September - Poem 23
Some words = Roman Catholic / Yael Aldana
Mantle in blue
Palms outstretched
Ave
Ave Maria
Blood on the feet
Hands clasped
Silver Rosary beads
Blood on the cross
The Wafer
Hands beckoning
Hands cradling the heart
The heart
Wine
the sacred heart
Blood
Fire
Blood
I made a painting once of a girl whose heart was outside
her chest, pierced with arrows, with Alizarin Crimson blood.
My art teacher asked
Are you Roman Catholic?
I said,
Yes.
A child is just your grief in slow motion / Catherine Bai
A kid passes in front of me, holding hands with his mom
then runs back alone, just to blow a kiss
to his friend. It is so sweet,
I want to put it in my mouth like a peach pit
the taste makes me think of fireflies
we used to catch and release
on summer nights after making out
and touching our private parts
like the back of your earlobe, the bottom lashes of my eye
which bend like siblings in mournful prayer.
It’s obscene
the way you caress my kidneys
our baby will squish every organ in my body
and it won’t be tender
Still, their little fingers will snatch every kiss we’ve flown
into the ether, place them in a gentle heap
like so many offerings
sweetly rotting at the altar.
Tomorrow / Danielle Boodoo Fortune
In the year of flood
and slow-growing vine
in the hour of frogsong
and giant snail,
in the owl shriek
gathering cloud
and sudden dark
in the rustle of bois cano
and sweep of batwing
tomorrow seeps in
through cracked louvre
and crumbling brick
all the things we didn’t think
would happen in our time
in this year, still
wide open, still drifting
like algae, thick as silence
tomorrow, smelling of iron
waiting in trees
beyond the window
branches cracking beneath
unseen weight of time
i am prompt / Kimberly Gibson-Tran
to the door. yes
every morning. see my feet?
see me unsheathe? i know u
like the beans. i like
ur breathing. slow.
deep. i know when you stop
sleep. see? i wait
to speak. u taught me speak
remember? i member
when u used to leave
the door ajar. i liked
ur wiggling. the dark. so neat.
wish i could repeat.
ready for that treat. please
I could be so good if u
just yes let
the door
Corn / Yvette Perry
I’m going through the checklist with her (Medicare card, prescription list…), ask
if she wants to take a jacket, it’s not supposed to warm up until the afternoon.
Picking out shoes takes longer than I’d imagined: these ones make her feet hurt,
and these (that we bought her last Christmas) are too heavy…make her feel
like she’ll trip, this pair won’t match the pocketbook she plans to take.
I put the walker in the back and help buckle her in the seat.
I slow down a block away for yellow lights and take right turns with my foot on the brakes.
We pass a corner where an automatic car wash used to be Red Lobster, and a football field
expanse of concrete, weeds sprouting from jagged open scars, that used to be Sears.
She has a memory for each corner and lot, the only thing keeping their former selves alive.
She sees a mint green Caddie and is reminded of the car she and her husband and their
friends from Ft. Lewis drove to Las Vegas. The car broke down an hour away from the strip.
We pull up, the valet attendant greets her by name, compliments her outfit.
Inside the lobby the registration clerk asks how her grandchildren are doing in college.
Once in the room, the nurse she likes calls her by her first name.
She doesn’t flinch as she usually does.
The doctor comes in and cradles her left foot, then uses a scalpel to gently scrape the hardened center of a penny sized skin deposit on the pad of her
big toe.
We’re headed back to the lobby exactly three minutes and 22 seconds later.
I’m buckling her back in the car about 10 minutes after that.
Twenty-eight minutes later, we are pulling into the garage.
As I’m guiding her from the front seat, I think I hear it whispered softly, but I’m not sure.
I head to the trunk to get the walker out as she makes her way inside the house.
Yes, I decide. I definitely heard it: thank you.
Deer / Amber Wei
Was there breath on my shoulder
when you entered
for he was already there
when the starlight cast a gleam on his shadow
only to find that he was a meandering hare
So hop and scamper away
to the place where nobody can find
so that flashlights can only find brush in a forest
and the moonlight’s gleam only meets dust
there is irrevocable honor
in presence
and somehow, my gaze
meets that of yours
to tell the shadows to stop moving
So I can capture a glimpse of the future that is ours
