June - Poem 22

Good Girl / Kristina Byas

I taste no apologies
on my tongue, but
I remember them,
dry,
bitter,
sour obedience.

Say a word enough
and it breaks apart,
first its meaning,
next its sound,
last its flavor.

I’ve learned a new way to say
I am here,
with a familiar unpalatability,
only not to me.

Blood Harmony / Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

Childvoice

Heartbound

Fatherwound

Godbite

Throbknot

Smokeglow

Deadhead

Lovestump

Stillair

Motherchord

Kinburn

Mythmold

Griefwork

Faithflood

Blackhush

Blueode

solstice  / Jess Tønseth Lee Gleason

summer 
breathe sleep out of my lungs
cobweb sun to my eyes
raspberry my heart in blossom

winter
slake air from my glut
swelt red from my skin
slay shine from my eyes

Angel Sonnet 6  / Shane Moran

How the group decided a man was guilty
was first by him being a man, Beryl read
on the first page of a novel entitled,
Our World After Men, sitting on the table

of his friend’s lesbian parent’s apartment.
Gini sees him holding the book and after
asking if he’d like coffee tells him, how
much she loved the book: you almost forget 

about the men by the end of it. Beryl laughed, 
as he grabbed another book from the table, Psalms. 
The dogeared page had a note in the margin, reading:
The women who proclaim the good news are a great army.

──────────────────

6. bulb
          gladdened
    by
      smile

It’s Father’s Day and I Haven’t Called / Jingyu Li

In the dark I walk
from cabin to laundry room to move my clothes out 
of the wash and into the dryer—it would be too late 
by morning, they would all smell of damp. I felt 
a horror, that fear from childhood, of bears and of monsters 
restless in the dark. The bear I had been waiting for 
in daytime would be something entirely different at night. 

The past days I’ve been asking, how do I let myself 
feel without the flood? My father used to 
cook me noodles at night after a hard day’s work, slim 
noodles in a simple broth, abundant with chili oil, 
scallions, two poached eggs. 

With the trees on both sides and my flashlight 
facing forward, I cannot comprehend what lies 
around me, how much periphery I cannot see. 

The important thing is not to spook 
yourself, if you start running you’ll think there’s something 
to run from. I keep my head straight, step
by step down those wooden stairs where the banana
slugs like to go. But they are not there now. 

I’ve moved my laundry like a good
adult. I’ve burst into my cabin and shut the door.
Can I let myself be afraid now? 
Petrified? Sorrowful? In this flood of warm air?

Please Turn Down the Heat   / Stefanie Zito

AC units synchronize their blasts
cutting summers dank swelter
drowning out the soundscape 
of tunes streaming from rolled down windows.
Neighborhood porch hollers are stifled
as is the incessant construction.
A glass of ice water sweats out a circle 
mirroring my own puddles 
of effort and release
amidst the thick air of ambient stress.