January - Poem 17
On Staying / Haley Bosse
Today, the poem
is just waking up.
Just now, the poem
crossed the bank
at the end
of the night.
For a breath,
the poem is not
a pole
through the stomach
of the roadside
or the shadows
hunting mice
through the wet wheels
on the asphalt.
The poem only traces
light beams, unending
through the fog and
today, you are still
the poem
and no one
has to sing.
to dwell: a found poem / Jess Bowe
with lines drawn from Where Two Worlds Meet — Janet Nohavec
break the sound–
bells, rain, waves.
between breaths,
climb inside
the air.
house every detail
you can hold.
Dear Abby / Joanna Lee
--to Abigail Spanberger on the day of her inauguration
I work across the river from the Governor’s Mansion, where the jet engines and cannon fire are hardly noticeable over the noise of customer chatter and espresso grind. Parade or no, the James keeps rolling along to the same quiet questions, people are dying just crossing the street, ICE is shacked up at a hotel down in Midlo, and the country as a whole is the scariest place I’ve ever been. Day over day, time stitches its quick way through our hands. They are coming. The signal fires are lit. So, what I want to know is this: hypothetically speaking, if you were the first woman governor of a blue state in a nation barely holding itself together, would you bar the door between a stranger and the night, a shield for the disappeared? Would you fight the fear of silence with the last breath of a mother’s ribcage? Would you cross the river, for me, stand shoulder to shoulder as thunder breaks and the banks rise and dawn rises in doubt?
Asking for a friend.
---RAINED ON IN RICHMOND
When they don’t know what “hospice” means / Thomas Page
The patient’s family nodded when I reviewed hospice protocols // they seemed satisfied with the care that we were going to provide // patient’s daughter asked for more acetaminophen for the patient // told patient’s daughter that he was already prescribed aspirin by Dr.— // & that patient had received 325 mg with meal // asked patient if he wanted to see the chaplain // patient asked for a priest // explained that the catholic chaplain is only chaplain // Fr.— does his rounds on thursdays // suggested that daughter call patient’s local parish today // she scribbled down a number for the parish on a napkin // & asked how often I would be checking in on patient // explained that nurses come around as much as possible // & that what we focused most on was making patient comfortable // patient asked me to open window // so that he could feel the air waft in // patient’s daughter asked me when patient was expected to be released
My Mother’s Decisive Assertion / Sarah Paley
I assert most decidedly that I am dead.
You may hear my voice on your phone.
Though I am not there, only in your head.
You may see me in gestures or something you read –
be jolted by my presence in your bottle of wine.
I assert most decidedly that I am dead.
Shopping for your son you stop to look at a bunkbed
that he’s too old for. It’s just the one I had in mind,
though I’m not there, only in your head.
When you talk to yourself is it your voice or something I said?
Never mind, who cares? Except for you and me, no one.
I assert most decidedly that I am dead.
Inscribed title pages, carrots, otters, vodka, sea gulls,
locks the kind that let water in and out not the kind
with keys. I’m not there, only in your head.
Give me the benefit of the doubt, the break I need.
I will not call, I will not write, I will be gone
and I insist most decidedly that I am dead –
it’s only you. Still, I am there, in your head.
after all the unbearable footage / Amy Snodgrass
unsure how I can write
a poem tonight I’m too
afraid
anxiety eludes
metaphor
but metaphor
chases stomach gliding the ground
anxiety begins
from a regenerating and
shifting/shifty center
it begins on a frozen and evil-strewn street swarming
it becomes an unheard-of snake writhing in
me unseen
from the inside pressing out
on my blood
on my breath
it coils up many-tailed
one wraps
my throat sharp aloft
another nudges my right
hand
in gentle fury
a double agent it hisses
wriiiitte
