(2 Little Whos)

By E. E. Cummings

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree

smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here

(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
who and who

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

Progressive Health

BY CARL DENNIS

We here at Progressive Health would like to thank you   

For being one of the generous few who've promised   

To bequeath your vital organs to whoever needs them.   

Now we'd like to give you the opportunity   

To step out far in front of the other donors   

By acting a little sooner than you expected,   

Tomorrow, to be precise, the day you're scheduled   

To come in for your yearly physical. Six patients   

Are waiting this very minute in intensive care   

Who will likely die before another liver   

And spleen and pairs of lungs and kidneys   

Match theirs as closely as yours do. Twenty years,   

Maybe more, are left you, granted, but the gain   

Of these patients might total more than a century.   

To you, of course, one year of your life means more   

Than six of theirs, but to no one else,   

No one as concerned with the general welfare   

As you've claimed to be. As for your poems— 

The few you may have it in you to finish— 

Even if we don't judge them by those you've written,   

Even if we assume you finally stage a breakthrough,   

It's doubtful they'll raise one Lazarus from a grave   

Metaphoric or literal. But your body is guaranteed   

To work six wonders. As for the gaps you'll leave   

As an aging bachelor in the life of friends,   

They'll close far sooner than the open wounds   

Soon to be left in the hearts of husbands and wives,   

Parents and children, by the death of the six   

Who now are failing. Just imagine how grateful   

They'll all be when they hear of your grand gesture.   

Summer and winter they'll visit your grave, in shifts,   

For as long as they live, and stoop to tend it,   

And leave it adorned with flowers or holly wreaths,   

While your friends, who are just as forgetful   

As you are, just as liable to be distracted,   

Will do no more than a makeshift job of upkeep.   

If the people you'll see tomorrow pacing the halls   

Of our crowded facility don't move you enough,   

They'll make you at least uneasy. No happy future   

Is likely in store for a man like you whose conscience   

Will ask him to certify every hour from now on   

Six times as full as it was before, your work   

Six times as strenuous, your walks in the woods   

Six times as restorative as anyone else's.   

Why be a drudge, staggering to the end of your life   

Under this crushing burden when, with a single word,   

You could be a god, one of the few gods   

Who, when called on, really listens?

First Poem For You

BY KIM ADDONIZIO

I like to touch your tattoos in complete

darkness, when I can’t see them. I’m sure of

where they are, know by heart the neat

lines of lightning pulsing just above

your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue

swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent

twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you

to me, taking you until we’re spent

and quiet on the sheets, I love to kiss

the pictures in your skin. They’ll last until

you’re seared to ashes; whatever persists

or turns to pain between us, they will still

be there. Such permanence is terrifying.

So I touch them in the dark; but touch them, trying.

A Locked House

BY W. D. SNODGRASS

As we drove back, crossing the hill,

The house still

Hidden in the trees, I always thought—

A fool’s fear—that it might have caught   

Fire, someone could have broken in.   

As if things must have been

Too good here. Still, we always found   

It locked tight, safe and sound.

I mentioned that, once, as a joke;   

No doubt we spoke

Of the absurdity

To fear some dour god’s jealousy   

Of our good fortune. From the farm   

Next door, our neighbors saw no harm   

Came to the things we cared for here.   

What did we have to fear?

Maybe I should have thought: all

Such things rot, fall—

Barns, houses, furniture.

We two are stronger than we were

Apart; we’ve grown

Together. Everything we own

Can burn; we know what counts—some such   

Idea. We said as much.

We’d watched friends driven to betray;   

Felt that love drained away

Some self they need.

We’d said love, like a growth, can feed   

On hate we turn in and disguise;

We warned ourselves. That you might despise   

Me—hate all we both loved best—

None of us ever guessed.

The house still stands, locked, as it stood   

Untouched a good

Two years after you went.

Some things passed in the settlement;   

Some things slipped away. Enough’s left   

That I come back sometimes. The theft   

And vandalism were our own.

Maybe we should have known.

Like A Child, Sleepless

by W.D. Snodgrass

The ‘possum under the owl’s claw,
The wet fawn huddled in the grass,
The soldier, hurt, in his lost trench
Clench the eyelid, clutch the breath
Till Scavengers, till coup de grace,
Death and the lurking terror pass.

Vice tight each muscle lest the pent
Tendon spasm, twitch; preserve
All rigor, silence, so the blood
Thuds slower, fainter through the vein
Till the chilled skin gives off no scent;
Drain all least current from the nerve.

Clamp the arm tight against the head
To hush that whisper in the nose,
The click if lips slip open. Cover
Over this face and form; disguise
Whose body’s lying on the bed,
Eyes that still stare too wide to close.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Body of a Woman

by Pablo Neruda

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.

I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and nigh swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

Aubade

BY AMBER FLORA THOMAS

I know my leaving in the breakfast table mess.   

Bowl spills into bowl: milk and bran, bread crust   

crumbled. You push me back into bed.

More “honey” and “baby.”

Breath you tell my ear circles inside me,   

curls a damp wind and runs the circuit   

of my limbs. I interrogate the air,

smell Murphy’s Oil Soap, dog kibble.

No rose. No patchouli swelter. And your mouth—   

sesame, olive. The nudge of your tongue

behind my top teeth.

To entirely finish is water entering water.   

Which is the cup I take away?

More turning me. Less your arms reaching   

around my back. You ask my ear

where I have been and my body answers,   

all over kingdom come.

