Her dress shimmered tiny pink and green flower gardens
like a tablecloth in a rural twentieth century
American farmhouse, something tender
you never saw since you were a child too,
pleats and folds along the bodice,
tucks and stitchery made with a patience
that barely abides anymore, her hair tightly braided
and coiled in circles against her perfect head
with tiny red ribbons at elegant intervals,
but when you said, Memories, her face fell.
She whispered, we left them, we had to
leave everything in our house,
my cabinet, my doll, my books,
my pepper plant, my pillow.
Nothing now we knew before.
But we have a few pictures.
My memories live in my mother’s phone.
Copyright © 2022 by Naomi Shihab Nye. This poem originally appeared in Tikkun, January 5, 2022. Used with permission of the author.
Sorrow, O sorrow, moves like a loose flock
of blackbirds sweeping over the metal roofs, over the birches,
and the miles.
One wave after another, then another, then the sudden
opening
where the feathered swirl, illumined by dusk, parts to reveal
the weeping
heart of all things.
Copyright © 2024 by Vievee Francis. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 12, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
A translation of Konstantin Cavafy’s “I was asking about the quality”
For Felicia, Kipper, Oscar, and Kevin.
And for Ted and Barron, in memoriam
I came out
of the office
where I had been
hired in another shitty, low-paying job
(My weekly pay was nothing more
than fifty dollars a week, most from tips).
With my waitress shift over, I came out
at seven and walked slowly. I fell out
into the street, handsome, but compelling.
It felt as if I had finally reached the full potential
of my own beauty (I’d turned
sixteen the previous month).
I kept wandering all around
the newly-cemented streets,
the quiet and old black alleys, past
the cemetery leading to our home.
But then, as I’d paused in front of a clothing store
where some skirts were on sale
(polyester, cheap), I saw this face
inside—a girl—whose eyes urged me
to come inside. So, I entered—
pretending I was looking
for embroidered handkerchiefs.
I was asking about the quality—
of her handkerchiefs—how much
they cost—in a whispery voice breaking open
with desire—and accordingly came her
shop-girl answers—rote, memorized—but beneath her
words, her eyes kept ablaze: Yes.
Mine, too, were a psalm of consent.
We kept talking about the handkerchiefs,
but all the while our one and only goal was this:
to brush each other’s hands—quickly—
over the handkerchiefs—to lean
our faces and lips
nearer to each other, as if
by accident. We moved quickly,
cautiously, yet deliberately—
in case her grandfather—sitting in
the back—were to suspect something.
Copyright © 2025 by Robin Coste Lewis. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 19, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
This afternoon, discomfortable dead
Drift into doorways, lounge, across the bridge,
Whittling memory at the water’s edge,
And watch. This is what you inherited.
Random they are, but hairy, for they chafe
All in their eye, enlarging like a slide;
Spectral as men once met or crucified,
And kind. Until the sun sets you are safe.
A prey to your most awkward reflection,
Loose-limbed before the fire you sit appalled.
And think that by your error you have called
These to you. Look! the light will soon be gone.
Excited see from the window the men fade
In the twilight; reappear two doors down.
Suppose them well acquainted with the town
Who built it. Do you fumble in the shade?
The key was lost, remember, yesterday,
Or stolen—undergraduates perhaps;
But all men are their colleagues, and eclipse
Very like dusk. It is too late to pray.
There was a time crepuscular was mild,
The hour for tea, acquaintances, and fall
Away of all day’s difficulties, all
Discouragement. Weep, you are not a child.
The equine hour rears, no further friend,
Intolerant, foam-lathered, pregnant with
Mysterious grave watchers in their wrath
Let into tired Troy. You are near the end.
Midsummer Common loses its last gold,
And grey is there. The sun slants down behind
A certain cinema, and the world is blind
But more dangerous. It is growing cold.
Light all the lights, heap wood upon the fire
To banish shadow. Draw the curtains tight.
But sightless eyes will lean through and wide night
Darken this room of yours. As you desire.
Think on your sins with all intensity.
The men are on the stair, they will not wait.
There is a paper-knife to penetrate
Heart & guilt together. Do it quickly.
From The Heart Is Strange: New Selected Poems by John Berryman, edited and selected by Daniel Swift. Copyright © 2014 by Kathleen Berryman Donahue. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. All Rights Reserved.