September - Poem 13
Zero Visibility Sonnet / Laura Bandy
You wrote a sonnet and now
you hate it, the rhymes all
forced and volta manure (cow).
How you wish you could fall
into some other artistic bent,
do sculpture, say, or fingerpaint.
Switch up the form halfway done?
Who’s going to stop you, Donne?
Fuck it. I’m through with you, verse—
consider this my Dear John note. What
have you ever done for me besides purse
your thin and stingy lips when I bought
that, yes, perhaps ill-considered backless top
to wear in a Midwest blizzard? Oh, right—you are the whiteout (I forgot).
Another Postcard from Opportunity, Montana / Jesse DeLong
Dear Linda,
another flock of birds on their long migration
have rested in the false lake
and died from the arsenic.
The best meal in town
is a pork culet pounded flat
and deep-fried in flavorless batter. It’s good,
of course, with mustard and a butter-grilled bun.
When you think of us, think
of the children sledding
down the slag piles, unusually
high cases of muscular dystrophy,
the time that woman, thin around the eyes
the way addicts can be, bust
into your uncle’s apartment
to call him a cocksucker, not knowing
around the corner from where he sat
in his wheelchair we were trying
to find the missing piece to an old puzzle.
In a few months, the snow will be
too dry to pack into snowballs,
and so I will
carefully take a handful inside
and sprinkle it with water, shaping
each side, hoping to form
a perfect sphere.
To Whom She Wakes / Shelly Krehbiel
Last night she dreamed of falling asleep again and again, then waking in a bed with someone different
each time. Repeating startles of intimate someones, of not knowing what had happened before, without
memory. Or maybe some memories upside down, some still becoming. These were dreams after all.
One was the lover she dreams most often, the first to touch lips to her waiting lips and turn them into
more. Ever since then, this one appears, long after she lost them, long after she stopped wanting to find
them (1) . They are her beginning. No matter how many times she’s replaced them.
One was a lover she’s never met. In the dream they seemed to know her best of all. When she woke,
they rolled toward her, traced her face with their fingertips. They got up to open the shades, knowing
she would want a few moments to wake herself, giving her space without going away. When she saw
their silhouette in that first light, she tried to wake up for real, just in case they were waiting.
One was the partner of a friend. Because this did not seem horrible to her, she felt guilty. The air
between them was like August, and her dream body wanted this lover more than any of the others.
They seemed to want her too but whispered that there were too many consequences and faded away
like a fog rising out of a valley into the mountains.
One was a real person she’s only just begun to know. She will say nothing else about this dream.
One was a famous person. This dream was much less fun than one might expect. She couldn’t
remember their name and when she asked what to call them (2) they said My Precious. Because she has
seen Lord of the Rings many times, she recognized the danger. Then she remembered it was a dream
and turned in her waking-world body, which erased everything except what they wanted her to be.
One was her mirror, same hair, same lips, same whisper. This one was not a lover, but a twin. Her other
self, or one of them. They knew each other, knew they would never see each other again. Tell me who I
really am, she said, who I will be. The other came close, very close. Just wake, she said.
(1) The use of pronouns is intentionally vague. The dreams contained many lovers, even more than are described
here, most of whom were never hers in waking life. She prefers to keep them as anonymous as possible and feels
that much about her is none of your business anyway. If she dreamed you, you or your dream selves may know.
(2) In the dream she did not remember, though you likely would know them if she could tell you.
Grief Can Walk / Alicia Boemi
The day grief walked in,
it gloated and gleamed.
Noir hue holding sparks of life deep inside.
I did not take my time leaving the room.
Instead,
I ran as fast as I could.
Like it was a headless horseman after me.
Pumpkin and all.
I kept my pace.
I didn’t wallow.
I tried and tried;
climbed hills and saw valleys.
I drank from a creek;
from the bottom of a near-empty bottle, too.
And still;
plagued by time and energy—
I succumbed.
I hope it leaves— soon.
The dead lake chronicles, / rob mclennan
El Nino, intensifies. Temperatures. Different speeds, tumbling lakeshore, mountain, green plain. Mouth. Uncertain, soar. Undone, at the hips, where the legs begin. To be assembled. Saltwater taffy. Lake water, boils. Heatwave, primer. Spills. What the crow, the seagull, said. Protect the plover. Variants, this speed, sensation. Cooked, exhaust. Do you know me. As anatomy, skin. Place your hands over ears. This mirror, think. Reveals what was hidden. Sweet creatures of flail, of clarity. Bombast. How could this happen. In a time of opportunists, monsters. Architects, of greed. I see silence, why and need. A finger, at the ready.
We are waiting for the train / Piper Rasmussen
he has taken
his whole life, dozens of times;
I, in my life with him,
also dozens. Forever fewer dozens,
but we will have taken nearly
all the same trips
by the end. A train late by an hour
or short by one car
which travels 24 hours
across a country
is hardly late at all.
The magnitude hardly matters:
only the river
behind the rain-spotted glass.
aubade / Connor Simons
at the snelling and university metro station two people meeting in the damp dawnlight is a kind of rictus dance two Ninjinksys as Petrouchka brought to herky-jerky motion by the holy smoke wafting upward from ad hoc censers of charred tin foil someone quotes The Charlatan – they’re not really alive you know that’s not flesh it’s painted wood – others at the station are inclined to agree their headphones blocking out splintered arpeggios composed of atonality longing and the din of people finding life among the piled receipts and frayed wool of a snow-beaten blanket
Memory Middle Distance Villanelle / Veronica Vo
In this version of the story I die
of happiness because everything goes the way I want it to.
I am remembered and don’t have to try
to be anyone I’m not. Or hide
the way it feels to lose the people I once knew.
In this version of the story I die
before anything bad happens. Which would imply
that I am never born. My mother wouldn’t like that, true,
but then I am remembered and don’t have to try
because never existing means I can’t be forgotten. What I
mean is when you see the cliff and drive anyway, you
accept that in this version of the story I die.
It’s not supposed to be melodramatic. This isn’t a cry
for help. I don’t know how to say what I want in a way that’s new.
Or be remembered and not have to try.
Every time she and I say goodbye
the time in between becomes blank space, love in lieu.
Only in the version of the story in which I die
am I remembered without having to try.
The Household Gods / Melinda Wilson
Demand clean bedding and dishes.
Demand fresh water and snacks.
Demand bathing and long walks.
Demand toys and comfy socks.
Demand love. And what’s more—
Demand the demonstration of love.
Demand / Demand / Demand
The household dogs.
