before the shoe is on the other foot
it has to come off the first
—p
Assumptions
Friends next door
AIRbnbing their house.
When I went outside this morning to bring in
the garbage cans a young
man with a dog tenant
with his partner for the weekend
was standing nearby.
Friendly, he said:
The dog is a puppy.
He can help me with the cans if I like
He and his partner live in New York City
Then he started to tell me
about New York City: it’s hot
in the summer, you don’t see
grass like this, and the dog doesn’t
have much room to play. You’re
lucky you don’t live there he said.
You might not like it.
—Esther Cohen
What Cannot Be Found
Losing someone is like losing ______.
Fill in the blank on your own
because there is no comparison,
no simile or metaphor you can provide
for someone other than yourself.
Nothing comes close.
If it hasn’t happened to you, then be grateful
you don’t know what it is like.
If you have, then you know
exactly how to leave the blank empty.
The thought of loss is part of the loss,
so how do you prepare
for that which has no preparation,
for what you don’t want or need,
and how do you give it a name?
Doing so would be giving it somewhere
to reside, and once it has an address,
then it becomes a place you have to pass
from time to time, streets you cannot avoid
taking to or from home. No detour
would be too far if one was available.
Maybe that’s a useful metaphor.
First you learn there is no peace
in the kingdom now,
nowhere to abide like there was before.
Just traveling without maps,
nothing to point out the dangers ahead,
far more than the ones in the past.
That’s as close as I can come to finding
any other words, simile, metaphor, to tell you
what it is like. Like everyone else
who found it before, and, like them,
knowing, not just believing at the time,
or far in the distance,
There are no words to say,
and knowing maybe there never will be.
—Robert Harlow
Hyundai CRV
The smell, more provoking than the feel
The dust, the old, scented trees, the mildew on the seats from after we swam
I go every night
Past the antique homes of my friends and past crushes
Past the little red house that she lived through
Past our places, the docks, the cafe, the run-down bowling alley now embraced by weeds
I drive our loop
I stare at the new developments with contempt
The black, harsh houses of newcomers
It makes me uneasy
The thought of things changing without my observation
I do not oppose the progression
I just need to be there to watch it take its course
—Megan Russell
New York Poem
(with apologies to Frank O’Hara)
Visiting my hometown,
New York City,
I hop on the Number 2 train
at 96th Street
get off at 14th Street
where I walk west
past Istanbul Grill
where people lunch outdoors
on babaganoush and kebabs
even though it’s December.
I stop in Kiehl’s
to sample the floral aromas
of soft lotions and soaps.
The window of Lululemon
displays plush down coats,
although I expected fruity sorbet.
There’s even a cannabis store,
too crowded to enter.
I turn left on Washington Street
where Diane von Furstenberg’s
classic wrap dresses are sold.
I used to own one
that I got at a clothing swap upstate.
Two blocks later I turn right on Gansevoort Street
named after the Revolutionary War colonel
and grandfather of Herman Melville.
Finally, I arrive at the Whitney,
pay my money,
take the elevator up,
and there it is:
the Jasper Johns retrospective
flags, colors, neon, beer cans
even some three-dimensional pieces,
including the cast of a foot
that belonged to the poet Frank O’Hara.
This foot, with its mate,
all those years ago,
trotted along the streets of Manhattan
every afternoon
to make lunch poems possible.
Frank O’Hara taught me
that poetry doesn’t have hidden meanings,
contrary to what Mrs. Rosen
led us eighth graders to believe,
even though I loved reading
“The Highwayman”
in her class,
later put to music
by Phil Ochs.
Now, in the
museum’s rooftop cafe
I sip a cappuccino
and gaze at a
rare blue sky.
—Alice Graves
Separation Tanka
I.
I am not in love
with anyone else since you
like snow in April
or birds singing in winter
my heart beats out of season
II.
You make my heart sing
was your romantic refrain
now heart emojis
accompany excuses
hitting me like loud flat notes
III.
Fairy dust makes love
from stolen childhood dreams
I left Neverland
no more your mother, your toy
still I long to fly again
IV.
