You and your friend stood
on the corner of the liquor store
as I left Champa Garden,
takeout in hand, on the phone
with Ashley who said,
That was your tough voice.
I never heard your tough voice before.
I gave you boys a quick nod,
walked E 21st past dark houses.
Before I could reach the lights
on Park, you criss-crossed
your hands around me,
like a friend and I’d hoped
that you were Seng,
the boy I’d kissed on First Friday
in October. He paid for my lunch
at that restaurant, split the leftovers.
But that was a long time ago
and we hadn’t spoken since,
so I dropped to my knees
to loosen myself from your grip,
my back to the ground, I kicked
and screamed but nobody
in the neighborhood heard me,
only Ashley on the other line,
in Birmingham, where they say
How are you? to strangers
not what I said in my tough voice
but what I last texted Seng,
no response. You didn’t get on top,
you hovered. My elbows banged
the sidewalk. I threw
the takeout at you and saw
your face. Young. More scared
of me than I was of you.
Hands on my ankles, I thought
you’d take me or rape me.
Instead you acted like a man
who slipped out of my bed
and promised to call:
You said nothing.
Not even what you wanted.
Copyright © 2020 by Monica Sok. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 20, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.
It was at first fire
Then volcanoes
Now the latest fear keeping
My daughter’s door open
Through the night
Is that of being afraid
Is there a narrator in this show
She asks as the authority
Of the voiceover in the cartoon
Loses what I imagine as credibility
In her six-year-old mind
It’s a creation myth
The one she’s watching
Because it was intentional
For months before her conception
I was afraid of having sex
As though there’s an answer
That would eclipse this
New-found complication
How can I not be scared
Of being scared she asks
Never trust the authority
Of the narrator I want
To tell her but I’d be lying
Copyright © 2019 by Noah Eli Gordon. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 30, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
Maybe a bit dramatic, but I light
candles with my breakfast, wear a white gown
around the house like a virgin. Right
or wrong, forgive me? No one in this town
knows forgiveness. Miles from the limits
if I squint, there’s Orion. If heaven
exists I will be there in a minute
to hop the pearly gates, a ghost felon,
to find him. Of blood, of mud, of wise men.
But who am I now after all these years
without him: boy widow barbarian
trapping hornets in my shit grin. He’ll fear
who I’ve been since. He’ll see I’m a liar,
a cheater, a whole garden on fire.
Copyright © 2019 by Hieu Minh Nguyen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 24, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
Here's my head, in a dank corner of the yard. I lied it off and so off it rolled. It wasn't unbelieving that caused it to drop off my neck and loll down a slope. Perhaps it had a mind of its own, wanted to leave me for a little while. Or it was scared and detached itself from the stalk of my neck as a lizard's tail will desert its body in fright of being caught. The fact is, I never lied. The fact is, I always lied. Before us, we have two mirrors. At times, they say, one must lie in order to survive. I drove by the house, passed it several times, pretending it was not my own. Its windows were red with curtains and the honeyed light cast on the porch did not succeed in luring me back inside. I never lied. I drove by the house, suckling the thought of other lovers like a lozenge. I was pale as a papery birch. I was pure as a brand new pair of underwear. It will be a long while before I touch another. Yet, I always lied, an oil slick on my tongue. I used to think that I was wrong, could not tell the truth for what it was. Yet, one cannot take a lawsuit out on oneself. I would have sworn in court that I believed myself and then felt guilty a long time after. I hated the house and I hated myself. The house fattened with books, made me grow to hate books, when all the while it was only books that never claimed to tell the truth. I hated him and I hated his room, within which his cloud of smoke heaved. I disappeared up narrow stairs, slipped quick beneath the covers. My stomach hurts, I told him, I was tired. I grew my dreams thick through hot nights: dear, flickering flowers. They had eyes which stared, and I found I could not afford their nurture, could not return their stare, Meanwhile, liars began their parade without my asking, strode sidewalks inches before my doorstep. I watched their hulking and strange beauty, their songs pregnant with freedom, and became an other self. I taught children how to curse. I bought children gold pints of liquor. I sold my mind on the street. 1 learned another language. It translates easily. Here's how: What I say is not what I mean, nor is it ever what I meant to say. You must not believe me when I say there's nothing left to love in this world.
From Fragment of the Head of a Queen by Cate Marvin. Copyright © 2007 by Cate Marvin. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books. All rights reserved.