Posts for June 30, 2024

I say “it’s a foul!”
Siri writes it’s a file!

She is filing Boston
all over the floor,
Siri says I say.

Filing her what?
It’s Aliyah on the block,
not H&R.

I’ve been waiting in the deepening light—  

& I see us, in another life. So many overlapping, aching
waves. The mess & the miles.  

These fractals of everyday fault. It rained in Kentucky
yesterday—that sweet sweat of summer,  

water-green rivulets around me. Like so many bangles
down a thin & delicate arm. Now, the sadness  

is in my chest again & the border to this land leaves
an open wound. Better to contain the chaos,  

a slipstream of thoughts that taste of fear between
this ship’s soft, swayed sides that I know  

from forgotten rhythms. A perfect mystery, a mysterious
perfection: yolk-yellow stamens break open

as they bloom. Each a tiny miracle until we make
the same mess all over again. It’s about love  

still making its way through. Stark. Double-spaced.
The first to orbit a foreign body—a poem that begins:  

Don’t go but girl—
he’ll take his leave and go.

Note: this piece was composed as a “self cento” after Victoria Woolf Bailey’s idea during LexPoMo 2023. I picked one line/phrase from each of my poems this month to build this piece.

Lovely to write with all of you this month!! This is always such a joy! Thank you for your poems and your support. Until next year. xx – Em

suffering might be the tempering forge
but hope mines the ore
patience lifts the hammer
beauty becomes the blade

my blankets are riddled with you, 
tiny midnight hairs stubbornly remain and
prick my sides. 
As if they retain the memory 
Of me asking you to move so that 
I may enjoy the bed you were sprawled 
Upon.

It must be a hound thing,
the inate ability to speak so loudly
with not only the bayish bark 
but those mischivous judgemental eyes.
Whenever I would call you in but
there was something on the wind 
that was so much more important than whatever
was being said by the porch 

unless it was treat, ride, bone, walk,
farm, or puppies.

You were a sucker
for pup cups and whatever was in reach,
maybe a carelessly guarded pizza slice 
or cat food that was brazzenly left unattended.
Your favorite were hoof trimmings.
You were the only hound who stayed round

(mainly to roll in the freshest 
pile of barnyard soil the sheep and donkeys
could provide) 

It broke my heart to see the white
snow pepper across your’s and Whisky’s
snout. To see the tumor grow and grow
your breath growing laborious 
the walks not lasting nearly long enough. 

The terrible habbit of eating soft toys finally
caught up, synthetic rabbits are far worse
than the bunnies you swore you could catch. 
You pulled through, I knew my good girl could.

I think your tumor is gone now, I think you still
get treats.

All I have are these memories and hairs. 

sometimes I run out
of all the words I need
to use on things like
metaphors and similes
to paint images
that will move something
in someone
a shared experience 

and like this
they fall flat 
and blank

say what you will while tending to the
vein which once supplied this city when it was

One full month has passed me by,
rainy, humid, full of light. 
June has not been shy
to remind and heatedly insist
that summer days will fly.

So I prepare to acclimate to
this ever rushing time.
I focus on the moment and
attempt to practice careful design.

I give myself over to the
 gifts that each day brings 
and like Yates, I  choose 
the peaceful linnet’s wings.

KW
6/30/24

She watches
from the outside of your house, peeps
from the inside of hers, through heavy curtains drawn
across windows that have been cleaned to squeaking perfection,
lest the sun should show a print of who’s been round.

The watcher watches silently 
as the lovers love in tandem with the mourners and the miners
and the movers and the dreamers of dreams that cannot be
realized from behind a wooden fence, but don’t tell Gladys.
She already knows.

there’s a void the size of about a dozen bouquets at the display, dwindling down by the minute. tauntingly they rest in the lobby, luring and leering at clientele.

buzzing collared-shirt husbands parade through pristine flowers, little tots in tow, perusing petals and prices.

rosy heads litter linoleum floors. a steady procession of checkout lines beep & bleep to the rhythm of a hummingbird pulse.

i imagine there’s a gaping hole where your heart is, a chasm so deep it threatens to pull you in.

that you’re standing in the floral aisle and must decide between a vague mother’s day bouquet or a new plant to place on your bright windowsill.

there’s a babe with shoes so small you can’t even fathom that they make them that tiny, that humans could even possess that small of bodies. his father cradles him in one arm, the other holds his daughter’s little hand.

you turn to the orchids.

perhaps growing something is better than growing nothing at all. after five years it’s what your body won’t give you, dreams that stay buried beneath watermarks on your pillowcase.

a bird of paradise perches in the corner near a seasoned pothos’ spiderweb legs. heirloom hydrangeas take home outdoors, peonies border sidelines. bushes of roses rise, the last of the daffodils laughing, near now is their soon passing.

carefully you tend these growing things, breathe life into them where otherwise you cannot.

or maybe you just like to see flowers bloom and blossom and fade, look at evergreen pine needles’ cascade, watch grass grow by each day.