September - Poem 5

I am starting to wonder… / Laura Bandy

is a hilarious phrase because
you knew all along, didn’t you
says the notes app in my phone, and I
can’t imagine what I knew or thought
I could know, now. Today, the morning after
my birthday, I’m primarily knowledgeable
about this cup of coffee, my second large cup,
and the latticed peach pie waiting for me
at my mother’s house. She baked it for me,
for me! Not my brother, not my twin, and
this means, well into middle age, that yes—
I win. I am starting to wonder, though, at
the way things are going out there: I mean
there—the world outside my window, beyond
our red brick walkway my husband laid by hand
then chalked, in permanent white-chalk marker,
a Smokey the Bear RESIST sign; beyond Mr. Ritzo’s
sycamore, dying now, it seems, in commiseration
with his death by heart attack, I think they said, but
I’m starting to wonder if it was something more,
something that seemed to attack not just the broken
paths, the trees, our neighbors and my father, frankly,
who is waiting to share the pie his wife baked using
peaches from a tree he planted years ago, when they
were first married and life for a young white couple
from towns so small you could play every sport he
said once, and had to, otherwise there would not be
enough to play, and what’s life without a game, what
is life if not a game, this game set up for folks just like
my parents and me, rigged, really, yet I’ve never been
very adept at, the rules eluding at every turn, but I know
one thing and maybe only one thing, and maybe I
am only claiming what every poet tries to claim, is
desperate to claim for their own, would die for on
the page at any rate: this cup, this day, the thought
that there might be another day waiting for me after
pie and time with neighbors, husband, family, peaches,
cancer and what comes after cancer when they say
you’re NED, no evidence of disease, the wonder then,
the wonder.

Birdie / Alicia Boemi

Here’s to your many scars that healed,
large and small— from open wounds to
blights on your beautiful face and body.
The kind you get from someone who
didn’t want to love you.
But I did, wholeheartedly; I even loved to love you.

Before I found you, they marked you with an E—
truly, a death sentence.
You were not damaged goods,
those monsters might of defaced you, but
on the inside facing out, you were lovely.
Adoring you from the moment you jumped into my arms,
was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.

Saving you was even easier— no hesitation from me.
It was as if an old friend had been waiting this whole time.
They might have sought to deface you—
take a bite from your ear—
but me? I knew you were heroic and valiant.
A pearl in the tumultuous sea.

Things Scraped Clear or Scraped Clean /  Jesse DeLong

1.  

A VHS recording of an Easter recital
overwritten with a random episode of The Price is Right
where that man in suspenders from Nantucket
won a Pontiac
and then slid his hands up the suspenders,
making the same sound as the VHS’s black tape spinning,
almost wiping clean the cloth
as it rose up in a tent before releasing
the band to slap his chest.

2.

Taking a long and sharp knife and sliding over
the split open insides
of a serrano, carefully removing with the point
each seed like the dot of an exclamation point.
You do this to reduce the heat
so that, later when you touch your wife’s face
the capsaicin of the peppers
won’t burn there in exclamation the skin.

3.

The scales, ignorantly, of a redfish,
and the butcher’s opinion of you
when you ask him to prepare the meal this way.

4.

The images, especially the first two, in this poem.

5.

The word “old” from the first line. 

It’s been a long time /  Shelly Krehbiel

since I picked up the ball. But today is a day of sun, and I want the air. I’m not afraid to be the old lady down the street shooting hoops in her driveway. Okay, not completely old yet, but old enough for a gray ponytail, old enough to know that later the right knee will want ice. Yes, the knee will hurt and probably the shoulder, even from only this basket and chase, dribble, basket and chase, basket again. I can still shoot, better than when I played in high school, when I was just the smart, quiet one. I wasn’t supposed to feel strong, not in my body. One game I forgot and just played, let go, scored more points than I ever had. After, coach said, Let’s see you do that every time. I probably only scored six points the rest of the season. I was afraid to shoot, to miss, just focused on rebounds and defense. I wasn’t supposed to be good, not like that, not in public. How I wish I could talk to that girl I was, tell her not to fear being her whole self, to love what she loves. Now it doesn’t matter. I’m just the old lady down the street, a ball in my hands, feeling the age and extra weight in my body shift as my muscles remember, trusting the angles, the elbow, the knees, to send the ball where I want it to go, to feel it fly.

orange ball in the air -
arc in time the body makes
as I disappear.

August, Prince Edward Island, /  rob mclennan

Gulls, aplenty. Green gables, white. Of small beginnings. Cows, abstractions. Towels. Grab your bathing suit. By the waters of North Rustico, harbour. Sea glass. By the sandstone, smooth on the beach. From away, then. To rearrange the rules. Acadian fisherman, just off the shore. Seawalk Park, such intelligence. Lobster traps, stacked. What if it stood. The same function holds. A vista of rippled hills, these coded, free roads. Paved, and unvarnished. Iron-rich. Full-fathom deep, boats and nets and traps. These wayward hopes. Pelagic, abyssal. A crest is formed. Flags, a thread of fine vintage. What people, always. This line in red sand.

