A rosary that was my mother’s
tucked in the glove compartment of his car 
and a copy of Exile on Main Street
with instructions to play track 6
when he hit some lonesome desert highway.
I love him so much my chest hurts,
thinking of him riding off into his own life,
me the weeping shadow left behind (for now). 
I know I’ll see him again but it’s ceremony
we’re talking about after all—
one growing up and one growing older
both wild curses.
A train blows its horn 
the light rising beyond the harbor,
a dog barks from a car window 
and the nostalgia (always dangerous)
hits me like a left hook. 
I’m trapped between the memory
and the moment, 
the deal we make 
if we make it this long,
the markers of a life,
the small worthwhile pieces 
that rattle around in my pockets
waiting to be set somewhere in stone.
 

Copyright © 2017 by Kevin Carey. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 27, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

I scare away rabbits stripping the strawberries
in the garden, ripened ovaries reddening 
their mouths. You take down the hanging basket 
and show it to our son—a nest, secret as a heart, 
throbbing between flowers. Look, but don’t touch, 
you instruct our son who has already begun 
to reach for the black globes of a new bird’s eyes, 
wanting to touch the world. To know it. 
Disappointed, you say: Common house finch, 
as if even banal miracles aren’t still pink 
and blind and heaving with life. When the cat 
your ex-wife gave you died, I was grateful. 
I’d never seen a man grieve like that 
for an animal. I held you like a victory, 
embarrassed and relieved that this was how 
you loved. To the bone of you. To the meat. 
And we want the stricken pleasure of intimacy,
so we risk it. We do. Every day we take down 
the basket and prove it to our son. Just look
at its rawness, its tenderness, it’s almost flying.
 

Copyright © 2017 by Traci Brimhall. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 26, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

                     I paint flowers decorated with caterpillars.
                     I want to inquire into everything that exists and find
                     out how it began.
                                           —Maria Sibylla Merian
 
                                From basil, the scorpion.
                                           —Athanasius Kircher    
              
 
From pine tree resin, amber.
          From fury, hail.
From acacia’s sap, the bond.
          From raindrops, frogs.
From clay, yellow ochre.
          From dust, fleas.
From the beetle, carmine.
          From mud, the beetle.
From the murex snail, violet.
          From sea foam, the anchovy.
From the lamb, parchment.
          From the bull, the bee.
What?
          From the mouth of a slaughtered bull,
          cloaked in thyme and serpyllium,
          the bee.
From the sable, the brush tip.
          From books, the moth.
From the eagle, swan, crow, lark,
the diminishing quills.
          From fire, red snow and the west wind,
          the worm.
From the worm, the silk moth.
          From vapor, the silk moth.
What? From the spun cocoon, the silk moth.
          Yes. From steam and bluster,
          the silk moth.
From the silk moth’s mouth,
the potentate’s cloak.
          From the potentate’s horse,
          the hornet.

Copyright © 2017 by Linda Bierds. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 25, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; 
Lengthen night and shorten day; 
Every leaf speaks bliss to me, 
Fluttering from the autumn tree. 
I shall smile when wreaths of snow 
Blossom where the rose should grow; 
I shall sing when night’s decay 
Ushers in a drearier day.
 

This poem is in the public domain.

turns out not to be a sin at all, but in the guise
Of self-esteem a virtue; while poetry, an original
Sin of pride for making self-absorption seem heroic,
Apologizes again and shuts the door. O Small
Room of Myself, where everything and nothing fits,
I wish the night would last forever as the song assures,
Though it never does. I make my way not knowing
Where it leads or how it ends—in shocks of recognition,
In oblivion deferred, too little or too late, consumed
By fears of the forgotten and of the truly great. Morning
Brings a newspaper and an ordinary day, the prospect
Of a popular novel, though it's hard to read. I write to live
And read to pass the time, yet in the end they're equal,
And instead of someone else's name the name I hear is mine—
Which is unsurprising, since our stories all sound alike,
With nothing to reveal or hide. How thin our books
Of revelations, the essential poems of everyone
Mysterious on the outside, but with nothing to conceal—
Like the stories of experience I go on telling myself
And sometimes even think are true, true at least to a feeling
I can't define, though I know what I know: of a mind
Relentlessly faithful to itself and more or less real.

Copyright © 2017 by John Koethe. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 20, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

For years I have seen
dead animals on the highway
 
and grieved for them
only to realize they are
 
not dead animals
they are t shirts
 
or bits of blown tire
and I have found
 
myself with this
excess of grief
 
I have made with
no object to let
 
it spill over and
I have not known
 
where to put it or
keep it and then today
 
I thought I know
I can give it to you
 

Copyright © 2017 by Heather Christle. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 18, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss,
    Which sucks two souls, and vapours both away;
Turn, thou ghost, that way, and let me turn this,
    And let ourselves benight our happiest day.
We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe
    Any so cheap a death as saying, “Go.”
Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
    Ease me with death, by bidding me go too.
Or, if it have, let my word work on me,
    And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late, to kill me so,
    Being double dead, going, and bidding, “Go.”

The poem is in the public domain.

The clouds had made a crimson crown 
  About the mountains high. 
The stormy sun was going down 
  In a stormy sky. 
 
Why did you let your eyes so rest on me, 
  And hold your breath between? 
In all the ages this can never be 
  As if it had not been. 
 

This poem is in the Public Domain.

Flame under the bubbling water.  
Blue flame. Water ready for tea.
 
Amber infusion soon to be seeping, 
 
Leaves about to uncurl. Here 
Is a tin, a spoon, a cup, an open 
 
Teapot saying, Nobody else but me
 
To nobody else but you: awaken, 
Pour. What are you waiting for?
 

Copyright © 2017 by Phillis Levin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 15, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.