September - Poem 9
Almost Closed Curtains / Yael Aldana
after Didi Jackson
sometime after the last rain
after the red headed woodpecker
dips out of my sight, after he reappears
flashing here, then there. I imagine the foamy
thin now wet—now dry line at the beach
two miles away from the corner gas station
where I see the man who’s always there
with his fishing hat run through by two hooks.
He holds up his cardboard sign. scrawled
on one side: I need a blessing
scrawled on the other:
Why lie I need a beer.
when he needs a blessing
I hand him a grubby dollar
from the sanctity of my car’s window
nothing
when he needs a beer. Bless you, he says.
his hands reaching, his eyes unfocused
like he’s never seen me before.
he could be me.
a woodpecker maybe the same one, maybe
a different one, appears in my plumeria tree.
he doesn’t stay, not good for pecking. I make
it to my door before the steady drumming
of a summer shower. daily, the sky shadows
darkens with rain. I see a strip of gray-black sky
through my almost closed curtains.
where is the woodpecker?
where is the man?
are they dry?
Summer Fling / Catherine Bai
I don’t think I’ll ever write anything as beautiful
as a pear tree. Don’t blow kisses if you’re not
ready to make love. Better yet, don’t blow kisses
at all, just grab your lover and dig your fingers
into the pit of their shoulder blade. Knead
the knot that you find there. The inflammation
will go down if you put it on ice. We’re always
going around and around in our poems, but don’t worry—
it’s like a spiral. We may never be any closer
to the center, but we end up somewhere different
from where we started, the distance more like
the depth of a root system than a flight path
that loses its signal the moment we touch off.
Archipelago / Danielle Boodoo Fortune
home
is language
islands
of light
on humming
thread
spun from
fault and fire
steady
pulse
soil and
tide
everything
arrives
on the
sea
we’ve been
here before
drifting again
rooting again
IX: Dithyramb for Stevie Smith / Kendra Brooks
The Case for Drinking / Kimberly Gibson-Tran
It never ends, there’s always another chase—
hair of a dog, a shaded blade of turf.
I like to pretend that this is not the case.
Time moves slowly, slow as to obliterate
the newest sunrise, the juicer’s orange surf.
It never ends, there’s always another place
to make amends to, a slog of hour to waste.
Tell your sister to rest before she’s hurt
again. We’ll pretend a way for grace.
Don’t hesitate, strike up the band, embrace
the sway of fate. Admit, it can’t get any worse.
Bitter at the end, but always another chaser.
I trace the starlings like a broken necklace.
They dive all day, belie the sky’s inertia.
The judge pretends it isn’t about race.
Watch out for goons, masks that take the place
of faces. How much is news? How much rehearsed?
After its end, this country’s always chasing.
No one left pretends we have a case.
6:23 am September / Yvette Perry
Just a week or so ago by this time
birds would’ve already been busy
on their branches singing each other
where to get the tastiest grubs and bugs
and whether the Delmans had new
seed mix in their feeders
light would’ve already begun
tinting the edges of sky and
warmth would’ve already begun
hinting at 87, 88 degrees
Earth, Wind and Fire
must’ve been singing about
a different Septembernot this dark, silent, cold thing
