would you be a lender
if it coincided with war
could you be sure your tenderness
came from more than envy
should you have amended
those rules that bound you
careful!
would you have descended
from behind that leaden war
could you foresee
how slender my heart
should you then doubt
my fear of deep intention
would you be more
than the commended old wrong
would you be still
my song of snow in sight
would you be
the provision in the sky
would you know more
than a law a weight
a mended wall that wood
that night?
Copyright © 2017 by Mia You. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 24, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
How swift, how far
the sea
carries a body from shore.
Empires fail, species are lost,
spotted frogs
and tufted puffins forsaken.
After eons of fauna and flora, hominids have stood
for mere years
baffled brains atop battered shoulders.
In a murky blanket of heavens
an icy planet
made of diamond spins.
Our sun winks like the star
it was
billions of years ago, without ambition.
We bury bodies in shallow dirt, heedless of lacking space
or how long
our makeshift planet will host us.
Copyright © 2017 by Risa Denenberg. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 10, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.