"One Body" by Natalie Scenters-Zapico

One Body
by Natalie Scenters-Zapico

id

Two ids walk into one body & fight over whether to break melon on the kitchen counter & eat it by the fistful or to throw the melon out a shut window & watch it break on the pavement, stabbed by shards of glass.

ego

Sorry, for yelling through the speaker at the McDonald’s drive thru. Sorry, for not letting you through the door first. Sorry, I ate the dozen donuts in fifteen minutes over the sink. Sorry, I sound shrill, sound dumb, sound ditzy, sound spacey. Sorry, mom. I mean, mamá. I mean, miss. I mean, nevermind.

superego

Dear body: Cut the melon into slices with the sharpest knife you can find & enjoy the pain you are causing this melon. Stop saying you’re sorry, instead feel guilty for being shrill, being dumb, being ditzy, 
being spacey. Feel guilty because your mom is your mamá is your miss is the one who is guilty for giving you this body with two ids, & one ego, & one superego who hush-hushes you whole.





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"Dandelions" by Peter Campion

Dandelions
by Peter Campion


After the cling of roots and then the “pock”
when they gave way
                                     the recoil up the hand
               was a small shock
of emptiness beginning to expand.

Milk frothing from the stems. Leaves inky green
and spiked.
                      Like blissed-out childhood play 
              turned mean 
they snarled in tangled curls on our driveway.

It happens still. That desolating falling
shudder inside
                            and then our neighborhood
                seems only sprawling
loops...like the patterns eaten on driftwood:

even the home where I grew up (its smell
of lingering
                      wood-smoke and bacon grease)
             seems just a shell
of lathe and paper. But this strange release

follows: this tinge like silver and I feel
the pull of dirt 
                            again, sense mist uncurling
               to reveal
no architecture hidden behind the world

except the stories that we make unfolding:
as if our sole real power 
                                                    were the power
             of children holding 
this flower that is a weed that is a flower.





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"The Sun Came" by Etheridge Knight

The Sun Came
by Etheridge Knight

                                                 And if sun comes
                                          How shall we greet him?
                                                     —Gwen Brooks

The sun came, Miss Brooks,—
After all the night years.
He came spitting fire from his lips.
And we flipped—We goofed the whole thing.
It looks like our ears were not equipped
For the fierce hammering.

And now the Sun has gone, has bled red,
Weeping behind the hills.
Again the night shadows form.
But beneath the placid face a storm rages.
The rays of Red have pierced the deep, have struck
The core. We cannot sleep.
The shadows sing: Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm.
The darkness ain't like before.

The Sun came, Miss Brooks.
And we goofed the whole thing.
I think.
(Though ain't no vision visited my cell.)





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"Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost

Fireflies in the Garden
by Robert Frost

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.





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"What You Mean I Can’t Irony?" by Ishmael Reed

What You Mean I Can’t Irony?
by Ishmael Reed

A high-yellow lawyer woman
told me I ought to go to
Europe to “broaden your per
spective.” This happened at
a black black cocktail party
an oil portrait, Andrew Carnegie,
smiling down





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"Lemon and cedar" by Melissa Stein

Lemon and cedar
by Melissa Stein

What is so pure as grief? A wreck
set sail just to be wrecked again.
To lose what’s lost–it’s all born lost
and we just fetch it for a little while,
a dandelion span, a quarter-note.
Each day an envelope gummed shut
with honey and mud. Foolish
to think you can build a house
from suffering. Even the hinges will be
bitter. There will be no books
in that house, only transfusions.
And all the lemon and cedar
in the world won't rid the walls
of that hospital smell.





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"El Olvido" by Judith Ortiz Cofer

El Olvido
by Judith Ortiz Cofer

It is a dangerous thing
to forget the climate of your birthplace,
to choke out the voices of dead relatives
when in dreams they call you
by your secret name.
It is dangerous
to spurn the clothes you were born to wear
for the sake of fashion; dangerous
to use weapons and sharp instruments
you are not familiar with; dangerous
to disdain the plaster saints
before which your mother kneels
praying with embarrassing fervor
that you survive in the place you have chosen to live:
a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls,
a forgetting place where she fears you will die
of loneliness and exposure.
Jesús, María, y José, she says,
el olvido is a dangerous thing.





