October - Poem 21
Manufactured Dejection / Lilly Frank
Oozing with remorse
for the person I had
promised myself I’d
one day become.
Feeling foreign in
the skin of my own
skeleton, I slump into
the pillow laid on
the bed of someone
I promised myself a
beautiful future with.
Many times, promises
are not made in alignment
with reality. Instead,
we use them as a device,
a vessel for control.
If I give myself the
assurance that this will
deliver upon itself as
intended, so it shall
be. However, as time
grows you into sagging
skin and lost memory
you mature to grasp
that these very promises,
the ones you held close
to your chest, are the
very pitfalls of what
is bound to happen in
this time here that we
have. To promise
yourself a future affair
is strictly to promise
yourself an inevitable
let down. The shackles
that have embossed
themselves into your
frame are a self-inflicted
wound. Learning the
grueling lesson that
the future is unmanageable
will in time, save
you the burden of
staunch disappointment.
Saving Grace / Anna Ojascastro Guzon
If you slit
your stomach
to free your
soul, will you
be released
from the scorn
of those who
came to earth
before you
to avenge
the unjust
deaths of those
who were killed
before them?
What mammal
survives by
this practice
other than
a species
that’s willing
to bring its
own ending
for the sake
of trading
shame in life
for saving
grace in death?
Persephone sets the record straight / Kathryn Johnson
The little bees tend
my grieving mother. It's good
they have this new occupation.
Her cries will cause the petals
where they perched to fade.
Her tears will stop the flow
of nectar that they drink. I think
she forgets her pain will hurt
her handmaidens. I know
she will not understand it does
no good for me. I ate the pomegranate
my bridegroom offered me
on our wedding night. Can’t you see?
Each of those juicy, red seeds
was a choice. While the world will tell
the story of my abduction, they will be
as forgetful as my mother
when it comes to this: A maiden
making up her own damned mind.
Lesson One from the Aborted Entoloma / Kimberly McElhatten
Before Deep
Hollow Run
on Mountain View,
where the trail
turns back
on itself,
a discovery
of aborted
entoloma.
One guide
claims the
entoloma
aborts the
armillaria
while another
claims the
armillaria
aborts the
entoloma.
But none
of this is
on my mind
[or makes a difference]
on the first day
I spot them
on Mountain View
and drop
off trail
into the belly
of the honey hole
where I slice
one
from the earth,
dissect it, and
see the weird
mushroom folding
into a womb
of white
arrested
development
when urgent
hives
ignite
across
my
fingers
and
arms.
All around,
stinging
nettle
touches
my body
through my
clothes.
A mistake
I’m
too skilled
at making—
to lose my
surroundings
on the chase
for a choice
edible with the
nettle
there to
remind
me whose
house this is.
MARCESCENCE / H.T. Reynolds
An unkindness of leaves clings to the fingertips of an old oak,
its bark, splotched mossen green.
They arrange themselves like a copper crown,
a rusted halo dissolving into rancid wine
convincing the elder it’s still September
convincing the elder the retiring sun
is premature, that the wind will settle again,
that the moon will no longer singe his hide
with its crystalline edges.
The elder oak sighs, tickles the thick soil
tucked in and heavy—refusing his request.
An impatient rain lashes at his knuckles,
cleaves down to his cuticles, pries the crowns free.
They shatter—fall like dazzling embers,
debris bowing at his feet, a murder
for the coming snow
