For Once, Every Part of Me Doesn’t Dream How It Will End
I want to tell you about happiness,
the first hour of a new day
and his persistent devotion to it.
A slow hum. A pearl of light.
The tender way he bends his face toward promise.
I am greedy for comfort,
linger in the duvet’s joyous hold
until, in the thin thread of sleep, I see it plainly:
a life forever drawn to him
as though gravity itself were prayer.
I have waited so long to fall with ease into love
and suddenly, here it is:
in the stillness of my kitchen,
at the altar of morning,
a mug of coffee just the way I like it
and his hands warm from the offer.
I receive the first sip like sacrament, like the surest thing.
I kiss him, and his mouth already tastes like two cups.
Join me, he says.
I missed you.
There is nowhere else I want to be but here.
—Samantha Spoto
Open Heart Surgery
under anesthesia i imagine they use a shovel
crunch rib day old snow ice salt flung over
doctor’s shoulder clump of mud thumping sick
turning red stagefright clown under hot lights
deep sea writher on the beach scandalized you
you you oh god you were never meant to see
to touch to hear it never vile hideous pitiful orphan
in a cage rotten fruit in the cupboard the clock of me
broken jailed forgotten oh. oh. tell me is it keeping time
be gentle please. we played together in the garden once.
—Emily Murnane
Grape on Plate
It is a grape on a plate.
One of many, come to think of it, draped there like something to paint.
He could conceivably eat it, pop it in his mouth, like a pill,
or peel its skin back slowly,
but he’s never all that hungry, is he,
after all that juicy foreplay?
His hand hovers above it, but briefly, as if
only to appreciate it as a still life—
you know, something alive, and reassuringly still there,
in case he gets hungry later.
As grapes go, it is generally good. Not perfect, mind you,
but then what grape is? Every last one of them is a little bit lumpy,
like a tiny, shiny bag, filled unevenly with laundry.
It is not yet too wrinkly—not like some of the other grapes,
which seem almost to be racing towards raisin,
or turning orange as if from the inside,
from something they are doing to themselves.
It is, however, just starting to sweat.
For it knows it is something separate now, from its sisters,
who sit huddling together
as if for safety, or in stadium seating, watching the game,
their sloped shoulders touching,
back on the stem.
The loose grape, in leaving, rips a hole in itself.
Back on that knotted brown branch, a crucial piece of it
remains—its glistening center, like that patch of pearly sinew
inevitably left on half shells by knives.
And let there be no question: on this plate, it is every grape
for itself. Like plotting understudies—these grapes of a certain age,
and still nobody’s wine—they stand always at the ready.
When he shifts on the couch, reaching for the remote, all go
tumbling in his direction, like bridesmaids racing the bride,
their gowns oddly identical, down the aisle.
Some of the over-eager ones tumble right over the edge,
scampering into the corners where he will never think to look,
where they will lay, like lint and quarters,
until he finds them, months later,
by then only some unidentifiable cellular substance,
to which he will put his finger, and smell,
not even remembering what they were.
—Tania Zamorsky
Listening for The Eagle
We’ll never speak again butterfly suckling nectar
pink shawl of dusk kissed hand resting
on thigh so light purple light woven in dance
on belly on river rock on freckled bridge
of nose wispy laughter returns with rose buds
eagle’s nest tucked in pocketed in sunny branches.
—Jerrice J. Baptiste
Attack
The moon creeping across
fantastic fright
alive in glimmers and bumps
against reality
you are sure
something lives
around corner or under bed
waiting & patient
to who knows
what now is unreasonable
terror and your
heart pops open!
—C. P. Masciola
After a Downpour
the creek swells
rushes
over rocks
smoothes them
the way time
smoothes memories
rounds out sharp edges
changes the colors
until you don’t know
if it’s real
or wishful thinking
—Alice Graves
There Is a Light
There is a light—
a light behind all things.
And?
It sings.
—Christopher Porpora
Angel
Summer day
your green
eyes, I remember
your feet
in the river
and the pine trees
behind
you,
how you made
their branches look
like
wings.
—Ryan Brennan
Cinco de Mayo
I still don my ski jacket
to walk the puppy
—Danielle Woerner
Just Before Dinner Time
She unhooked her bra under her shirt, first,
then removed her shirt.
I had repeat visions of the front door coming into play-
sure enough, she made a beeline for the door
and released herself into the public domain, shirtless.
It was a gorgeous spring day—a big splash of sun,
not a cloud in the sky
with drowsy looking trees swaying slightly in the breeze.
My wife did five jumping jacks on the front lawn
in front of Moms and kids enjoying the day
in the park across the street.
Somehow, nobody seemed to notice her this time.
She came back inside half out of breath
glancing at me as she walked by.
I held my breath, hopefully no police this time, I thought to myself.
I asked her if she was hungry as it was close to dinnertime.
She said, yes, so we talked about which restaurant
we should order from.
—Drew Nacht
Heidegger Becomin’ Round the Mtn
#34
the physicists are now saying
Time is not fundamental.
but between the first word
of this verse,
and the last,
every single thing
in the known universe
—including your mind!—
has moved on
in the cosmic cakewalk
in lockstep accordance with
Three Laws:
Being. Becoming. Has-been.
just not necessarily in that order.
—Mark Vian
To W. S. Merwin
Let us run naked in the tall grass
Let us frolic as children
our nimble limbs dancing
atop young dandelion heads
diffusing the air with wild calm.
Let us exhale red-lipped verse
as if the blackness of the universe
were but a comma in our sentence.
Let us sing in the meadow like the plovers, home at last.
Let us warm ourselves in the commitment of the sun
share our wonder with the monarch, our two backs lying flat
chewing on metaphors
as the cool green grass pokes our necks
and persistent flies tickle our form.
Let us muse over the matchlessness
of this finite exotic jungle. And let us plant a tree,
not just any tree, but an endangered palm.
One lonely orphan left in the wild, needing a home,
a small piece of the earth to hold fast to.
—Cornelia DeDona
Where the River Narrows
Once again I find myself
Amtraking down the Hudson
to New York City
with Basho as a companion,
his Narrow Road to the Deep North
somewhere in my backpack.
I’m saving it for the return trip,
thinking there must be some parallels
he can help me with, even thoug
we won’t travel through forests
and boulder-strewn mountain passes
like he did on foot in the late-seventeenth century.
America was just revving up back then
while Japan was a wandering poet’s paradise.
It’s mostly scenic along the river,
and when it’s not, it’s best to have a book
to hide the view. If no one sits beside me
on my return, I’ll prop Basho in the window seat
and tell him about what I see along the way—
Rising herons pause,
wheel high above the river
then return to shore
hoping he is proud of me as we head north,
not to the deep one, but close enough
to know the difference.
—Robert Harlow
I Can Only Whisper This
—for my friend, Bob Power
He stopped teaching at the Tisch School
three years ago and they named
a music studio in his honor. He closed
his own music studio, too, stopped
producing Grammy-nominated albums
for star hip-hop and rap artists, instead
settled as often as he could into his
upstate home and visited the outdoor
Art Omi sculpture park near there.
But now, he’s stopped riding his tractor
to mow his ample lawn, stopped walking
his snowblower to clear his gravel
driveway, stopped cooking his inventive
gourmet meals for himself or friends,
canceled taking on a new rescue Doberman.
He was glad to stop worrying about this
crazy world getting crazier by the day.
Everything stopped when he died last week.
—Jim Tilley