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"The Robots are Coming" by Kyle Dargan

The Robots are Coming
by Kyle Dargan

with clear-cased woofers for heads,
no eyes. They see us as a bat sees
a mosquito—a fleshy echo,
a morsel of sound. You've heard
their intergalactic tour busses
purring at our stratosphere's curb.
They await counterintelligence
transmissions from our laptops
and our blue teeth, await word
of humanity's critical mass,
our ripening. How many times
have we dreamed it this way:
the Age of the Machines,
postindustrial terrors whose
tempered paws—five welded fingers
—wrench back our roofs,
siderophilic tongues seeking blood,
licking the crumbs of us from our beds.
O, great nation, it won't be pretty.
What land will we now barter
for our lives ? A treaty inked
in advance of the metal ones' footfall.
Give them Gary. Give them Detroit,
Pittsburgh, Braddock—those forgotten
nurseries of girders and axels.
Tell the machines we honor their dead,
distant cousins. Tell them
we tendered those cities to repose
out of respect for welded steel's
bygone era. Tell them Ford
and Carnegie were giant men, that war
glazed their palms with gold.
Tell them we soft beings mourn
manufacture's death as our own.





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"Appalachian Trail" by Ted Mathys

Appalachian Trail
by Ted Mathys

 I am in the 
main on the 

mend I am in 
Maine on the 

wagon on 
Katahdin in 

an animal
skin I am a 

pencilmaker 
breaking 

a stolen mirror 
metaphor over 

the peak to 
make Maine 

lakes glint in 
sun I broke 

like a main 
clause over 

the forest of the 
page and paused 

to drink from a
literal canteen





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"Declaration" by Tracy K. Smith

"Declaration" is an erasure poem of the Declaration of Independence. Tracy K. Smith was named U.S. poet laureate in 2017.

Declaration
by Tracy K. Smith 

He has 

              sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people

He has plundered our—

                                           ravaged our—

                                                                         destroyed the lives of our—

taking away our­—

                                  abolishing our most valuable—

and altering fundamentally the Forms of our—

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for
Redress in the most humble terms:

                                                                Our repeated 
Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration
and settlement here.

                                    —taken Captive
                                              
                                                                    on the high Seas

                                                                                                     to bear—

---------------------------------------------

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"Rock Steady" by Aretha Franklin

Rock Steady
by Aretha Franklin (March 25, 1942 - August 16, 2018)

Rock steady, baby
That's what I feel now
Just call the song exactly what it is
Just move your hips with a feeling from side to side
Sit yourself down in your car and take a ride
While you're moving, rock steady
Rock steady, baby
Let's call this song exactly what it is (what it is, what it is, what it is)
It's a funky and lowdown feeling (what it is)
In the hips from left to right (what it is)
What it is I might be doin' (what it is)
This funky dance all night 
(Let me hear ya gotta feeling in the air)
(Gotta a feeling, an ain't got a care)
(What fun to take this ride, rock steady will only slide)
Rock steady, rock steady baby
Rock steady, rock steady baby
Jump and move your hips with a feeling from side to side
Sit yourself down in your car and take a ride
While you're moving, rock steady
Rock steady
Let's call this song exactly what it is (what it is, what it is, what it is)
It's a funky and lowdown feeling (what it is)
In the hips from left to right (what it is)
What it is I might be doin' (what it is)
This funky dance all night 
(Let me hear ya gotta feeling in the air)
(Gotta a feeling, an ain't got a care)
(What fun to take this ride, rock steady will only slide)
Rock steady baby
Rock steady, woo
Rock steady
Rock steady, rock steady (what it is)
It's a funky and lowdown feeling (what it is)
In the hips from left to right (what it is)
What it is is I might be doin'
This funky dance all night 
(Let me hear ya gotta feeling in the air)
(Gotta a feeling, an ain't got a care)
(What fun to take this ride, rock steady will only slide)
Rock steady, steady baby, rock, rock steady, baby
Baby (what it is), baby, baby (what it is) baby





