Widow Skimmer
Male
leaves
female
by herself
after mating time.
Under warm ripples, she tubes broods
unguarded by father’s thick bands.
He skims the surface
unbound by
widow’s
black
veil.
Male
leaves
female
by herself
after mating time.
Under warm ripples, she tubes broods
unguarded by father’s thick bands.
He skims the surface
unbound by
widow’s
black
veil.
Once my transition—
the five minute drive to work, the pause
at the light, the left hand turn.
Just a need between
students and my personal life.
Now I shift between
the next maze
and the next heedful task.
Halloween was ours.
The one night a year
You’re allowed to be something
That you never were.
That Halloween,
I was yours
And you were mine.
We were both so intoxicated,
Completely obliterated
Out of our minds.
But dear god, were we in love.
My costume that night
Was your lips on my neck
And your old Grateful Dead t-shirt.
Your costume was
The bruise on your collarbone
And my hair-tie on your wrist.
Though we were comfortable,
My god were we scary.
We were absolutely terrifying.
Of all the sub-par movies
And tv horrors i’ve watched,
I had never felt as petrified
As i did after you kissed me.
It might as well have been a ghost
That grabbed me by the waist
And kissed me goodbye.
The more i reminisce,
The more i think that maybe in fact
It was a ghost.
It was ethereal,
It was soft, it felt so barely there
It felt like a figment.
You were a phantom
Of the last love
That didn’t feel like a chore
But i dont think you were real
And you’re long gone now.
I think if we entered the contest,
We would have won best dressed.
We were so caught up
Being who we never were for one night,
That I don’t think i’ll ever be able to dress as myself
Again.
Do you know why you believe that?
Have you turned over some rocks
or is self-esteem more important
than truth?
Perhaps you write your poems with a pencil
Do you know what graphite is or where to find it?
Could you cut the wood for the barrel
or make the paper?
What’s the ferule or eraser made of?
Even something as simple as a pencil
took millions of lives millennias
just for you
Perhaps you write your poems on a keyboard
As you detail your suffering in ways too convoluted
Do you take a moment to imagine
That you are the African child crawling through that cobalt mine
or the Uyghur slave in the Chinese chip factory toiling
just for you?
You can still drown in the warm, shallow water
Even if the tsunami never comes
Maybe your beliefs are just
A successful marketing campaign created
just for you
For the first time in a long time,
I can feel the sun
Warm my bones.
I can appreciate the golden hues
And the soft tunes
Of the earth strumming along.
I can fill my lungs with fresh air,
And actually breathe.
Marie Howe is always chewing on her lips,
the top one full as though plumped
with snuff.
She chews on them highlighting
their sensuality as though she can’t
quite let them go, they’re too delicious.
Her wild hair falls round her shoulders
like a waterfall. She pushes it away
from her eyes with the back of her hand.
Her poems, poignant as a heart beat,
root out the marrow of any bone.
Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange
Her face is a fragment
of granite,
harshly lined, stark—
She has traveled
from Kansas
to escape dust and famine—
still—she is hungry,
her lean-to
shelter
filthy as the last one.
to the small boy in all the photos
(some show him smiling tho’ not all do):
you can learn to sort the fears like the plastic blocks
you used to build the model of Washington, D.C.
on the dining room table.
Not all last for long,
we take our worlds apart and there is no loss,
we build again.
Not all fears are the same:
yes, some are like the deep end of the motel pool,
a place you can drown and die.
Others move you
to kick and rise. Sort the worries one by one,
pick up each one and remember not all are the same:
yes, you’ve passed through the checkpoints,
surrendering the passport to mute officials,
waiting in the limbo between borders,
and then walked free of language and maps
on battered buses to Jerusalem.
Someone will help you sort the broken pieces,
some that seemed like sins to you,
secrets through the screen to the priest in the dark.
New dwellings will rise, white or clear blocks mixing,
then topped with the red lintels, fixing
new places to live where deserts
bleach the bricks
and winds
reshape.
To the tripart Monets hung in the Columbus Art Museum:
3 is powerful and you know that
Muted notes so orchestrated into power and vividness they are fragrant
You are art and your careful gathering exponentiates art
So that the air in the room is thick and balmy
When sensuality was vulgar, Keats was born
Nature will balance
When I stand in that room I know my counterpart
To create is to die and to die is too late
