September - Poem 3
Grandmother Theory / Laura Bandy
The grandmother hypothesis reframes menopause as an evolutionary adaptation rather than a loss. It suggests that women who lived long after fertility ended helped care for grandchildren, improving child survival and allowing daughters to have more children. —Dr. Emilė Radytė, Samphire Neuroscience
I guess it never ends.
When I climbed Arthur’s Seat on an ill-planned study abroad,
I did not listen to the guide’s description of what lay beneath my feet—
an ancient extinct volcano—key peak of a hill cluster in Scotland. I was primarily
focused on not being shamed, lagging behind the other, younger girls on the trip,
my sometime smoker’s lungs protesting every upward step. There was a breeze,
thankfully, maybe blowing from the Firth of Forth estuary on its flow to charming Kincardine,
and cooling my plodding way up 1500 steps to the highest point in the city. At the top
I paused, ambler alone, as the rest found a field of yellow gorse and rock rose
just over the hill’s tip and made their way to frolic. Someone stayed to snap a shot of me
(strange in the age before selfies), a ghost behind the camera, catching my thin arms, tossed
bag, shy grin. Behind and below, Edinburgh, and clouds dyed blue like Cub Scout’s shirts
my mother, a Den Mother, used to wash for my brother. Girl Scouts wore green once they
ascended past Brownie status, and the ground beneath me was brown and green, all August
earth and summit tufts of deep clover. Seat’s peak was lush, and I could see far across the land
all the way, it seemed, to the cold North Sea. What anyone wanted or could reap from knowing
me was a mystery. The girls and our guide had already started down the South side, eager to
see Samson’s ribs, vertical basalt columns holding up the hill. Do with us what you will.
Saving Dogs / Alicia Boemi
How lucky was I to rescue you—
and hundreds of dogs who
came with their own lessons on life,
so
I could learn,
and be saved, too.
Marginal Notes on Youngstown by Evelyn Green / Jesse DeLong
America loves a dead blonde girl.
Something about swans, a velvet dress draped on a pool chair, pink wine left undrunk in a long-stemmed glass stained with lip gloss.
“The atmosphere of a crime noir, but deprived of its clues: no killer, only victims.”
Twin Peaks. Veronica Mars. Pretty Little Liars. Jawbreaker. Even, in reality, Jon Benét.
“A tin voice, void of language, with as much grace as prom decorations.”
Somewhere, Bruce Springsteen is telling you that your life was better in highschool. You poor creature, you believe him.
It’s not that we want to save her. It’s that we want her ravishing to be continuous, over time, and in a way predetermined by art and the economy.
Or, that we want to say it’s in our genetics, the way a praying mantis will feast on her lover’s head after copulation.
Meanwhile, there were over 10,000 missing indigenous women in 2024. And though they are ten times more likely to be murdered than the national average, ninety-five percent of their cases will pass without major media coverage.
This isn’t true. Pedophiles cannot be offered the death penalty because it makes it much less likely that their families will report them.
“Why would she,” he said, looking into the camera, his eyes bright as a bowling ball, “cook me dinner six days later if I hurt her? She wouldn’t.”
This bird isn’t actually native to Youngstown, Ohio, and would be just migrating through at the time.
“His revenge, he’d decided, and revenge isn’t the right word, because it’s more about what he’d determined she’d earned, would be to hold onto the Kermit the Frog stuffy, his daughter’s emotional support buddy, during the custody exchange. Let’s see if she thinks she’s a good mom at midnight when her daughter is crying in her crib, he thinks.”
Some critics claim this is a symbol, a chimera the detective hallucinates due to the repressed trauma of his mother’s death.
There’s a reason we want Daddy to drive a corvette that’s blood red.
