january 2011 poems
CRIPPLE by cameron witbeck
I saw someone walk the way you walk
and I thought you were leaving--
you’ve been dreaming of wolves again.
Snow is coming.
You can feel it in your knee.
I stand in the kitchen cutting:
potatoes, onions, mushrooms.
I can think of nothing but the snow and your knee.
You come home. You insist on walking.
I scrape my knife clean; and leave it in the sink.
You speak with your hands
of a man you met, who lost two brothers this fall.
You tell me that the wolves in your dreams
are asking you to leave for the winter.
You want to go. You want to run again,
feel tendons push bone beneath skin.
As you talk, I look out the window
and pray for snow to come and lock your knee,
for it to fall and fall and fall and never leave.
I saw someone walk the way you walk
and I thought you were leaving--
you’ve been dreaming of wolves again.
Snow is coming.
You can feel it in your knee.
I stand in the kitchen cutting:
potatoes, onions, mushrooms.
I can think of nothing but the snow and your knee.
You come home. You insist on walking.
I scrape my knife clean; and leave it in the sink.
You speak with your hands
of a man you met, who lost two brothers this fall.
You tell me that the wolves in your dreams
are asking you to leave for the winter.
You want to go. You want to run again,
feel tendons push bone beneath skin.
As you talk, I look out the window
and pray for snow to come and lock your knee,
for it to fall and fall and fall and never leave.
|
HALLOWEEN, 1995 by cameron witbeck
My brother pissed himself and his Power Ranger costume in his fifth and final hour of preschool at St.Mike’s. He was defrocked, disrobed of polyester tights given red sweatpants on loan from secretaries. On Halloween, he screamed exiting the bus clenching a plastic bag full of soiled things. With no costume, no skin to wrap himself in, my brother cried, his eyes unwrapped. I wanted to remove my teeth in a gesture of loss I could not understand. I could taste fake blood and distant sugar. I stood by in the silence of a home with no lights on. My father dressed him in a denim jacket and walrus mask, with a pillowcase collection plate. At each home, a woman would hold my cape between two fingers, notice my widow’s peak, and smile before turning to my brother to ask and just what are you supposed to be? |
PICA: A MEASURE OF CONSUMPTION
by kelli allen A bit of foam, palest green, at her lip will fall bounce back up as if to reclaim itself inside her, becomes instead, earth and soap. Her hands too thick with grit and bark, her tongue heavier still, holding down the ground's soft creatures, cracking their bones to dust she can breath, swallow. What neighbors may see in the lit take of her meal, what they may believe about sanity and possession, animals and belonging does not occur to her. She knows only the tilted padding under her soles, the wetness she feels through every stilted moment of eating-- This is the measure that calls her through the night to the great wing of feeding, over and over-- that beginning Hunger and anatomy. |
EARLY SUMMER by jonathan moore
the mountain gestures
under my feet
constantly offering its palm
of ferns and rocks
my sister leads us
my brother is young and complaining
having reached the highest ridge
we eat berries and whistle cigarette
smoke over the autumnal subterranean bay
we emerge at the sun’s narrow angle
from the forest edges
out to a large bear trail
the path is lined with more
cool raspberry bushes and we are happy
but my brother is afraid
certainly animals have pissed on our treat
he sits back and cries
on the mid-morning sunned red iron rocks
swatting horseflies and mosquitos
longing for the cabin
the mountain gestures
under my feet
constantly offering its palm
of ferns and rocks
my sister leads us
my brother is young and complaining
having reached the highest ridge
we eat berries and whistle cigarette
smoke over the autumnal subterranean bay
we emerge at the sun’s narrow angle
from the forest edges
out to a large bear trail
the path is lined with more
cool raspberry bushes and we are happy
but my brother is afraid
certainly animals have pissed on our treat
he sits back and cries
on the mid-morning sunned red iron rocks
swatting horseflies and mosquitos
longing for the cabin
UNPACKING POMEGRANATES by kelli allen
My right hand cares for the sensual parts
of the brain, while the other prefers to stroke
crow feathers into points for ink. Together,
fingers laced without pattern, demonstrate how
a turtle would be lost with even small antlers
blocking his path home. I want to tell you
both things are true—that the quill and shell fall
into our world after a postponement. Telling you
means counting steps from the gate double-time
and connections are simple when ascending. I am denying
it is all beyond you. When I pry the seeds
from their webbed skin, they fill my palm
the way children lower from a common story.
My right hand cares for the sensual parts
of the brain, while the other prefers to stroke
crow feathers into points for ink. Together,
fingers laced without pattern, demonstrate how
a turtle would be lost with even small antlers
blocking his path home. I want to tell you
both things are true—that the quill and shell fall
into our world after a postponement. Telling you
means counting steps from the gate double-time
and connections are simple when ascending. I am denying
it is all beyond you. When I pry the seeds
from their webbed skin, they fill my palm
the way children lower from a common story.
|
LUMINARIES by william kyle
Restless at night, we moth The window pane unfit To perceive what is to Happen between buildings, But an eager something Will happen, because closed Inside, our wings sigh and Swirl with ink cut from veins Of ebullient jealous. They rub for a square of Silence to shine over. This isn’t lightning, or A glister cast by bomb Or wormglow, but you see By it and do not ask, Because like snow, it hangs Light upon your reckless Breath and sensible cheeks. |
DOWN THE PROMENADE by christina m. rau
Young men sell flowers there so that other young men can woo the young women who walk along, sassy, slow, swaying, leaning against the railing towards the water, towards Manhattan. A carnation to replace big city dreams. A sunflower to change sky scraper visions. A peony to turn heads back East. A rose to seduce artistic hearts back to Brooklyn. |
A JUG OF MILK by jim davis
An old man sits on the top step,
spitting seeds into the alleyway.
The swing is broken. The trees cannot
offer shelter from winter’s dull rain,
but a sprawling web of shadow on sidewalk.
The milk jug split in the fall, and spilled
along its thickest flank, thumped and puddling.
Dark pieces of dead leaf float within.
Darkness makes the dead-bolt stubborn.
The door-mat is peppered with leaf bits.
I snapped a rubber band around the lip
of a container, covered in silk
and filtered myself a glass of milk.
A neighbor is stabbed while defending
the old man who lives above him.
A woman among the harbor rocks, skipping stones.
She hides a long lock of hair behind her ear
and wonders how possibly it could ever
be all so complicated as that.
learn about the writers
An old man sits on the top step,
spitting seeds into the alleyway.
The swing is broken. The trees cannot
offer shelter from winter’s dull rain,
but a sprawling web of shadow on sidewalk.
The milk jug split in the fall, and spilled
along its thickest flank, thumped and puddling.
Dark pieces of dead leaf float within.
Darkness makes the dead-bolt stubborn.
The door-mat is peppered with leaf bits.
I snapped a rubber band around the lip
of a container, covered in silk
and filtered myself a glass of milk.
A neighbor is stabbed while defending
the old man who lives above him.
A woman among the harbor rocks, skipping stones.
She hides a long lock of hair behind her ear
and wonders how possibly it could ever
be all so complicated as that.
learn about the writers