Showcase  / Piper Rasmussen

Tennis balls ajangle underfoot, sticking out like lulu
lemons from the sticky legs of folding chairs, ma-
mas and papas shuffling slightly to make room for
program sheets in purses, rustle rustle, skrrt skrrt
floorshow quiet fuzz. A community remembers to
look alive: an offkey warble chorus sips its soup &
a little ping-pong ball pops up the stairs ungreen-
screenlike but she just gets up again and stumbles
behind the wobbly ballerina line, proud to be on-
stage, if you can call it a stage. Gymfloor tile: you
could shoot a three-pointer and the library books
would clap from over there. Shelves line the gym
in this moment of disrepair. Student activities have
been crammed into this room for the duration. So-
on. The little ball rolls along with a plié, a tendue.

“In July, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her’s administration announced that it planned to clear the city’s three largest encampments, starting with Pig’s Eye on Wednesday, August 5th.”  / Connor Simons

The City of Saint Paul completed the planned closure of the Pig's Eye Park encampment on August 5, 2026. City outreach teams were on site to assist in safely transitioning individuals and their belongings. The closure comes after weeks of daily engagement from City and County outreach teams, alongside local service providers. City staff has begun remediation efforts at the encampment site.

This is a permanent closure. The City and County remain committed to a coordinated, supports-frst approach as this effort continues at additional sites. The primary focus for the City is to continue to provide coordinated support to help encampment residents transition toward safer, more stable housing and to access additional services and resources.

Inevitable Not Quite Mad Libs / Veronica Vo

after Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

Death blowing you a kiss. Watch yourself watch yourself, tits bouncing no pants on. The point is to feel something even if you don’t understand it. No language. Just body. Can it still be a bad ending if you’re not covered in blood? We turned on Five Nights at Freddy’s while he ____ his ____ in me and I kept watching the movie. He asked, sarcastically, do you want to keep watching. As if I couldn’t because of the ____. I looked away from the movie, finally. Final girl. Watch yourself watch yourself. Death danced here. I felt something I don’t understand. Jamie Hood writes that ignoring the continuity between the unpleasant and abject is laughable. Death laughed here. I should have told him I wanted to watch the movie. Would it have made a difference? I shouldn’t have had to say I don’t want to be ____.

For America’s 250th Birthday during a Heatwave in Bronx, NY at the Corner of Jacobus Place & 225th Street, Marble Hill/  Melinda Wilson

after Allen Ginsberg

America we’ve given you all and now we are nothing.

In the 1950s when McDonald’s first opened, a hamburger cost 15 cents. Today, the children of America are throwing hamburger patties in the cascading waters of open fire hydrants without spray caps. The mini floods sweep the pads of beef past the longing eyes and noses of the neighborhood dogs whose owners are walking them earlier than normal, hoping they will shit, so they won’t have to leave the apartment after dark when the street fireworks crack so loud windows will rattle, babies will cry, veterans will cover their heads, and the dogs will tremble with fear at our collective monstrosity.  

America when will you be angelic? / When will you take off your clothes?

In the 1970s, the Astro Lamp became the psychedelic staple of our mutual desire to free our asses and our minds. Today, the children of America are buried deep in their screens, thoughtlessly handing over all their private data to the tech moguls. They are posting lewd images of their bodies through heavily filtered apps, so when they see each other on the street, they are beyond recognition. Just more faces in a sea of screens. 

America when will we end the human war?

In the 1990s when the officers who beat Rodney King were declared innocent, the people of Los Angeles rioted in the streets. They looted, they assaulted, they let the mother burn. Today, the children of America walk across graduation stages, risking their diplomas to bear the flags of their parent countries. The valedictorians have the microphones pried from their sweaty hands when they do not comply, when they are steadfast and repeat “chinga la migra.” 

America why are your libraries full of tears?

In the 2010s when our colleges and universities started telling a little of the truth about the Trail of Tears, the Florida State Seminoles earned a spot in the ACC Championship game. The fans donned native war bonnets all over the city of Tallahassee, on their trips to Publix, their post office runs, and dentist appointments. They tomahawk-chopped their greetings to every passerby. Today, the children of America are taught to say “criss cross applesauce” instead of “Indian style,” but we still dress them as pilgrims at Thanksgiving. Then they ask ChatGPT what it means to scalp an Indian.  

America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry.

In the 2020s, New York City elected a new mayor. A Muslim and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. President Donald Trump called him a communist, and the Knicks won the championship for the first time in 53 years, despite the Mad King’s attendance at game 3, which was the only game the Knicks lost. The whole city chanted “my mayor is Muslim, my bagels are Jewish, the Pope’s on our side, Knicks in five,” and we all loved one another for maybe the first time. Today, the children of America might know how to hang on to the small amount of collective joy necessary to keep them alive. Because it is the children of America today who are perfect not the next world.