May - Poem 7

Ten short ways I got over it  / M. Anne Avera

Ten short ways I got over it

1. Tied my will to live to package deliveries.[1][2]
2. Never bothered trying to play guitar[3] again even though I could have[4].
3. Took my melting[5] more seriously.[6]
4. Paid some lady $125[7] an hour to talk about it.[8]
5. Got engaged and then unengaged[9], followed by a string of men.[10]
6. Avoided[11] the room where you were.[12][13]
7. Forgot[14] how to swim.[15]
8. Didn’t cry[16] while watching Die Hard[17] at Thanksgiving.[18]
9. Gave myself[19] multiple cavities[20] without dental insurance.[21]
10. Wrote[22] too much about you.[23]

[1] These come almost every day.
[2] Sorry for ruining the environment and also never using all the financial wisdom you taught me.
[3] The one you passed down, by the way.
[4] “Could’ve never could.”
[5] Weed gummies and ketamine therapy and Pink Floyd on repeat.
[6] It became my job. At work. At home. At the doctor’s office. In therapy. On the bed. On the floor.
[7] Again, I must apologize for the financial decisions.
[8] This didn’t help that much and I bet you could have guessed that.
[9] Don’t ask.
[10] REALLY don’t ask.
[11] Pass the hallway like a quarantine room.
[12] Where you died.
[13] Even after mom painted it Pepto Bismol pink.
[14] Forgot, here, really means I don’t try to pump my arms and legs like you taught me anymore.
[15] Now, I just flail in the water.
[16] I did cry after, though.
[17] We can’t watch Christmas Vacation anymore. I hope you don’t mind the new tradition.
[18] Mom calls it “Sad Thanksgiving” now.
[19] Didn’t give them to myself so much as I ended up with them.
[20] Ow.
[21] Bigger ow. And another hit to the finances.
[22] And cried and talked and thought.
[23] Sorry. You hated being the center of attention.

Exhaling (Part 4) / Desirae Chacon

i exhale..
& soon 
the smile begins to return to my lips
and the hope in my heart
begins to fulfill
loneliness leaves
departing me with you 
exchanging its company 
for everything i have ever dreamed of 

i exhale..
that person 
of somebody someday
finally meets me
as tears of relief
flow from our eyes
we meet the one
whom our souls 
longed for
is finally here

…we exhale..

Someday, I Can Write More  / Heather Frankland

This is the first time she’s seen the Milky Way, she tells me,
checking her phone to make sure
that it is the Milky Way
looking at an app that assures her,
texting her husband to tell him what she saw.

We are in my backyard, sitting on ribbon
lawn chairs that remind me of home,
our feet on the rocky ground
bats swoop near the loose power lines
their wings, jagged outlines.

She is there with me, and yet not.
She is outside, remembering to remember
the time she saw the Milky Way—amazed
that this little town could boast such a beauty,
documenting it for later.

I am glad that she isn’t bored
like she was in the movie theatre—laughing
at our one-screen, one-room theatre
with strange statues posed
like they had better places to go.

She doesn’t know why I am here,
and sometimes, I don’t either,
but we can acknowledge
that the Milky Way deserves
a moment of pause, silence, wonder.

She will continue to tell the tale
of the first time she saw
the Milky Way from my little backyard
in my little town
back when we were friends.

Someday, I can write more
about this decades-long friendship
the end that wasn’t exactly an end
the pain that feels like anguish, something to mourn
like a death, words that make me feel melodramatic.  

But for now, it’s this moment—I’m trying to remember
sitting in my backyard on lawn chairs
with the ribbons that remind me of home.
It’s almost cold in this memory, our legs cold,
we look at the night sky.

Soon, we’ll have to go
back inside; I’ll stumble over the stones
in old sandals and regain my balance
we’ll talk until too tired, promise to talk tomorrow
expecting all the tomorrows to always be there.

After Thought, or a Modern Romance / John Hanright

Day 1
Hey! (excitedly)
Hey! (equally excitedly)
Day 2
Hey there! (friendlily)
Hallo! (Germanically)
Day 3
Heyyy (flirtily)
Hewwo (cutely)
Day 4
Hello, cutie (boldly)
Hello, sweetie (mutually)
Day 5
Hey, sweetheart (hopefully)
Hi, darling (sweetly)
Day 6
Haiii (gayly)
Hai (queerly)
Day 7
Good morning! (smittenly)
Morning (undecidedly)
Day 8
Hello! (basically)
Yo (chillily)
Day 9
Bonjour! (kookily)
5 hours later…
Caio! (coldly)
Day 10
Howdy, partner! (jokingly)
8 hours later…
Hi (seriously)
Day 11
Hay! (goofily)
10 hours later…
hi (unamusedly)
Day 12
What’s new? (inquiringly)
Day 13
What’s up? (anxiously)
Day 14
Hey (hopelessly)

Golden Rule / Jillian Humphrey

My Mother knows the golden rule.
   She sees what I do.
She knows that’s what I’d want
   done for me too.

When I paint the bookshelves
   she paints the bookshelves.
When I plant roses
   she plants roses.

She fills the house
   with cotton and blues.
She opens the windows
   to let in the dusk.

Today she washed the sheets
because she remembers
I like soft clean things
and sleep.
She is making dinner
   because she saw me make dinner.
She thought it was a nice idea.

On the porch
with my head in her lap
    she rubs my back
with one hand as the other
    hand stitches a quilt
she’s been sewing for forty years.

She kisses me
   on top of the head,
and when she’s finished
   I’ll go to bed.

The Starlet  / Shane Moran

These are our sequins, 
stitched into a dress,
collected from a factory 
of tired women who keep 
the machines stamping. The
body of the last masterpiece of antique 
Greece made painting
upon a young actress from a city of
statues for war casualties, posing in the city of
rent—the body glimmers in the hand of a great 
light, like the quiet gems of the minds within 
us, carrying one silence to another. We watch 
and swallow a million sequins—we reach
for Milos. A breastplate, the birth 
of a scaly-winged butterfly, the face 
of a flirty elephant shrew—all held by grasping
seaweed and a quarter of gold. The dress
is the night the titans fell. Stitched
into the arms of Poseidon, marked 
by the sign of Zeus, she wears a chase 
of infinite colors. Strands of silk, tears 
of a rainbow, brush her legs. She steps
wearing the Goddess of Desire. 
She is worshipped.

—After Chase Infiniti wore a trompe l’oeil Thom Browne dress inspired by Venus de Milo Met Gala 2026

Secret Language  / Christina Vagenius

You skipped backwards
in the video like you knew
I couldn't watch you go. How
I’d want to see your face, still
so young, legs bent in wiry chaos.
Now you send me flat screen
photos, clouds doused in light.
Words scratched beside rivers,
your fingers finding stones,
the milled-mouth limbs of trees
made into homes. And those
same bent legs, bow to bargain
between the stay and the go,
your song at dusk, writing notes
to the sky in a language
even I                  can understand.

Bedtime Story / Sonya Wohletz

When does the future begin?
Tonight perhaps—that interstice
Of season or cutlass-berm, the posy—
Its slit stem, as you
Cradle it in crystal
A vessel—
This floating work of art—
Memory pouring in
Seawater through the gunwales