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"Cry To Me" by John L. Stanizzi

Cry To Me
by John L. Stanizzi

We walked through some heartache in '62.
Gary liked Teresa but Teresa
asked Elizabeth to tell Peter that
she really wanted to go out with him
but Peter had been making out with Jane
in the theater, celebrating their
one month anniversary, so that was
out, and even though Jane broke up with Pete,
Peter kept asking Gail to talk with Jane
which Gail wouldn't do because she'd told
Brenda that she thought that Peter was cute
but Brenda wasn't listening to a word,
wrapped up in lonely teardrops shed for Greg.
The waters of 8th grade were never still.




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"Never to Dream of Spiders" by Audre Lorde

Never to Dream of Spiders
by Audre Lorde

Time collapses between the lips of strangers   
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
my eyes are blocked with rubble
a smear of perspectives
blurring each horizon
in the breathless precision of silence
one word is made.

Once the renegade flesh was gone   
fall air lay against my face
sharp and blue as a needle
but the rain fell through October   
and death lay    a condemnation   
within my blood.

The smell of your neck in August   
a fine gold wire bejeweling war   
all the rest lies
illusive as a farmhouse
on the other side of a valley
vanishing in the afternoon.

Day three    day four    day ten   
the seventh step
a veiled door leading to my golden anniversary   
flameproofed free-paper shredded   
in the teeth of a pillaging dog   
never to dream of spiders   
and when they turned the hoses upon me
a burst of light.





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"The Moment When Your Name is Pronounced" by Forrest Gander

The Moment When Your Name is Pronounced
by Forrest Gander

This high up, the face
eroding; the red cedar slopes
over. An accident chooses a stranger.
Each rain unplugs roots
which thin out like a hand.
Above the river, heat
lightning flicks silently
and the sound holds, coiled in air.
Some nights you are here
dangling a Valpolicella bottle,
staring down at the flat water
that slides by with its mouth full of starlight.
It is always quiet
when we finish the wine.
While you were a living man
how many pictures were done
of you. Serious as an angel,
lacing up your boots. Ice
blows into my fields.

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"Late Summer" by Jennifer Grotz

Late Summer
by Jennifer Grotz

Before the moths have even appeared
to orbit around them, the streetlamps come on,
a long row of them glowing uselessly

along the ring of garden that circles the city center,
where your steps count down the dulling of daylight.
At your feet, a bee crawls in small circles like a toy unwinding.

Summer specializes in time, slows it down almost to dream.
And the noisy day goes so quiet you can hear
the bedraggled man who visits each trash receptacle

mutter in disbelief: Everything in the world is being thrown away!
Summer lingers, but it’s about ending. It’s about how things
redden and ripen and burst and come down. It’s when

city workers cut down trees, demolishing
one limb at a time, spilling the crumbs
of twigs and leaves all over the tablecloth of street.

Sunglasses! the man softly exclaims
while beside him blooms a large gray rose of pigeons
huddled around a dropped piece of bread.





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"Epitaph on a Tyrant" by W. H. Auden

Epitaph on a Tyrant
by W. H. Auden

 Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.





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"Burning in the Rain" by Richard Blanco

Burning in the Rain
by Richard Blanco

Someday compassion would demand
I set myself free of my desire to recreate
my father, indulge in my mother’s losses,
strangle lovers with words, forcing them
to confess for me and take the blame.
Today was that day: I tossed them, sheet
by sheet on the patio and gathered them
into a pyre. I wanted to let them go
in a blaze, tiny white dwarfs imploding
beside the azaleas and ficus bushes,
let them crackle, burst like winged seeds,
let them smolder into gossamer embers—
a thousand gray butterflies in the wind.
Today was that day, but it rained, kept
raining. Instead of fire, water—drops
knocking on doors, wetting windows
into mirrors reflecting me in the oaks.
The garden walls and stones swelling
into ghostlier shades of themselves,
the wind chimes giggling in the storm,
a coffee cup left overflowing with rain.
Instead of burning, my pages turned
into water lilies floating over puddles,
then tiny white cliffs as the sun set,
finally drying all night under the moon
into papier-mâché souvenirs. Today
the rain would not let their lives burn.

