Perimenopause Song: Might Have Been/ Joanna Grant

Unnamed High Desert, March 2020

Were you, ever? Maybe. Maybe not. If you’d ever lived, you’d be five now, starting school, and me at the gate saying No, I’m the mama, not the nana. Not much of a world to bring you into—news of some new virus out of China, the airports shutting down. I can’t have a baby, over and over again in my head. I’m too old, I’m forty-eight, old enough to know better. Old enough to know your father had his eye on someone else, some rich older lawyer. I can’t have a baby. In an undisclosed location. I’m not even officially here. Not me. It wasn’t supposed to be me.

 

But. After two months, I would have forsworn all the wars for you, run for the border for you, made a dark-eyed, dark-haired copy of your father out of you. But then. Cramp and red ribbons in the women’s latrine. And you a tiny, tiny ghost. Littlest of the might-have-beens.

moth flutter

cool evening

gentle regret

Elocution lessons for birds /  Judit Hollos

During one of his far-reaching voyages,
my teacher once saw a stall with small cages 
filled with birds that never knew life outside their prison.
’For only three dollars, you can now donate freedom!’
A temporary sanctuary before liberation,
before swooshing away with our bad luck and bringing merit?
Or simply playing them into the nets of brand-new captors? 
He paid the price and released the poor bird 
who carried the thick air on her feathers
taking a brief tour around her whole world 
tasting the flavour of the city’s filth,
only to return in the next moment
without a squeak to her bamboo dungeon
where she felt safer and familiar.
Far away from the harms of my choices,
small eons pass as I shed my plumage,
my muffled life shut up in brick cages,
among mould-laden cribs and crooked canes. 

            autumn equinox
                 the plastic toy cage filled
            with bird seeds

Foxy Lady / Zach Hauptman

her awning was an odd color
like
not quite yellow and not quite orange 
like
it hadn’t been washed properly in years
(it hadn’t)
like
an old woman of concerning beauty
because
old things are rarely sensual

glass door
teeth colored black 
snapping closed behind
like
jangling bells on a tarnished
velvet rope
like
a dozen octogenarian
strippers

a brown and shadowed hush
incandscent bulbs cast
shadows
even a neon green petticoat
seems beige
but
where else are
lingerie and heels
for a girl’s quinceanera
and
papa’s last drag revue

then she was a bridal shop
sharp in its cleanliness
scavenging romance from
the papered over remains
of a dead woman

may day / Brice Maiurro

the union workers &
an ocean of allies
flood the steps of the capitol
a mile above sea level

thousands more across the city
hold down the fort

pick up the trash that none of us
are willing to confront

find themselves therapists
behind the counters of seven-elevens

restock the anemic shelves
with luxury items like
bread milk eggs

deliver rush passports
to starving mailboxes

we ask for nothing–
we demand what is rightfully ours

the steady tune 
that has been dancing through my skull
all year–it is us that has to take care of us

on the green manicured hills of the capitol 
a constellation of dandelions
burst forth defiant

yellow as a traffic sign
loud as a hot megaphone
it is us that has to take care of us

they hum to one another
the southern dust rushes in
blows in a birdsong
all the way from ludlow
echoes of coal mine canaries
the dandelions hold the tune 
in their flower heads

the wheel of this year keeps turning
a beautiful rage springs forth from the earth
turns yellow headed dandelions
into a million comrades in motion

rising together into the thick air
mobilized by the winds of change

To Doubt    / Kimberly O’Connor

I held you like a child 
gripping a balloon’s grubby string. 
You refused to deflate, trailed  
me like a moon, a pale ghost, till I  
let loose. You evaporate, exiled.  
Now both hands free, I sing.

The Water  / Michael Schad

Underneath the seaweed and green 
water lives fish, lots of fish.
We would stand on a wooden pier on Bayport Beach
and fish, my first fish was a dead flounder
that had snapped a line from someone’s previous
fishing experience in its mouth, 
my second fish was a baby blue, 
then none. There are many fish, 
but few fishermen.

My father tells me stories of working 
on a lobster boat, going out into Huntington Bay
and pulling up pots, searching the Sound for lobster thieves
with a captain who kept a shotgun because lobsters
are life. The pictures of the lobster bake he and mom 
had after a getting paid in lobsters, 
what seems like thousands 
of lobsters on picnic table in the backyard 
of our East Northport home, 
everyone wearing those plastic bibs 
with the lobster on them.

Circle Time With You / Kashiana Singh

I play hide and seek with you—
your laughter a trail of sunbeams
dancing through leaf-shadowed rooms.
The poems in your eyes find me.

Our earth comes unbound in you,
soft soil and wonder beneath your feet.
Let me hold light for your moon,
a quiet lantern in your night sky.

My wonder is hallowed, led in
your outstretched arms like wings.
Questions bloom like wildflowers—
gestures of fear resting in faith.

They say grandparents live longer—
but what is a year beside your gaze?
We are born again in moments:
you laugh, and roots grow deeper.

As you grow tall, voice weaves a meaning—
a language made of wind and warmth.
You are the poem I will always
know by heart.

And when you turn to run again,
may the world open wide as your arms,
and may you never stop seeking
the light hiding in the trees.

I will ever be the robin’s note carried
from the hole in a sky, a hush between
cloud and dawn.

Breakfast All Day, Every Day  / Elizabeth Wolf

They drove into town. Sad Girl was inconsolable.
She knew it was dumb, but in her heart the farm
was always there, just beyond wherever she was,
a refuge she could reach if she needed it. And now
it was gone. She wished they hadn’t showed up,
driven a stake through the heart of her eternal dream.

They stopped at a café. In times of trouble,
Brody was always hungry. A place that served
breakfast all day was the oasis they needed.
By the second cup of strong hot coffee
Sad Girl was starting to thaw, when the waitress
came dashing over. “Wait, I finally figured it out,”
she said. “You used to come out to that farm
by the brook. You had a friend, Jenny? Jill? Jamie!”

Sad Girl didn’t recognize her but that didn’t matter.
The waitress sat down and they chatted, laughing
nearly to tears. Sad Girl felt seen. Finally her break was
over and the girl had to get back to work. “Remember
that lady with all the dogs? The tall ones with
blunderbuss noses and the shivering whippets?
She owns her own place now. Dogs for days. They’re
looking for help, there’s a post on the bulletin board.
You should come back to the valley. Check it out.”
Sad Girl thanked her and hugged her hard and
doubled her tip.