One by one I collect my injuries.
All to be counted later.
—p
I am a mushroom
As mushroomy as can be
There is nobody exactly like me
I am alone in this mushroom house
That is why I am so lonely.
—Forrest Sessler Brookmire (7 years old)
How to Read the Poems in Those Thick Poetry Anthologies
Read the title. Read the first line. If they are identical,
skip it.
Find the last line. If it is fewer than two pages away from the first,
read it.
If Aristotle’s name appears,
skip it.
If the poem was written by William Carlos Williams,
read it.
If the poem looks as though it were written by William Carlos Williams,
read it. You never know.
If the poem has an epigraph in French,
skip it.
If the poem is dedicated to anyone named Jim,
skip it.
If the poem has Emily Dickinson’s name in the title,
skip it.
If the poem has Walt Whitman’s name in the title,
skip it.
If the poem has Pablo Neruda’s name in the title,
skip it.
If the poem has Pablo Neruda’s name in the title but is a translation from the Spanish,
read it.
If the poem contains a quotation from a German philosopher other than Schopenhauer,
skip it.
If the poem mentions a pick-up truck,
skip it.
If the poem mentions Kansas,
skip it.
If the word metaphor is in the poem,
skip it.
If the words natural light are in the poem,
skip it.
If the poem mentions red wine,
read it.
If the poem mentions white wine,
skip it.
If the title of a sestina contains the word sestina,
skip it.
If the title of a sestina written by Elizabeth Bishop contains the word sestina,
read it twice.
—J. R. Solonche
Riverside
For Roger Brett
The river folds over its bed
Like silver sheets
Tumbled and tossed
Where you turned in your sleep.
You always breathed like the sea.
They brought you back
Fog-filled, rain-blind,
Deep water heartbeats
Far gone.
A lifetime ago they warned me,
“He has a saltwater destiny,”
(You laughed; we were already
An estuary.)
Darling, take your time coming home.
Wake up to the sound of the tide
And rise to meet your patient shore.
Don’t you worry, my wave-swept dear,
Sailing the storm-washed morning.
I’m as content to wait on the riverbank
As though it were your bedside.
—Emily Murnane
Road Trip
The light’s the same as someplace before,
with breath for my companion and my eyes for scribes.
The engine hums peacefully; the tires’ rhythm is soothing.
This road becomes familiar, though I’ve not been here before.
My ghost and I are chatting,
Or singing harmony in silence.
The past is my passenger.
I have no need to arrive.
—Eileen Sikora
Perfect Storm
Boxers
ride up
my
ass.
The pen
runs out
of
ink.
And the
bed sheets,
a usual
mess.
—L. U. Kaski
Ethan
You really haven’t lived
until you’ve watched a rainstorm
from an open garage door
on a farm in western Vermont
with a mason jar of Argentinian wine
in your dry hand, post-peak foliage.
—Mike Vahsen
Walks Dog
stop sniff pee
paw the ground
pass puddle
take a sip
move
in on an
objective
concentrate
squirrel squirrelly
chase
to no avail
drop
for
belly rub
the lord is with thee
good being alive
—C. P. Masciola
Remembrance
My feet remember
The sound of your silent heart.
My eyes remember
The sight of your blind glasses.
I remember
How time danced on our fingertips
When we made love, and,
How my heart poured light into the
Vessel of your eyes, and,
How your laughter tickled my anklet-tied footsteps.
How stinging is it to remember
Something that was, and
How agonizing is it to walk with
Something that is not.
—Nidhi Agrawal
Panic Attack
On her hands and knees she pounds the ground
with a closed fist, anguish encircling her mind like a zombie attack
she cannot stop it she cannot not stop it
time to clean up the dog shit
the plates piling up in the sink
a child to be picked up from school
nothing sticks the fixation of diversion
like a passing white cloud in the sky
her body fittingly closer to the ground than ever
her breathing betraying her
until she pops a pill pops a pill
her breathing easing allowing her to make it to the couch
her mind finally not minding so much
—Drew Nacht
The Milestone Birthday
Death doesn’t care
It doesn’t care that we had plans
Or that you didn’t say goodbye to me
Fiftieth birthdays are a “milestone” birthday
Mine was three weeks after death vaporized you
Three weeks out of fifty years is hardly a mile
I think this must be what drowning feels like
Enormous pressure and pain squeezing down on my chest
Looking up from the bottom of the sea
No life raft or anything to hold on to
Just some semblance of the happy birthday song
I hate that fucking song
But tomorrow is January 19, and that is your milestone fiftieth.
And I would give anything to be able to sing that stupid song to you
But death has spoken and clearly had not been informed of our trip we had planned to go to Israel
Death didn’t let you get to fifty
But uncle Clem will be 100 this year
You always said he’d outlive us all
—Liz Pickett
By the Power Vested in Me by the State of Sadness
sometimes at night
I bless my own heart
like I have authority
to give the balloon
floats away it is
hallucinatory thus
I greet a little tiger
toiling in the jungle
of the cupboards
oh what a pantry
we could have if we
could hold a job
in which we held
each other close
tying the knot
with teeth
in a stalk
of grass or
the celery
we snap
its little
green
heart
—James Croal Jackson
First Spring
For Iris
How beautiful
this morning
was the field,
and spring
spreading across it.
And your face,
petal-pink and fresh
as dew—
a miracle
among miracles.
—Nicole Grivois
When she was a baby, my daughter woke me up by tapping my eyes
When she was a little girl, my daughter woke me up by giving me a loving hug
Now, all grown up, my daughter wakes me up by exploring life with
Eyes Wide Open and from a Place of Love
—Tracy Misch
Pesach
Candles lit. Echoes
flickering kiddush chants. Here
I am, breaking bread.
—Taylor Brooks Steinberg
To all those who
look for
the meaning
of life.
you’ve been misled:
the question itself
assumes there exists
a meaning
of life.
and that might not
be the case.
I think that
if there actually is a
meaning
of life
it is trying to find
a meaning
to life.
—Eugen Spierer
A Spot in the Sand
I’ve thought before
more than once
if I could float under the waves
if I could see the sparkle
and crack of the surf from a quiet spot
down underneath
—Meagan Towler
This article appears in May 2023.
