September - Poem 4
More / Yael Aldana
ingest in
my lifetime, this lifetime, more than could
fill a lake, more than endless sprouting
and shedding of leaves. more than can be
imagined, more than I can imagine. you
cannot imagine much. you tell me to contract,
remain compact, contained. what is on
the other side of more? you think it might
destroy us, might take the breath from our
bodies. you want me on this side with you.
I am afraid. more than you know, but I want
more. more than I could imagine. more than
I could bathe in, more than I could taste, touch,
hold. my mother taught me to expand, to expect
everything, to take everything in. I used to sanctify,
safety, and sameness. til I broke open, felt death
in mediocrity and ritual, as much as I love
the curve of your back, the dip of your cheek.
I cannot stay, as much as I love the crease in
your neck, as much as I love the coil of your thigh,
as much as I love the rough skin of your palm.
I write poems the way you read them / Catherine Bai
It’s a privilege to think about breaking up with you.
Not that there were red flags, just
no flags at all. If we’re all gonna be dead soon,
why cry about endings?
There’s still time for a million movie scenes.
They don’t have to be in order, just think back
to the past five days—
Did you always eat breakfast before dinner?
I did, but that’s not the point.
So then what’s the point?
Really,
it’s just that we’re still here
and maybe we’ll always be, unless
we’re actually, really
still there—
Apparition / Danielle Boodoo Fortune
There is a woman’s face in that tr ee
gathering moss along the jawline,
paper nest of wasps in her hair.
From the half-open back door,
everything is more magical than me.
Ti Mari folds itself in two,
trembling with sunlight. never once
considering what it might mean
to be shut.
Someone once asked, “Will you still write
after the baby is born?” I think about this often,
about the doorway, its rusted hinges,
the one broken latch that rattles,
wrenched daily by small, insistent hands.
I have been doorway, latch and hinge
all the things that exist for no purpose
but to open for others.
It’s always the smallest things
that take up the most space,
seed under leaf, hiding its medicine,
bachac treading back and forth
in overgrown grass until
eventually the path appears.
I carry it all with me, the right words clenched
between jaws like bitten leaves, wearing
beaten paths from room to room.
We make space for what we must become
in tightly woven nests of spit and paper,
in termite mounds, secret underground chambers
where we can grow into ourselves unseen.
The woman in the tree appears
to no one but me. Her body rises from the earth
in broad plank roots, winding in ridges beneath
cracked concrete. Her arms keep the earth together.
IV: Dithyramb for Lucille Clifton / Kendra Brooks
Who among us can
imagine ourselves
unimagined? Who
if this was her
only poem
would be enough.
Try for just one lost
moment to imagine
the monster
you might let yourself
become.
Generations / Kimberly Gibson-Tran
I’m always picturing missionary kids on starships.
They hurtle through the outer distance, a vessel
of generations, a nebulous line of interference.
Imagine the initial separation—years between
grandparent visits, belated birthday cards, Poptarts
and marshmallows mailed at great expense. But then, the expanse,
so many adopted uncles and aunts—the coworkers
of parents co-opted into family. We were few,
but somehow many in this tenuous drift. I think it was a gift.
How-to Raku / Yvette Perry
An erupting volcano, inside
glowing center-of-the-sun-like
bright yellow-orange
flames leap out the top
gas feeds fire and whispers
to the vessel within, heat
prompts painted-on skin to melt
and flow, coaxes paint’s metals to
dance a dance of ancient alchemy
lines on the digital display
shift and rearrange:
936…1005…over 1800…time
for the volcano to give birth.
Pilot long metal tongs into
the volcano’s mouth, deliver the
vessel from the volcano’s belly
into the metal trash can
it goes, onto a bed
of newspaper strips, immediately
setting strips to flame.
Quick! Quick! Cover the can with its lid!
Starve the vessel of air, smell the
acrid bouquet of burning carbon.
Lift the lid.
Cradle the vessel with hands clad
in thick insulated gloves.
Set gently on the pavement
allow to cool.
Feast on the galaxy of iridescent red
and black and gold and blue—
And that is how you do raku.
Myth of Er / Amber Wei
If you were Er
why did the distance become too
large for you to make a choice
based on physiological perception
Perhaps my hands were too dry
for yours to be holden with empathy
Let the fishing line that connects my soul
with yours
be based on a heliocentric
model of the universe
For if not, you would choose wrong
the fates unassuming your destiny
passion precludes fear
so do not be afraid of the
unknown when your soul
wasn’t enough
but fulfilled
So live each day as the
cup of water that
half-filled is the virtue that you
seek but never becomes
enough for you to know that
to know joy is to live well
