Poetry | February 2024

Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Dementia

My daughter says my mind is sliding
words lost at sea, snagged in seaweed
tangled in silt

the round thing you put your supper on

I have post its on my fuzzy night shoes
my favorite red fruit, the photo
of my sister, or maybe my aunt

pills from my daughter dissolve on my tongue

post its on top of post its, no idea
which is the right one and what on earth
is calamander doing on my desk

living in the shadow of the valley of lost words

but where was I going with all this? oh yes,
she (Lucy? Layla?) says no more bourbon
but I hide it somewhere, ha!

but look! there is toilet paper
floating into the harbor
followed by persimmon and potato peeler

I scoop them up in the thing with holes
dry them off and take them home
yet still fewer and fewer words

until I walk out of this watery world
under spinning stars and
a yellow saucer in the sky

—Claire Scott

Bridgespotting

Warm air over the ancient river
You ask the name of that bridge
It’s not what you think, I say
It’s not what they say, I think

I’m wrong again
The bridge had another name
Words across water
The spans of time crisscrossing

But the name doesn’t matter
As we float above
Elevated somewhere in between
There and here

The rushing water keeps its own time
Uses its own quicksilver language
We hear it murmured in the night
We discover it together

—Cyrus Mulready

City Lexicon

Ferry ride
Ocean voyage squeezed
into a bay

Financial District
Greed squeezed
into respectability

Subway
Strangers squeezed
into intimacy

Skyscraper
A village squeezed
into elevators

Glance
Lust squeezed
into a flash

—Joanne Grumet

The Grass Field

We were riding to the beach
When you called out
I circled back and we laid the bikes down

The remains of an animal
A red fox maybe
Or a coyote
Scruff of patchy fur and bones

He had crawled under the dry brush
At the side of the road
Next to the marsh

Ivory teeth
Lay scattered
In some sort of prophesy

You laid your towel down
Spreading it out on the dry sand
Then we moved the body

We took it to the field behind my house
And dug the grave with my dad’s camp shovel

It took all afternoon and when we were done
We weren’t sure what to do
So we smoked
The army issue Lucky Strike
We had stolen from your dad

Then we laid ourselves down in the grass
Where no one could see

We were only boys
And it was just a dog

—Augusta Block

Lost Poem

this poem has been
lost.
if found,
please return.

we miss it.

—Paloma Kop

When I think of the way the heart

wants what it wants
I think of my daughter’s friend S, born in a boy’s body, who asked for bits of starshine as soon as he could name them: bracelets, boas, rhinestones. Quick to trade cargo pants and tees (laid out by mama each morning) for sparkle and spin, S came to our house to totter the crabgrass in plastic heels and crinkled princess gowns, dollar-store strands of rubies and pearls. I heard them once, five years old, chatting like church ladies. “Do you want to be a boy or a girl?” my daughter asked in her fairy-godmother-make-a-wish voice. S answered: “girl.” “Well,” she granted, “you just have to dress like one.” They played quietly on. And in that small tea-party of silence, she opened wide a door of tulle and lace and crinoline, as if to say: Come in. You are welcome here.

—Wendy Kagan

Not King of Exquisite Tastes

“About palates I am never wrong,” he claimed
as I sat in the chair waiting. “Me, too,” I thought.
We had been talking about the finest eating
establishments on Cape Cod, and I imagined
he was referring to the exquisite flavors of foods,
not only his favorites, but those of others as well,
but when he said, “This might leave a bitter
taste in your mouth—the pinch might hurt
a little,” I realized that I was actually lying down,
not sitting, and that dressed in a light blue gown
and masked, wearing magnifying goggles,
he was not a master chef, but my dentist, the needle
in his hand looking anything but appetizing,
the future gold crown for my tooth, not my head.

—Jim Tilley

Haiku

Early morning light
Lifts the night like a blanket
Who rises? Who sleeps?

—Sydna Altschuler Byrne

The Long Ride Home

i just don’t want to go home.

can’t we just stay here?
just us?
in the car
with the heat cranked up?

we can talk about books.
we can talk about summer.
we can say things like
“i’m going to miss you”
and mean them.
we can hold hands.
for now.
for a while.

we can breathe deep,
together.
inhale,
exhale—

uneasy and shaky
like something too important
to go unsaid
somehow
still going
unsaid.

we can talk about
the things we’ve done together
and try to ignore
all the time
we’ll miss.
we can talk about
songs that remind us
of each other,
that we’ll listen to over and over again
in the space between.

we could just as easily not talk.

there are few things
more beautiful
than silence between two people
with a
genuine
connection.

i do not want to go home.

can’t we just stay like this?
for now?
for a while?

forever?

—Ian Gillis

Jury Duty After Life

Got the notice, it’s my duty,
must report,
but
will tell them my wife died
a few weeks ago, two days before
our 49th wedding anniversary,
so unsure how good of a juror I can be
not thinking clearly yet,
how can I put it,
still kind of
raw...
dreamt of my wife last night
and she was not dead
just normal—is this what’s
expected
or
do we come back
as something else? If so,
I’d like to come back a bee,
short span of time
as we know it, yet
busy and productive
collecting nectar
carried to community hive
producing sustainable honey...
not a bad assignment
for a bag of meat
to turn into;
and
you can fly!

—C. P. Masciola

To the Patron Saint of Lost Things

Saint Anthony, I pray once more for why
I kneel before mahogany or pine.
You stole, how cleverly, a precious cry.

In life, they chopped his bloodless fingers off,
A smoker’s hand, nails stained with tar like mine.
Saint Anthony, I pray once more for why.

He lies so still, I wait for him to cough,
My fingers intertwined wait for a sign
You stole, how cleverly, a precious cry.

Here, numb, I pretend to pray, myself I scoff.
A mere social courtesy, benign,
Saint Anthony, I pray once more for why.

To shed a tear across my face and drop off,
Incapable to alter or refine,
You stole, how cleverly, a precious cry.

How deep is the puddle I stand in, a trough,
Of tears unshed, enough to build a shrine.
Saint Anthony, I pray once more for why
You stole, how cleverly, a precious cry.

—Shane Romer

2023

as bombs strike the earth
every eye focused on war
even potatoes

after the bombs fall
red mitten in the schoolyard
warming the silence

—Jennifer Howse

Delightfully Misheard on the Radio

“Your nothing is enough for me.”

—Christopher Porpora

For Better or Worse

First the roof flies off the courthouse.
Paper whirls—a swarm of petty griefs
Winters around us in the gale.
That’s apocalypse—a frieze in motion—
Then the sky opens like the door to a visitor.
Confusion jungles—a crowd of noise—
My eyes, dartlike, meet yours—
Needled, venomous, swiftly true—
That’s when the moon unhinges herself.
Howling—horror—but there is a hole in me
As empty of fear as the space above—
I already lived through the morning
Where you did not love me anymore.

—Emily Murnane

Manatee

Gray zen torpedoes
stealthily silently softly glide
pffffffff pfffffff
breathy water mammals
bobbing blimps turning rolling
reflected fluid visions
quiet conversations
a sacred temple, a master class
be humble, move slowly with purpose
and breathe, great gulps of life

—Eileen Bailey

Fly Fruit Fly

Those annoying little fruit flies
Are simply a sign
That you have fruits around somewhere.
And that’s healthy.
If there are too many fruit flies
And you get annoyed by more than ten of them,
Then you might have some fruit
That is a little too old
And too soft
And maybe too squishy.
Keep count of those flies
They are communicating with you.

—Sebastian Isler