He’s ours the whole night through
and there’s no shaking this problem.
(We’ll do better with the next one.)
My crooked nose on that misshapen skull,
you started brewing on that second date
when I went home alone
hating your father for all I hadn’t done.
I swore to my mother I would never have you—
not you, of course, I didn’t know you then—
but some you I couldn’t oblige, squeezed
out of this swollen, bleeding bluff
that could not imagine swallowing pain for anyone but herself.
And I still can’t—sometimes I don’t know if I chose you or if I allowed you,
if I wanted you or if I accepted you.
But what’s the difference, when I choose you now?
You’re here, my Wednesday prince.…
...continue reading
R32 is hurting again.
Without looking at me,
a dentist I didn’t know
told me R32 moved onto a nerve
& I’ll hurt to the touch for a few days.
I couldn’t stop rubbing
the side of my jaw
& I asked my mother
if this is how it felt
when her lover broke hers.
I asked to paint her X-rays
to see if I could mend
her jaw with my strokes
& colors. I promised her
I wouldn’t paint her teeth
in black & white.
But my mother told me to balance
gravity in the back of my mouth,
the pressure will make R32 fall
into my throat, leaving
my nerve alone,
but I was too afraid
to swallow
my teeth.
– Annie Cigic
Author’s Note: My poetry often focuses on themes of motherhood, the body, unconventional relationships, and adoption.…
...continue reading
You have to know what they look like first:
houses spared a tornado,
trees listening to the prayer of finches,
the deaf beggar clapping for the opera of snow.
Then you wait for it in your most elegant dress and shoes,
sitting in the most beautiful chair you own,
the one with the flowers,
in order that you may greet the miracle
like a bride.
Of course, you’ll begin to wonder what the miracle will be–
will those who have died send their regards,
for example,
through a fallen bird feather,
will your best friend’s cancer go away,
will the homeless dine with fine china and gold spoons?…
...continue reading
for Artie
The plane to Charlotte is late
and the gate won’t open
for air. Lights pass in the sky,
and one must be the twinkle
in your eye. Travelers hold
little mirrors in their hands, without
reflection, unaware the massive
amount of breathing in this place,
all of us existing in a box
until the mask on a mouth
can’t save us, and more than a plane
goes down. Without notice.
Without time to reach for the hand
in the next seat over. I’m stuck
at this gate between here and there,
just waiting, counting breaths,
while you so quietly moved on.
– Beth Williams
Author’s Note: This poem started when I received a phone call that a friend had died. I was waiting at the gate for my plane and wasn’t able to embrace my emotions at the time.…
...continue reading
Through the window
you’re a deer aligning
with the house’s dense shadow,
a trajectory of my mind
shaping a path to the heavens.
You’re an offering under
the dying grass moon,
every vessel and no body,
a cracked spire
in the wheat-eyed sky.
I look for you in the constellations
of Artemis; I don’t look for you at all.
The mysteries of death
bore me most; I am interested
in the body’s slow refusal to listen,
the final scrim of heat rising,
imminent.
– Angela Sundstrom
Author’s Note: This poem is from my recently completed chapbook, Where the Waters Still. This collection contains work exploring grief, loss, and the body, often through a mythological lens. …
...continue reading
Worrying, as I listened
to rain take care of itself
outside my walls and curtained windows,
about money,
I was awake,
but I lay still. I’d like to say
that rain dropped down from the indifferent universe,
but, though
the sound of rain couldn’t hear me,
I seemed to matter,
I, myself, seemed
to grow the wealth I needed, while on healthy trees…
...continue reading
Dear Suki: Winter, Hanoi, 40’s,
I alone knew how everywhere
was dark plaiting through salt-
plume, dearing your thousand
griefs into buds, tinsel-winged
upon the tails of December sun.
You freckled seeking over earth,
keening quiet cries with caress
smooth from my slight of turn,
wrist to radius stretching there
to everything you had loved that
remained seam-like, straight to
the end of memory. Ten weeks,
they had said, ten weeks to fall
from still stone steps for vertigo,
descending hazy as though each
limb prostrate in nocturne, your
mouth lotus-bulbed on my finger-
tips to a stunning death of petals.
– Lana Bella…
...continue reading