September - Poem 29
Carnival Glass / Yael Aldana
If you knew me before
and looked through me then
as if I were made of
milky carnival glass
but find me worthy
in my after.
ribbed in success
bloated with promise
brined with accolades.
you’ll never make it though
my heart’s
meshed metal sheathing
as I was always worthy
even as a woman in cheap
yellow dress at the carnival
with only a dollar
to play Wack-a-Mole
Missing You / Catherine Bai
messages trickle into my phone
there’s no one to text
you’re off in the real world
in my room I reread the signs
beautiful people on the train don’t phase me
I cry when I read a poem
and can’t share it with you
Communion / Danielle Boodoo Fortune
I birthed him slick and wild as an otter,
riverine, black eyed and bound to no saviour
but undercurrents of thirst.
Our bright world of noise frightened him.
The first years he spent bound to my chest
|with a length of knotted cloth, small fingers
tangled in the estuaries of my hair.
I whispered prayers without shapes
into the swirled shell of his ear.
I fed him all the milk this body
could bear.
Now you ask what he might become.
Outside, his laughter rises, like mist,
into the agile certainty of air.
We talk about our children as though
our hands hold back the river’s flow.
The truth is, no mother knows what will grow.
In my dreams, I went alone into the darkness
to find him, in the rift where everything
and nothing lives
We build a life on a bridge made from breath.
All is tide. All is waiting.
Time flicks its tail in the depths
between us, vast and silent.
Our children come to us
along submerged pathways of spirit.
Love is a sacred crossroad,
a place where many rivers flow
In the great river’s fractured light,
we are all different beasts come here to drink.
We were all led here by the same thirst.
XXIX / Kendra Brooks
Did you think I wouldn’t
miss you,
or not notice you
had left?
Your keys are no longer hanging
from the little hook in the hall.
Your car’s not in the driveway.
Did you leave your gardening gloves
on the fence, out back
the birds are still chirping
the syllables of your name.
I see you’ve taken your mismatched socks
and your reading glasses from beside the bed.
You’ve gone completely
as if you thought you should.
The mirror misses your side glances,
and the day has slowed its pace.
I knew I’d lose you the day I found you
a heart does not need love to break.
Safari / Kimberly Gibson-Tran
Racer X / Yvette Perry
The first man I ever wanted drove a fast yellow car
and always wore shades. I wanted so badly to ride next to him.
I imagined him pulling the harness over my head,
securing it at my shoulders and around my waist and hips.
I could see me touching his hand gently through his red gloves
as it rested on the stick shift.
He’d look over at me. Even though his eyes were hidden behind
dark glasses, I’d know he had winked at me, just before he
broke out into a smile. I was the only one who could make him
smile. He held so much trauma in his tall, muscular body. I knew
of some of it, but I sensed there was much more.
He never said anything to me— neve
asked me about my day or shared funny stories about his day
as we sped together through the streets. I don’t know why
my fantasy was able to seat me next to him, touch him even,
but kept him mute.
Many years later, after dealing with men who were not created
from paint, I’d curse my inability to design a more
complete fantasy for myself, wonder what it said about me
that my earliest dreams of desire were such bare, silent sketches.
