September - Poem 6
Ginger Cat / Yael Aldana
ginger cat pads along my childhood
back wall smelling of spices and curry
from some unknown
kitchen.
I haven’t thought of you,
cat,
till I started writing about
my hair braided with navy ribbons
about my white ribbed knee socks
about my brown scuffed Mary Janes.
you return to me thirty years later
as an orange kitten
with circled fur
born in August
a Leo
who smells like underneath
the vending machine
where he was found.
I’m not a poet but / Catherine Bai
the moon does turn me into
a werewolf
and being in water does feel like being
a whale
and I read poems looking for turns
to steal
and I write horoscopes, because I love when words
make dreams come true.
And every so often I’ll think about the time
you picked me a flower from your own bouquet
and didn’t even
leave your number.
And the rose withered within days, but the red poem you made
seeped into my skin
like aconite.
Trying to Tame a Feral Cat at Midnight / Danielle Boodoo Fortune
I come to you as myself
pretending to be nothing but this animal
beneath the moon’s face
we are but wandering kin
I shed the skins I have worn
fold them and leave them at the door
it doesn’t matter anymore,
whether I have been good
I have walked this road
as many different creatures
I do not know what they say
when they speak my name
in their airtight rooms
with bars on the windows
nor do I care. I come to you
as animal, as bone and need
the night holds its breath
stilled by heavy nets of stars
you step closer, soundless
my ribs creak open
fragile cage of trust, both of us knowing
what it is to yearn alone
I am here in the dark
luminous and hungry as you
blinking slowly, hand outstretched
beneath the streetlight’s glow
rest here with me. I swear
to ask for nothing in return
VI: Dithyramb for May Sarton / Kendra Brooks
Day-6-Brooks-VI_-Dithyramb-for-May-Sarton.docx
When There Are Signs / Kimberly Gibson-Tran
Browsing the poetry of Half Price Books
I find a former teacher’s collection.
Incredible, it’s full of love notes penned
in every margin. Slanted loops from
a precise and feeling hand. You’ll like this,
next to an underlined image. By another poem—
Remember when? Later—One day we can…
The book was signed at a reading. Could
I have been there, known the reader? Who
but a fellow student would be so clued in,
so absolutely thorough. And who is this to?
An ex-lover at this point, offloading unread,
uncared-for gifts. Have I ever read one book
gifted to me? Even that one in which my friend
wrote out a Shakespeare sonnet? And what
about the time I gave a volume to a boyfriend,
inscribed, In this is the heart of a woman.
These abandoned letters embarrass me
with their intimacy, urgency, their not being
for me and my not being able to unsee.
The swirls bend, blend so much that in the end
I can’t tell if the last written words are
I’ve had a lovely or I’ve had a lonely time.
Holes / Yvette Perry
I’m thinking of all the things that have holes.
Donuts. Car tires. Slices of Swiss cheese.
Sponges. Honeycombs that are home to bees.
Round wafers of metal that twirl onto
screws to stop them from vibrating. Also:
bagels and Bundt cakes and pineapple rings.
(So many foodstuffs are hole-having things.)
Buttons and small eyes of sewing needles
like you used to use to turn cloth to clothes.
45 spinning on the turntable,
playing Kool and the Gang that we’d dance to.
A hole in my heart as I’m missing you.
A hole in my heart as I’m missing you.
A hole in my heart as I’m missing you.
Pixie Dust / Amber Wei
Why does the rotary accelerator
require movement
defined by a cyclical axis
requiring mechanical synchroneity
to enable growth
for turning is not a vision
of the simple machine
executing
progress
and rather it is imagination
that the unknown can be happening
as you look at the immediate
and things happen
because of belief
so magic finds movement
and movement finds measure
to understand that all gasp is protected
by creative audacity
knowing that mind limits the ability of the world to know
that the rotary turns
for a reason