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"At Twenty-Eight" by Amy Fleury

At Twenty-Eight
by Amy Fleury

It seems I get by on more luck than sense, 
not the kind brought on by knuckle to wood, 
breath on dice, or pennies found in the mud. 
I shimmy and slip by on pure fool chance. 
At turns charmed and cursed, a girl knows romance 
as coffee, red wine, and books; solitude 
she counts as daylight virtue and muted 
evenings, the inventory of absence. 
But this is no sorry spinster story, 
just the way days string together a life. 
Sometimes I eat soup right out of the pan. 
Sometimes I don’t care if I will marry. 
I dance in my kitchen on Friday nights, 
singing like only a lucky girl can.





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"Dream Land" by Christina Rossetti

Today's selection is in honor and memory of Sharon Roberts.

Dream Land
by Christina Rossetti

Where sunless rivers weep 
Their waves into the deep, 
She sleeps a charmed sleep: 
Awake her not. 
Led by a single star, 
She came from very far 
To seek where shadows are 
Her pleasant lot. 

She left the rosy morn, 
She left the fields of corn, 
For twilight cold and lorn 
And water springs. 
Through sleep, as through a veil, 
She sees the sky look pale, 
And hears the nightingale 
That sadly sings. 

Rest, rest, a perfect rest 
Shed over brow and breast; 
Her face is toward the west, 
The purple land. 
She cannot see the grain 
Ripening on hill and plain; 
She cannot feel the rain 
Upon her hand. 

Rest, rest, for evermore 
Upon a mossy shore; 
Rest, rest at the heart's core 
Till time shall cease: 
Sleep that no pain shall wake; 
Night that no morn shall break 
Till joy shall overtake 
Her perfect peace. 





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"Artless" by Brenda Shaughnessy

Artless
by Brenda Shaughnessy

is my heart. A stranger
berry there never was,
tartless.

Gone sour in the sun,
in the sunroom or moonroof,
roofless.

No poetry. Plain. No
fresh, special recipe
to bless.

All I’ve ever made
with these hands
and life, less

substance, more rind.
Mostly rim and trim,
meatless

but making much smoke
in the old smokehouse,
no less.

Fatted from the day,
overripe and even
toxic at eve. Nonetheless,

in the end, if you must
know, if I must bend,
waistless,

to that excruciation.
No marvel, no harvest
left me speechless,

yet I find myself
somehow with heart,
aloneless.

With heart,
fighting fire with fire,
fightless.

That loud hub of us,
meat stub of us, beating us
senseless.

Spectacular in its way,
its way of not seeing,
congealing dayless

but in everydayness.
In that hopeful haunting
(a lesser

way of saying
in darkness) there is
silencelessness

for the pressing question.
Heart, what art you?
War, star, part? Or less:

playing a part, staying apart
from the one who loves,
loveless.




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"The Vanity of the Dragonfly" by Nancy Willard

The Vanity of the Dragonfly
by Nancy Willard

The dragonfly at rest on the doorbell—
too weak to ring and glad of it,
but well mannered and cautious,
thinking it best to observe us quietly
before flying in, and who knows if he will find
the way out? Cautious of traps, this one.
A winged cross, plain, the body straight
as a thermometer, the old glass kind
that could kill us with mercury if our teeth
did not respect its brittle body. Slim as an eel
but a solitary glider, a pilot without bombs
or weapons, and wings clear and small as a wish
to see over our heads, to see the whole picture.
And when our gaze grazes over it and moves on,
the dragonfly changes its clothes,
sheds its old skin, shriveled like laundry,
and steps forth, polished black, with two
circles buttoned like epaulettes taking the last space
at the edge of its eyes.





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"August" by Helen Hunt Jackson

August
by Helen Hunt Jackson

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-agèd summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!






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