—after Gwendolyn Brooks
that which is betwixt us of the lampooned lips and noses
indissoluble as blood impassioned by a serene swatch of sky—
envy of the blessing of birds and the divine shadow
cast to provide protective canvas for our bones of calcified light
the chains that wore us in the fashion of diamond-studded pendants
and the names that the ocean omitted from history with a wave
envy of the privilege of birds and the low-hung cumulus
carried in baskets through the blistering heat by blistered hands
the wade into waters as stoic as windows during sudden storms
and the burdens branches bore without snapping loose from life
envy of the immunity of birds and the wooden instrument
of spiritual salvation snared in blasphemous flames on front lawns
the holes punched into the balloter before their ballot was boxed
and the dialects curbing the confidence of compass needles
envy of the license of birds and the coldness weathered
that is distinct from the weather met in thoroughly wintered towns
the hearty home made of a humble house stood up in hostile borders
and the insomnia that hope prerequisites in its toilsome making
envy of the prerogative of birds and the severity of the last
syllable or even more so the softness of it when we say it
siblingly in casual salutation— lavishly each other’s harvest
seriously each other’s business envious of the birthright of birds
Copyright © 2025 by Cortney Lamar Charleston. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 1, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
because you’re psychic
no one else could understand me
the way you
do and
I say
Drink Me
I say it to you silently
but it calls forth in me
the water for you
the water you asked for
Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Wolff. Used with permission of the author.
A wave of love for you just knocked me off my chair
I will love you and love you
I will reach out my hand to you in the noise of carhorns and merengue and pull you close by the waist
I will call you my museum of everything always
I will call you MDMA
I love you ecstatic exalted sublime
I wish you were here—there’s an enormous cloud sitting off in the distance
It’s a beautiful walk from there to my place
I’m buzzing but the buzzer may not be working
There’s a raccoon rearing on hind legs twitching its nose from behind a short fence
Let me stew you some tomatoes
As long as I keep moving the overtones don’t jackhammer my skull
I am waiting for something very very good
My phone is like, what, I’m a phone
Previously published in Gulf Coast. Copyright © 2010 by Jordan Davis. Used with permission of the author.
She pressed her lips to mind.
—a typo
How many years I must have yearned
for someone’s lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.
She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.
Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she’s missed.
How had I ever settled for less?
I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek’s ear,
speaking sense. It’s the Good,
defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. We married as soon as we could.
"The Kiss," from Everything Else in the World by Stephen Dunn. Copyright © 2007 by Stephen Dunn. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low:
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
This poem is in the public domain.
My Love is of a birth as rare As ’tis for object strange and high: It was begotten by despair Upon Impossibility. Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so divine a thing, Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing. And yet I quickly might arrive Where my extended Soul is fixt, But Fate does Iron wedges drive, And alwaies crowds it self betwixt. For Fate with jealous Eye does see Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close: Their union would her ruine be, And her Tyrannick pow'er depose. And therefore her Decrees of Steel Us as the distant Poles have plac'd, (Though Love's whole World on us doth wheel) Not by themselves to be embrac'd. Unless the giddy Heaven fall, And Earth some new Convulsion tear; And, us to joyn, the World should all Be cramp'd into a Planisphere. As Lines so Loves oblique may well Themselves in every Angle greet: But ours so truly Parallel, Though infinite can never meet. Therefore the Love which us doth bind, But Fate so enviously debarrs, Is the Conjunction of the Mind, And Opposition of the Stars.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on March 31, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
translated by Sarah Arvio
To find a kiss of yours
what would I give
A kiss that strayed from your lips
dead to love
My lips taste
the dirt of shadows
To gaze at your dark eyes
what would I give
Dawns of rainbow garnet
fanning open before God—
The stars blinded them
one morning in May
And to kiss your pure thighs
what would I give
Raw rose crystal
sediment of the sun
*
[Por encontrar un beso tuyo]
Por encontrar un beso tuyo,
¿qué daría yo?
¡Un beso errante de tu boca
muerta para el amor!
(Tierra de sombra
come mi boca.)
Por contemplar tus ojos negros,
¿qué daría yo?
¡Auroras de carbunclos irisados
abiertas frente a Dios!
(Las estrellas los cegaron
una mañana de mayo.)
Y por besar tus muslos castos,
¿qué daría yo?
(Cristal de rosa primitiva,
sedimento de sol.)
Translation copyright © 2017 by Sarah Arvio. Original text copyright © The Estate of Federico García Lorca. From Poet in Spain (Knopf, 2017). Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 25, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
And you remember, in the afternoon
The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk
A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon
Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth,
And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.
A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime
Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled
Feeling the raw cold dun me: and all the time
You leapt about on the slippery rocks, and threw
Me words that rang with a brassy, shallow chime.
And all day long, that raw and ancient cold
Deadened me through, till the grey downs dulled to sleep.
Then I longed for you with your mantle of love to fold
Me over, and drive from out of my body the deep
Cold that had sunk to my soul, and there kept hold.
But still to me all evening long you were cold,
And I was numb with a bitter, deathly ache;
Till old days drew me back into their fold,
And dim hopes crowded me warm with companionship,
And memories clustered me close, and sleep was cajoled.
And I slept till dawn at the window blew in like dust,
Like a linty, raw-cold dust disturbed from the floor
Of the unswept sea; a grey pale light like must
That settled upon my face and hands till it seemed
To flourish there, as pale mould blooms on a crust.
And I rose in fear, needing you fearfully.
For I thought you were warm as a sudden jet of blood.
I thought I could plunge in your living hotness, and be
Clean of the cold and the must. With my hand on the latch
I heard you in your sleep speak strangely to me.
And I dared not enter, feeling suddenly dismayed.
So I went and washed my deadened flesh in the sea
And came back tingling clean, but worn and frayed
With cold, like the shell of the moon; and strange it seems
That my love can dawn in warmth again, unafraid.
This poem is in the public domain.
You looked inside
For what the perishable flesh might hide;
And now you say that inner part
Will represent her in my heart.
I tell you no.
Philosopher, I say I loved her so
I did not dig within—content
When seasons came, when seasons went.
When she would frown,
You think I set the meaning of it down?
The meaning goes; but something stays
I shall have with me all my days—
Her forehead bare
One instant, then blown over by her hair;
A sudden turn; her hand at rest
Upon a window toward the west. . . .
This poem is in the public domain.
for Dominique
I know this
from looking
into store fronts
taste buds voguing
alight from the way
treasure glows
when I imagine
pressing its opulence
into your hand
I want to buy you
a cobalt velvet couch
all your haters’ teeth
strung up like pearls
a cannabis vineyard
and plane tickets
to every island
on earth
but my pockets
are filled with
lint and love alone
touch these inanimate gods
to my eyelids
when you kiss me
linen leather
gator skin silk
satin lace onyx
marble gold ferns
leopard crystal
sandalwood mink
pearl stiletto
matte nails and plush
lips glossed
in my 90s baby saliva
pour the glitter
over my bare skin
I want a lavish life
us in the crook
of a hammock
incensed by romance
the bowerbird will
forgo rest and meals
so he may prim
and anticipate amenity
for his singing lover
call me a gaunt bird
a keeper of altars
shrines to the tactile
how they shine for you
fold your wings
around my shoulders
promise me that
should I drown
in want-made waste
the dress I sink in
will be exquisite
From Hull (Nightboat Books, 2019). Copyright © 2019 Xan Phillips. Used with permission of Nightboat Books, nightboat.org.