has only good news for my body
and for my mind, she warms them
and she becalms them unlike her
greek namesake who left her
listeners terrified and tense
ah the onomastic turnaround
took twenty centuries to turn
the older story on its head
which explains ex-lingua why
my modern body feels comfort
in the new diachronic goddess

Copyright © 2024 by Andrei Codrescu. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 18, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

All those years seeking resplendence,
how deceived my longing has been.
Memories muscled as otters.

Where the center is
always discernible, I am reminded
courage is billions of years earlier than we are—

and loss is held like a rudder.
Little deer: imagine

there is a space
to forgive ourselves. Imagine
the slow intimate unknitting of Earth, the sky
in its steam and pleasure.

How will I greet you when I am back,
the spectrum not yet diminished in me?

From In Old Sky by Lauren Camp (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024). Copyright © 2024 by Lauren Camp. Reprinted with the permission of the poet.

                       The cool light turns
everything gray—my fingers settle

in the grass. Wingless cicadas sleep
beneath leaves curling like ribbons

Now is the time to feel alive. Clouds
rear back until light is the holy word

The grass blades under me come to
patterns of rest. Pendulous branches

and fibrous bark make a crown. If
I cannot be a mother I still want no

life but this one pocket of air rising
through the water like a rosary bead

I pray to a God who keeps me here
Soft light from the foliage shatters

I can give up happiness. I’ll go bury
my dreams first thing in the morning

Copyright © 2024 by E. J. Koh. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 2, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

Who knows the secrets in my gaze?
What holds me back when I might choke?
Who sees beyond my taut hellos
To see the grief etched on my face?
Nobody knows what lurks within;
Nobody brings me back again.
Who needs to disappear for a while?
Who sings my name beyond the veil?
Who has my memories, my tales?
Who’s lurking in my carpet’s dust?
Nobody feels this weight beneath my skin.
Who knows I’m grieving as I walk?
Who has the list of gravity’s costs?
Nobody but the man I’ve lost.

Copyright © 2024 by Allison Joseph. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 27, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.