Cats move between us
messengers of love unsaid
will bonds disappear
when the same fur we inhale
no longer replaces skin?
V.
I walk through portals
into fresh lips and ripe legs
part of the pleasure
is not closing the old door
keeping it open for you
—Stephanie Sellars
Somewhere by a slow
moving river
beneath the willows
that hang
young lovers are opening
up
like yellow
flowers
that should last
forever
but won’t.
—Ryan Brennan
Summer
we pray for tomatoes
and mock our bounty
when it comes
home, my mom
cooks basil into oil
cuts and burns
mold off white bread
buys half and half
because it lasts
longer
but tomatoes are free
to the good gardener
we plant too many
every year we plant more
and when I drive back
to the city, my car bounces
the way a cherry
falls into grass
—Sigrid Wendel
Look
Autumn leaves drift,
Winter melts upon Spring buds,
and Summer calls me to the beach.
—Frances Greenhut
The Letter
Inspired by Poet Ken Holland
The last letter, not of the alphabet,
but the letter you need to write, you know the one,
to your friends, family, exes and etceteras,
before you bow out, exit the stage, bite
the bullet or dirt, buy the farm, kick the bucket,
give up the ghost, join the Choir Eternal—
you know, check out, as in dead as a doornail.
Compose, then send it before you change your mind,
before Charon turns back the ferry for non-payment,
before you find yourself lying about its contents
like Bette Davis in the movie of the same name
that reveals the truth about why she killed her lover.
Once you begin your letter, there is no stopping,
and, really, who knows when you might sign off?
You’ll not be around to endure any inquiries
from those who wonder, too late, why you chose
to hold off so long, circle several long city blocks,
before you finally found the nerve to mail it.
—Perry Nicholas
Dear Cole Sear
A ghost is a kind of demon
That cannot be exorcised
Because it lives inside of you.
I sat with a stranger on a bench,
And they told me it reminded them
Of that scene in that movie
With that boy and that man.
He laughed: Do you see dead people?
I have seen people who are dead inside.
People your age, why so obsessed with death?
Don’t you know how good you have it?
No, it is an obsession with tenses. Participles.
We spent our childhoods learning the water cycle.
We spent our adulthoods watching it in action.
How states of matter could change so quickly.
Lake Mead’s elevation has dropped by 140 feet.
Florida’s coast has risen by eight inches.
I watched six people die with tubes in their lungs.
There is an entire generation
Trying to convince me
These things are not related.
You’re too pessimistic,
He tells me, and then he
Vanishes.
—C S Crowe
Roadmap
She keeps looking for the roadmap
that will take her back to when
he still thought he loved her,
still believed the promises he made.
The kind they gave out at gas stations
fifty, sixty years ago. The kind that
never folded back to the way they were
after first they opened to the world.
Every one she has ever held lied to her.
Folded, the cleanly labeled destination
unfolds, to one way streets and roads
leading ever away to somewhen else.
The lie being that we have a choice,
that we can choose a happy ending.
Like the fox in the road she hit
two nights ago, now Frisbee flat,
can hitch a ride back to his vixen and kits,
who are beginning to realize something
is wrong and will be forever, to tell them,
No. I’m home now and it was all a mistake.
—Ken Sutton
You Reached into Guttural Spaces Inside Me and Pulled Out the Light
“Tell me love isn’t true.
It’s just something that we do.”
—Madonna
Tell me like you did a thousand times
it’s better to learn some lessons
young. Learn to gentle
my neediness.
I was a furnace
of shame.
You reached into guttural spaces inside me
and pulled out the light.
That summer, we ate cherries,
sucked on their pits,
caressed the ridges with our tongues.
Flesh popped in our mouths
like supernovae.
You squeezed my hand,
said, “I can’t promise you
I’ll never leave.”
Our fingers stained with juice,
a relief map of whorls and ridges.
Abandonment leaves no bridges
to mend.
Promise a language
I don’t speak.
My mother tongue
is wanting, is splitting apart.
—Anna María del Pilar Suben
This article appears in July 2024.