Midnight Sudoku / Shelly Krehbiel
Emma and Andrew: married, / rob mclennan
A perfect day for it. Rhetorical, cleave. Reception. His parents’ new house, the compound, the yard. Cunning, not fireworks. How I choose to believe. To address every object, tumbler. Wine glass. Stitch into one’s name. Any technique. As cut with a knife, this grain of salt. A path in the Martintown bush. He, to the left of me. Apprenticed. One, as in English. Shoeless. Gilbert Blythe, carrot. What languages choose. A damp cloth, sleeve. Spark. Speaks, into microphone. Make their way through the crowd. Earmark. As exciting, as punctuation. The magnificent, rise. Weather, imposes. Intercedes. A way with words. Aflame. Huzzah! Lift up, repeat. Cheers.
Nereid / Piper Rasmussen
LA is low on water & therefore
she's putting off doing the laundry, doing without before she's asked. No surprise: an Earth Mother
in California. Dressed up nice
today, out of other clothes & enthralled
by the white fringe on a green party dress.
Foam on surf. She waits 'til night & finds a party & someone willing to bunch her satin at the waist,
to texture her until she's crushed,
profligate, & shining. Afterward, within
concentric circles of salt, she remembers
why it was so important to forget --
the moon that once moved her.
The reef
gone, uninhabited.
unsent letter written during a heatwave / Connor Simons
manic clouds span the distance between us a connection
of vaporous expectation and sometimes dread are they
coming to me or going from you if this was a letter
i’d ask how the weather is but there wouldn’t be time
for any warning of rain or ash the tornado siren blares
once a month but only the dogs seem to notice it
and where you are the scoliotic length of mountains
ache the clouds into forgetting how to hold water
until they disperse into gales that each year drive
desperate cows into the tangled murk of algae-choked
drainage canals and of course whatever i’d write to you
would hinge on memory to understand the teetering
balance that promises some kind of predictability
in where the rain falls and where it doesn’t you might
remember the first time i explained why i didn’t like
going home the 2 am doorslams the bruises on
my chest the sorry buried somewhere beneath
unpaid electric bills pain doesn’t inspire dread
anymore but unknowing still does the same
questions stretch across a continental distance
will the car pull into the drive tonight becomes will
every summer be like this now i’m a child again
when i look at the forecast doubtful of any
promises and locking the door to my room where
the shouting from the house is muffled the pea
blossoms dead as soon as they bloom don’t shock
they disappoint and the clouds continue to tear
their way between you and i someone’s mother
covers their child’s mouth and the waters leave
mud-caked bicycles and tennis shoes in fresh
embankments where there used to be market
stalls and between the two i thread myself into
anxious poems and this letter i won’t send
Ponyo Poem / Veronica Vo
silly girl, that boy is not your friend, and
narratives are for people who know endings are not destined.
he is going to hurt you when the tide swallows the shore
the fact is life goes on water teaches us that after all.
the truth your father never told you: we have no power over endings
he knew this would happen all along but you are magic
unstoppable, unknowable, you light a flame fish can’t resist
creatures with no language your self in another life
from the first taste of blood never able to return to sea
you will never swim again but you will love
How to Live in the Shadow of a Tottering Skyscraper / Melinda Wilson
As you leave in the morning, sing softly to the foundation to soothe its aching knuckles, but only songs
with vapidly optimistic lyrics that won’t antagonize the monster within.
Tiptoe down the sidewalks to avoid jostling the structure with your tremendous weight.
Seek out the sun, which will light your path to safety like in the aisle of an airplane in uncontrolled
descent.
When you return home in the evening, avoid watching television shows featuring fire-breathing dragons.
There is only room for one monster in this disaster.
If it is autumn, collect the falling leaves and press them into the pages of your favorite poetry books.
This will do nothing for the building but will remind you that each organism is
worth remembering in the hereafter.
If it is autumn, visit the reflecting pools and read each poem marked with a leaf to our dead.
Whatever you do, do not read the news, which seeks to allay your fears with talk of new
support structures and other modern fantasies.
Accept the truth that today or tomorrow, the empire will fall.
