November - Poem 4
Connie's Favorite Things / Megan Bell
This morning, the winter sky is a heap of clouds—
a milky blanket stretching for miles,
covering Indiana and my mood.
The brrr months hum their frozen tune, loud and true.
An ice cream cone drifts overhead;
I reach to catch it, wondering
if it tastes like ice cream, too.
It brushes my fingers—cool and soft—
and suddenly, I think of my mom.
Snowflakes melt
as they land on my upturned face.
I watch the clouds rolling by—
no trace of sun, no hint of grace.
I lift my nose to the cold December sky.
I think of Mom. I remember her why:
her love for family, for snow,
for ice cream—sweet, and cold, and forever.
The First Law Of Thermodynamics / Alison Lake
A neighbor of ours has removed half
the young trees from the adjacent vacant lot.
With a chainsaw, and apparently, little
plan, he sheared off each trunk haphazardly,
at all different levels and seeing it, I am reminded
of a forgotten graveyard with broken tombstones. I can almost
see the ghost of each tree, rising above its stum
and the disturbed earth, and I am reminded
that their spirits endure; their energy, passing
from branch to root to ground, filling the emptiness
with a new kind of life. It is there in the deer
that forage amongst the drying brush,
and the flowers that grew once the light arrived.
Like a shining thread, a filament, it flows
the crows and kestrels into the sky,
then falls back to the earth with each rain.
VULCAN / Maya Cheav
we two dear men…”
gaius etched their names
into the stones of the walls
outside a bar in pompeii,
“...friends forever…”
his hands slaving away
for hours, to carve
themselves into existence.
“...were here.”
a perpetual one
that would outlive them
sooner than they’d expect.
“if you want to know our names…”
together,
on that fateful day
as the red floods came
“...they are gaius and aulus."
they clung to each other,
with all that they had
and all that they ever would.
“whoever loves…”
their bodies,
fossilized under ash
and a layer of pumice.
“...let him flourish.”
their bones,
encased in volcanic rock
for utmost eternity.
“let him perish who knows not love.”
searching and waiting / Jada D’Antignac
where are the stories?
where do they wait for me?
do they wait for me?
or are they searching for me too?
will they come in the shine of the daylight?
or in the darkness of the night?
are they floating in the fall air?
or standing in the summer heat that’s been left behind?
are they waiting for me at the thanksgiving table?
or at the tables in nice restaurants i plan to visit?
are they wailing in a conversation i’ve been avoiding?
or smiling in a sweet memory?
do they live in my eagerness?
in my anticipation?
in my yearning?
do i need to dissect my ins and outs?
come to myself again?
step towards a mirror?
pick up a pen first?
or simply wait?
I’m Writing in the Margins / Dominic Leach
of that C. Barnett poem on baseball and Beckett—
b-b-b my heart beats—“parallel
construction or repeat assertion?”
but my r’s look more
like doodle birds than letters
in this book of questions
and hours; hours as questions?
our questions; are-are-are my birdies call,
am I what? outlines of clouds
or mashed potatoes form above them;
the clock falls an hour
back; geese pass overhead and call
to the r’s beating the #2 graphite of their wings
for liftoff; the green
and scarlet leaves on the oak and I
are standing in the yard waving,
our tears asking more questions like
whether doodle birds keep
to straight lines as they fly south;
the crows call out
a two-count from the roof or
I’m losing my rhythm again; I wish
all these a’s and v’s of my heart would
migrate too like this, head down to the Keys,
confusing not from with to in all this new
space-time, take
so well to the warmth there they
never come back. I hope
the r’s come back—I miss
our talks. they ask hard questions.
Mind–Body Problem / Dawn McGuire
To stay in the world
To keep the body close
Sometimes I’m walking beside
the body I left behind
its pulse percussing
under the thought of me
They still argue through scent--
a sewer exhales its hymn
a seeker leans down to reveal
skin after rain
green soap
the air tasting human
To love even what leaks
steady my hand
the diaper pin
the scalpel
Words for the distance
between thought and touch
dissolve on contact
Jorie says empathy
begins in the fingertips
I touch the page to test this
It touches back
Jodie & Diane / Samantha Strong Murphey
In the southern way, they brought us cookies
when we moved in next door, just a thin strip
of driveway separating our walls. Arm around
D’s waist, J joked about the naked lady
statue in their backyard that we could see
from our kitchen window. Feel free to look
she chuckled, pointing to my husband.
So many games of pretend
my mom invented. My favorite was statue-maker.
You spin the child. They land. They freeze in a pose.
You press their nose like a button.
The child moves. You watch them move.
You guess who they are.
I do the dishes every night. I watch her
through the glass—stone woman, frozen mid-dance.
In the Dutch way, our lights are on, our windows
naked. I dance and dance in the kitchen, hoping
someone sees me, waiting for them
to tell me who I am—
