October - Poem 9
Avall / Katerina Canyon
Today I felt my ribs squeezing
my heart like an apple press—
tight enough to remind me
that blood needs to flow—
tight enough to stop my breath,
but I remember
this heart is still mine.
You never owned it,
though I let you hold it
for a while
when I bowed my head in prayer
and raised my head while singing hymns.
You never held it gently.
You squeezed hard and said,
“This is what the world will do to you—
squeeze you dry.”
I was supposed to be the apple
that did not fall far,
but I rolled down the hill
and landed in the gutter for a while,
but even in the gutter,
I found enough earth to take root.
The world does have pressure.
You were right,
but I learned to thrive between the seams.
Island Number One Hundred Seventy Two (Pool Ten, Mississippi River) / Sam Calhoun
Know what it is like to be nameless,
odd man in the small town,
know to knock the dirt from boots
so your footprints aren't different,
so your breath doesn't leave
your accent in the air,
step between two worlds,
bridge joints shifting in the wind,
recrudescent detritus
in the old slough,
woodland sunflowers eddying
in this drought like stars
in some far galaxy, smartweed
erupting like nebulae,
let one channel be declared non-navigable,
float trees there anyway,
give rest to the crane, the egret,
prothonotary warbler in spring,
let the barges rush by like static in the other,
float trees there t00,
bobbing like heartbeats of herons,
quiet chirps of grey tree frogs,
their last affirmations of fall,
crawling like sturgeons
in the depths of this dark river,
silt clogging sightlines,
every mussel a moon
in the night.
I am Afraid / at/om
I am housesitting
in a big and empty home,
and none of the lights upstairs
are working. I think I could fix
them if I went to the basement
but its dark outside and it's dark
down there and I watched
a scary movie tonight.
I am more scared of the empty,
of course, than any of the ghosts
or bloody faced creatures that
could be in this house.
The truth is, if the worst they can do
is kill me, then they can’t do anything to me at all.
But I am so afraid.
I am afraid of running out of snacks
and needing to go to the store,
I am afraid that my loved ones secretly
hate me. I am afraid that one day the friends
I have now will realize they would have
made fun of me in high school.
I turned on a cozy gay romance,
I had to hunt for one this time.
I am afraid one day I will run out of these too.
I am afraid I will never fall in love,
I am afraid I will never really get what love is.
Dagnabbit, 44th street / Ellen Ferguson
Two times in two days, you do the math:
Screwing up on you, 44th street.
First was the worst. Mumble/rambling something about heading east early, something about presidential libraries. No one knows what this means, not even that strange zip-up thing trying too hard to be Larry David at the time.
Next night, having left the play at intermission,
Ambling forth, the same tragic nonentity said,
“I just care about you and want you to be all right.”
Her child replied,
“Oh, so now you like me?”
Time stood still on 44th and 6th.
Windy lights soft &
Remembering,
Early in the crossing,
The errors of the night before.
Traffic lights stopped to retort:
“We heard about you, you idiot,
From our corner one block west, 44th and 7th.”
“If it were up to us,” the crosswalk sputtered,
“We’d never let you walk these streets again.”
Erasure: Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals / Brett Gastineau
Solitaire / Nicoletta LaMarca-Sacco
does playing sudoku mean I’m old?
as an only child, I played solitaire and made up games
my father plays solitaire
nothing breaks my heart so much
his thin shoulders breaking through the plaid
hunched over the large-print playing cards
he slickly shuffles then sets them out, unrushed, orderly;
makes them wave then piles them into the drawer
many years later my grown children
know exactly where to find the worn out deck
AFTER MY ECHOCARDIOGRAM / H.T. Reynolds
my heart is essentially unremarkable
a shopping list with substitutions
a generic apology recycled from Mother’s Day
when the back of my head met up with a rock
and I learned how to sleep on my stomach
how to breathe in synthetic air
she hummed through my chest
through my ribs, through my lungs
her wand pressed against me like a rifle barrel
my body surrendering to her voice
a porpoise drawing me a map
point to each unremarkable chamber—
this one is for those who were welcomed in,
notice the way the door slams shut
how quickly you push them to the next
you see how this one waits empty—
lets itself swell before they all disappear
returning in the next room like ghosts
hollowed out and depleted
to be buried in the last chamber
their absence resonating like wind chimes
perhaps that is what I’m feeling—
this unremarkable pain
An Arch of Reaching Birds / Gabriel Phillips
Window has the thorn bush,
torn with quilt and lace.
If the house where birds would live,
could shutter sheets of white.
Let my fingers wrap their eyes.
The rye will rise to perfect pitch.
No one here must doubt them.
No one here must know.
A fourth body appears,
bound in minted flesh.
Doves which fang are lovely.
Stoned by brick and wall.
Tongue and groove to swallow,
lonely writhe of worm,
but call below, both birds and whey,
which peppers salt with ashes.
I tap you twice
until you wake
to notice broken
quilt and lace.
& its 2026 and yet / Colin Sturdevant
I’ve witnessed the sun spoil bodies of fruit in different ways
Like how a metaphor crows out violence & its 2026 and yet
People pass like blind goats & the other day, there was news & footage
& a man pulled a woman from her car as if she were an oyster plied
From comfort. & he lifted his arm as if to butcher her at the roadside
With just that. again & again. And it's 250 years in this fabricated nation.
When will its neomythos of equality finally begin?
