑA / Shane Moran
Santa is in sunglasses sitting on a beach chair, drinking
a Long Island Iced Tea made with cherry coke,
out at the very top of high tide with his grandsons. I like
to imagine these boys love life in San Juan, bringing
their grandfather gifts they found in the ocean or in the sand.
A seashell. Seaglass. A lost plastic shovel. He ho-ho’s and smiles
at the sandy one-man’s treasure, asks they clean each object
then return it to him—shiny. They do. Then he instructs
them to find a better way to present their gifts,
so that he may be surprised. And the boys go out
and find big leaves and forgotten bikini tops,
cans and flown-away paper food boats. They place
their beachcombed bounty at Santa’s feet, and he opens
the gifts—delighted one after another, then the last one—he pops
open a shining tin can to find a singing Coquí. Ho-ho-ho!
Santa tells each of them one at a time, eye-to-eye: you will
make a good Santa one day for your families—and the boys nod
and run suntired and tan back toward the waves.
Santa lights a cigar, ignoring a Facetime from his Head Elf,
and watches the boys in sepia tint run from a greedy flock of seagulls.
Mouth Wash / Christina Vagenius
For The Spider In The Bathroom Sink
I’m not scared of you anymore.
And all the eyes that damned you,
a splurge of open tissue on the counter.
Wait, let me walk you back to the tiled floor
days, subterranean cracks breed creature comforts.
The porcelain rope tug of stop. Hold on, I whisper too soft
to be heard, slow drip encouragement. And how the two of us
lived side by side, you in the dark. Me, opening a new page,
checking the weather, dark for days. A web wound around
bristles, mouth washed clean, poured down the throat, never
to be seen — again. Minty fresh. Early morning rising, the rinse
of bleach and black magic from the rag. Were you lonely
when the web didn't reach? It’s raining. I’m sorry
another drain on your eight-limbed path.
Patanjali’s cursed meditation, repose. I’m
sorry. It’s raining. I used to feel shame.
But I washed my hands of it.
Geology Lesson / Sonya Wohletz
Flakes of calcium carbonate shake through the sea like falling snow.
What we call it now is not what we will call it later.
On a further shore, a cephalopod catches the earthquake
in its tender curve and cradles itself back into fissile solidity.
Quartz and calcite fuse grief slowly to the seabed, though they have no
perspective, no hands to mend the wounds. These sediments cupboard
strange bloods. New volcanoes crackle in their mothers’ arms—dreams
of ice swarming at the intersection of unspeakable aeons,
the lower spectrum of indigo, flushing out the strata,
slipping its spine into the clay of a dead man’s heart.
