everyone knows about the woman who fell in love with the bridge
but no one cares how the bridge felt after.
everyone knows about the poet who leapt from the deck of a ship
but not how the boat lifted & bloated in his wake like a white infant
spread over the bed of a lake.
we leave our objects behind us. we collect our dead’s leavings & listen
for their breathing in the soft mouths of gloves. we believe them.
i care too much & still have the dead boy’s red sweater. i tongue
the wound. i tender this mule. i unravel quick my flesh debt.
every word an object in my dark wet house. everyone asks after
the living but no one cares how the cotton sobs in my mouth.
i am become warehouse : i am destroy speech.
everyone knows the poet fell from the bridge because he jumped.
no one cares there’s nothing left for us but his poems
not even a simple plaque drilled into the bridge’s throat reads :
this is where the man lived
this is where the man broke
this is the man
this is the man stretched
between two cold cities
you are standing
on his back.
Copyright © 2016 by sam sax. “Objectophile” originally appeared in Meridian. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Small enough to fit
in your shirt pocket
so you could take it out
in a moment of distress
to ingest a happy
maxim or just stare
a while at its orange
and yellow cover
(so cheerful in itself
you need go no further),
this little booklet
wouldn’t stop a bullet
aimed at your heart
and seems a flimsy
shield against despair,
whatever its contents.
But there it is
by the cash register,
so I pick it up
as I wait in line and
come to a sentence
saying there are few
things that can’t be
cured by a hot bath
above the name
Sylvia Plath.
I rest my case,
placing the booklet
back by its petite
companions Sweet Nothings
and Simple Wisdom…
but not The Book of Sorrows,
a multivolume set
like the old Britannica
that each of us receives
in installments
of unpredictable
heft and frequency
over a lifetime.
Copyright © 2021 by Jeffrey Harrison. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 22, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2018 Jill Osier. Used with permission of the author. This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review (Winter 2018).
I’ve lost something and I can’t describe
what it is
and what if that’s my job
to say how empty an absence is
like rolling 2 gears together
and maybe teeth are missing in one
or both
or maybe trying to grind
two stones that are
polished and smoothed
I’ve always liked
a little grit
but sand in my shoes
or in my hair
is like shattering
a glass in carpet
and using a broom to
get it out
I can’t describe
what it’s like to
sit on opposite ends
of a park bench and
not know how
to get any closer
I miss so many things
and I’ve looked through my piggy
bank and only found pennies
a pile of things that are
almost completely worthless
a shoebox full of sporks
a well with a bucket and a rope
that’s too short
sometimes in my room
it’s so dark that if I wake
up I won’t know if it’s morning or night
imagine being someplace you know
so well but are lost and don’t have any idea
how to get out
the rule is, put your right hand out
lay it on the wall, and follow
sometimes the rules don’t apply to all of us
I don’t want to sleep here again tonight
Copyright © 2020 by Kenyatta Rogers . Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 26, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.