September - Poem 19
A Small life / Yael Aldana
Didn’t my mother live a small life?
wasn’t she just a housewife? Even
after She divorced the husband?
Besides, she’s wasn’t even my real
mother.
You spell out
ADOPTED
so I understand
a fake mother
but we looked like each other
both brown skinned and hawk-eyed.
you never saw her sweep into a room,
with her Alfred Dunner dress
both haughty and humble.
you too would fall
charmed.
you too would run up to her
ask, Ms Clarke would
some petite fours?
watch her not screw up her face
because they were bland and dry.
she was all I knew, her soft cheek
her long black hair,
until there was another mother.
who didn’t matter because she
wasn’t there.
you wouldn’t see her take off
the Alfred Dunner dress and lay it
just so, to air for twelve hours.
You wouldn’t hear her ask me to bring
her the leftover chicken wings because
she was starving. you wouldn’t hear her
say that the food was terrible, but the
people were nice, and if asked she would
go again.
The Nightmare / Catherine Bai
My father dreamt that he was bearing me
on his back, up a steep hill that flattened
only after waking. He said it wasn’t a nightmare, exactly,
but it was for me. I wanted to understand
how he could find it in him to carry
two hundred pounds, when we were both weary
and asleep.
As he spoke, I could feel his phantom
sweat, the tremulous
ache of his shoulders,
the burning calves.
What I couldn’t imagine
was why he had carried me at all
the thick dangers lurking
at the bottom, the certain threats to my life.
It’s no wonder most dreams begin
in the middle—
the question of why irrelevant,
incidental
when you consider the whole plot of the thing
the long and short of our fiction, it’s easy to see
it’s only love
that makes the tale complete.
Toco / Danielle Boodoo Fortune
Objects lost at sea do not come right back to shore.
It turns out, dry land has a weak hold on us after all
in spite of our feet and lungs. The secret life
of sunken things must unravel like blue thread
a ribbon of current, a sonar spiral, spooling round
and round till it is finished.
XIX: Villanelle / Kendra Brooks
Trees are line dancing down by the lake
Ash, elm, birches and maple, especially the pines
Branches bend gently as they shimmy and shake
The wind is rising, the leaves are wide awake
It’s late autumn, colors are changing their color design
As the trees are line dancing down by the lake
Abscission is stirring, the trees know what’s at stake
The changing wind is a warning it’s a new season in time
The branches bending gently as they shimmy and shake
Nests stand empty, birds have flown to follow their fate
Ash, elm, birches, maples, and pines all moving in kind
The trees are line dancing down by the lake
Soon leaf, fruit, and flower, the trees will forsake
Petioles hold strong in the wind, but the trees can’t deny
their branches bending gently as they shimmy and shake
The winds of change ask, and the trees make no mistake
There are decisions to be made we all know the signs
As the trees continue line dancing down by the lake
Their branches bending gently as they shimmy and shake
Redolence / Kimberly Gibson-Tran
Sans skunk hours
the neighborhood
can smell so good:
stony concrete bake,
the sprinklers’ arcs
of petrichor, heady
thread of charcoal.
I’m always listing
toward the garlic
of a certain street.
Bless that pestle,
the seared steel pan
nestling its smoke.
I take a slow-poke
pace around the lake,
loamy, dank, and homey.
Confrontational Clichés / Yvette Perry
They say there’s no fury hotter than what Hell hath.
I say: Hold my gin and tonic.
Watch while I write a sternly worded, half-star review.
Listen to the rant I’ll post that’ll receive 2.3K likes in its first four days.
Feel the daggers I shoot into your sternum from my pointed finger.
This isn’t my first rodeo:
I have God and both local police and
the manager on speed dial.
I am not to be trifled with.
Why yes, actually, I do have time today.
I tried to ask you nicely: I don’t recognize
you/your car/your kid/your dog.
You are trespassing in this neighborhood.
And, no. My name’s not Karen and I
don’t care to tell you what is.
I am a Taxpayer and a Citizen,
is all you need to know.
Oh, there you go,
playing the race card.
My Irish ancestors were slaves, too.
I did the 33 and me.
And one of my best friends from yoga class
is an African American woman.
I don’t see color.
I’m deeply offended and hurt.
Watch while I begin to weep.
My flowing tears are louder than an atomic bomb
and twice as deadly.
Their salty sweetness will bend on-lookers to my will
and leave you without a leg to stand on.
You say karma’s gonna get me?
I say: Karma has bit off more than she can chew
if she tries to mess with me.
Learner / Amber Wei
Education is the means upon which I breathe
then why is it that I haven’t learned anything
Are we adept in the experiences that scream life?
teach me more
until hunger becomes a weakened body
that feeling of insatiable pursuits
I lie flat in a 2D plane
because the third dimension wandered
and stood still
while life climbed higher
when the roots were broken
because the soil that gave me life by mind
disappointed life by living
that each day was too much a breath
to know that education was learning
concealed to know that a milestone is
unraveled not knowing where your footsteps once tread