Lines Depicting Simple Happiness

BY PETER GIZZI

The shine on her buckle took precedence in sun

Her shine, I should say, could take me anywhere

It feels right to be up this close in tight wind

It feels right to notice all the shiny things about you

About you there is nothing I wouldn’t want to know

With you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler

About you many good things come into relation

I think of proofs and grammar, vowel sounds, like

A is for knee socks, E for panties

I is for buttondown, O the blouse you wear

U is for hair clip, and Y your tight skirt

The music picks up again, I am the man I hope to be

The bright air hangs freely near your newly cut hair

It is so easy now to see gravity at work in your face

Easy to understand time, that dark process

To accept it as a beautiful process, your face

remember noah

BY LENELLE MOÏSE

you have to understand

it was so hot

 

sand as far as the eye could see

sand in teeth

 

a sealess life

every step a sinking a scratch

 

every storm

more sand

 

no sweat when we danced

pure salt in our lovemaking

 

i tried to spit once

it came out like a whistle

 

my first period

curry powder

 

old wives

spoke of tears

 

we thought they were

senile

 

laughter was

our wettest thing

 

we prayed often

to no one

 

we believed

in music

 

dry palms clapping

dust on ankle bracelets

 

we threw tabla and daff

caught spirit and sagat

 

a blaring life

the wailing or caesarean births

 

widows' eyes

wept wind

 

even our tongues were

tanned

 

something sun-dried

in every recipe

 

rays

were babies' first words

 

you have to understand

we forgot how to be thirsty

 

mud by then

was primitive

splashing

the stuff of legend

 

only giddiness

quenched us

 

we were dizzy all the time

in the world all the time

 

then we heard him

grumbling to himself

 

something about forty

something about a flood

 

clad in sheep's wool

he reeked of wolf shit

 

something about monogamy

something about shelter

 

i thought:

this must be heatstroke

 

i thought:

the brain of a six-hundred-year-old

 

i thought:

he is a conceptual artist

 

the ark

an installation

 

his masterpiece

took years

 

took trees

got bigger

 

he was our favorite

dirty joke

 

beloved schizophrenic

neighbor

 

then he started preaching

then he kidnapped pigs

 

mosquitos

doves

 

things that wanted to eat each other

stuffed onto the same boat

 

we threw our heads back

we slapped ashy knees

 

we mooned him

threw hot stones

 

we streaked

whistled in his face

 

kicked the baking

ship

 

laughter was

our thunder thing

 

the lucky ones died

laughing

 

for centuries

he warned us

 

condescending motherfucker

foaming at the mouth

 

sweat dripping

from his beard

 

condensation

how did we miss it?

 

i have no words for the first drop

cooling the cheek

 

grandfathers raised their arms

lightning made the children leap

 

sizzle gave way to drizzle

humidity taught humility

 

we opened our mouths

swallowing everything

 

the clouds begat clouds

began to bite us back

 

panic soaked

our slouching spines

 

the instruments

drowned first

 

we played them sopping

out of tune

 

denial gave way

to rivers

 

i fell into a puddle

my very first shiver

 

the shock of cold water

made me orgasm

 

so all the times before

had been dry heave?

 

so this was mourning

this was mikveh?

 

the sky from blue

to za'atar hail

 

we choked

god's vomit filled our lungs

 

apologies bellyflopped

reaching went out of reach

 

we ran from high desert

to highest mountain

 

to whirlpool

or choral grief

 

if noah had keen merciful

he would have taught us how to swim

 

instead he saved

two mice

 

muttered prayers

shut the door

 

the best belly dancers

became mermaids

 

the dinosaurs learned

to fly

 

we never saw

a rainbow

 

our grave stones

coral reef

The Suicide

BY JOYCE CAROL OATES

didn't thank

didn't wave goodbye

didn't flutter the air with kisses

a mound of gifts unwrapped

bed unmade

no appetite

always elsewhere

though it was raining elsewhere

though strangers peopled the streets

though we at home slaved and

baked and wept and

hung ornaments

and perfumed the dark

did he marvel

did he thank

was he grateful        did he know

was he human

was he there

always elsewhere:

didn't thank

didn't kiss

toothbrush stiffened with unuse

puppy whining in the hall

car battery dead

sweaters unraveled

was that human?

Went where?

Sweetness

BY STEPHEN DUNN

Just when it has seemed I couldn’t bear   

   one more friend   

waking with a tumor, one more maniac   

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness   

   has come   

and changed nothing in the world   

except the way I stumbled through it,   

   for a while lost   

in the ignorance of loving   

someone or something, the world shrunk   

   to mouth-size,   

hand-size, and never seeming small.   

I acknowledge there is no sweetness   

   that doesn’t leave a stain,   

no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....   

Tonight a friend called to say his lover   

   was killed in a car   

he was driving. His voice was low   

and guttural, he repeated what he needed   

   to repeat, and I repeated   

the one or two words we have for such grief   

until we were speaking only in tones.   

   Often a sweetness comes   

as if on loan, stays just long enough   

to make sense of what it means to be alive,   

   then returns to its dark   

source. As for me, I don’t care   

where it’s been, or what bitter road   

   it’s traveled   

to come so far, to taste so good.

Broken Promises

BY DAVID KIRBY

I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;   

I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb   

and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,   

knowing I would only let them win.   

I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,   

coming back late from the interval   

long after the others have taken their seats,   

and in deserted shopping malls late at night,   

peering at things they can never buy,   

and I have found them wandering   

in a wood where I too have wandered.   

This morning I caught one;   

small and stupid, too slow to get away,   

it was only a promise I had made to myself once   

and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me   

and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach   

in their long, sad faces.

When I drew near them, they scurried away,   

even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.   

I hate them for their ingratitude,   

I who have kept countless promises,   

as dead now as Shakespeare’s children.   

“You bastards,” I scream,   

“you have to love me—I gave you life!”