Songs of the Perimenopause: Second Honey / Joanna Grant
they say the first honey
tastes light and clean
as the first touch of love
but after the nectar drought
in the fiercest heat when
the bees finally find the sunflowers
the other late pollinators
then the second honey goes dark
it turns sweeter than sweet
nuzzle into me now
while the sun’s going down
push through my soft petals
find out for yourself
Language acquisition / Judit Hollos
Halfway between dreamscapes and awakeness, I notice her again standing behind me in the gloomy hallway. She is still a grey-haired lady but looks slightly younger, from the times she was actively roaming the hiking trails and icy wilderness.
failing memory
recalling only
the bright moments
jade green ice crystals washed
ashore on black lava sand
She lost her life in two rounds, first as an eight-year-old kid, watching their family house being demolished in the storms of the forties, and then decades later, when panting for breath became her second language and she was sent home by the doctors at the hospital who made it clear there was absolutely nothing they could do for her.
grandma dreaming
in her native language
finch footprints
carve their cuneiforms
into a frozen pond
Only when she calls me by one of her sister’s name that I recognize the fact she should not be there with me in my dream. The ash scattering ceremony took place weeks ago and yet there she is, wandering by my side, reassuring me with her dark blue eyes and broad smile that anything is possible, even if just for a few moments.
a heaven hidden
behind a sky filled with smoke
resurrection
the snow and white static noise
from an empty TV screen
Drawing in of Breath / Zach Hauptman
enter my lady-garden; tend it well
what: you see here as wildness
lush and verdant
fragrant with hanging jasmine
bejeweled with hidden arbors
bushes heavy with dark juicy berries
succulent and waiting for your
greedy hands and mouth
was planted and grown
i’ll show you through it safely
where: the waterfall of nasturtiums
grows lean willow trees
plush tangles of yarrow
thick riot of elderberry flowers
though: that is not all that grows here
planted here
look again at the clusters of
rosy azeleas, orange rhododendron
soft moonflower iridescence
moist marsh of pennyroyal
until you climb inside
following the trail of poppies
dryad’s saddle* / Brice Maiurro
cerioporus squamosus
*from a series of poems i am writing about the mushrooms of the rocky mountain region
beloveds
i behold you now
in your hours of death
& in those hours
i hum the hum
of life to you
there are no empires here
our allegiance is to life
the elms bow to the sun
rise to meet the water
i am proud witness
to this salat eternal &
to your isha
a great passing through
my divine task–
to pull you towards forever
it’s a strange language to eat
what you love
but one that no living thing
is unfamiliar with
i place my decay upon you
as the sweetest of reveries
i hold the story
that spring
has always been a
season of death
new soil is made
in the wake of the churning
silently the forest floor wields
the potential energy of revolution
row upon row
a grand staircase arrives
at the periphery of us
are we ascending its spiral
of stepping down
its depths
the answer to questions of
life & death have always been
neither & both
something & nothing
everything & anything
beneath the scaly back of time
is a soft memory of ever
tenderly beholden
to the brutal spring
question for my people / Kimberly O’Connor
Shadow’s Last Day / Michael Schad
I was told, “she did not look right”,
from my mother on the phone at boarding school,
She asked me if I wanted to come home to say good-bye,
I said “no”. What did I know of death and dying animals?
My brother was the one who spent time with her as time
ran its course. I miss her. We buried her behind the garage,
again, I was not there, I did visit when I went home;
it is hard when you grow up in a family lacking sentimentality,
but you find yourself in a sentimental mood,
missing a dog that would sit next to while you wept
over the lack of love you felt from the day.
Too Much / Kashiana Singh
Breath tamed by the drip of age,
by the weight of suggestion.
Too loud
Too bold
Too wild
Too wide
Too strong
Too sharp
Too real
Too raw.
Shrink it.
Soften it.
Hide it.
Tame it.
Too loud when laughing,
too quiet when right.
Too bright in ambition,
too dim in the light.
Too firm in her stance,
too soft in her no.
Too much,
always
too much.
Or—
not enough.
Too plain
Too slow
Too round
Too low
Too still
Too scarred
Too tired
Too marred.
Carved down by a thousand “justs”—
Just smile.
Just don’t.
Just wait.
Just shrink.
Just be
less.
And still,
never
just right.
Not My Turn / Elizabeth Wolf
She didn’t tell me before I went away, didn’t want to ruin a trip with my daughter, but my best friend from high school felt a little pebble, like an edge, something not right and not there before, at the base of her breast. Her doctor tried to turn her away but it was something not right and not there before, stubborn in her breast in the shower every morning. Grudgingly they ordered X-rays. Grudgingly they ordered follow-up ultrasounds. Then they biopsied, analyzed histochemistry, mapped nodes, and assigned Stage 2B, triple positive, which meant there were more avenues for treatment, there were more roads to hope; which meant it was early enough; which meant I had so much to catch up on, so much space that I was desperate to close. She wasn’t up for visitors but I could send things, which included macaroons and a chapbook of poems. Also a care package for her husband, who was now shouldering care for nineteen horses, the family store, and his exhausted wife; who was driving and driving and driving to appointments; who prepared cup after cup of tomato soup with half a grilled cheese, most of which he ended up eating himself, alone, in the kitchen, while she napped wrapped in quilts in their bed. Before she was ready to meet with the ladies, before she had chosen whether to shave or abide, before she could face up to the clumps of thinning hair on her pillow, long dark strands limp and swirling down the drain, my gift at her doorstep: cotton and lace slouchy beanies, colorful pre-tied headwraps; love looking back from the mirror.
grooming horses’ manes and tails
sweeping stray hay
dust swirls in setting sun
