how much history is enough history before we can agree
to flee our daycares to wash everything away and start over
leaving laptops to be lost in the wet along with housecats and Christ’s
own mother even a lobster climbs away from its shell a few
times a life but every time I open my eyes I find
I am still inside myself each epiphany dull and familiar
oh now I am barefoot oh now I am lighting the wrong end
of a cigarette I just want to be shaken new like a flag whipping
away its dust want to pull out each of my teeth
and replace them with jewels I’m told what seems like joy
is often joy that the soul lives in the throat plinking
like a copper bell I’ve been so young for so many years
it’s all starting to jumble together joy jeweling copper
its plink a throat sometimes I feel beautiful and near dying
like a feather on an arrow shot through a neck other times
I feel tasked only with my own soreness like a scab on the roof
of a mouth my father believed in gardens delighting
at burying each thing in its potential for growth some years
the soil was so hard the water seeped down slower than the green
seeped up still he’d say if you’re not happy in your own yard
you won’t be happy anywhere I’ve never had a yard but I’ve had apartments
where water pipes burst above my head where I’ve scrubbed
a lover’s blood from the kitchen tile such cleaning
takes so much time you expect there to be confetti at the end
what we’ll need in the next life toothpaste party hats
and animal bones every day people charge out of this world
squealing good-bye human behavior! so long acres
of germless chrome! it seems gaudy for them to be so cavalier
with their bliss while I’m still here lurching into my labor
hanging by my hair from the roof of a chapel churchlight thickening
around me or wandering into the woods to pull apart eggshells emptying
them in the dirt then sewing them back together to dry in the sun
Copyright © 2017 by Kaveh Akbar. From Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017). Used with permission of the author.
Flowers a dull pink and out of stories.
The clown in the middle of town
dances but only when the streetlights
go blank. Children puff through
the window in a way that makes their faces
an inner god. I have all these chairs
I cannot use. Only the belonging
they beg for. Consider a dead oven
then consider freedom. A heavy kite
could touch Jupiter if Jupiter existed.
Any child could become a swan
song. It doesn’t take long to weather.
Copyright © 2021 by Philip Schaefer. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 18, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets.
For 7 days and 7 nights, I’ve been shooting free throws
The doctor said I needed focus
There is no net because some guy tried hanging himself from it
But the moonlight betrayed him
In the courtyard where we sit, a dandelion grows
I see you’re uncomfortable. Ignore these
blood-brick walls, cemented ground, nurse station window
There’s forgiveness here. And I need to apologize
You’re seeing me in these weed-green scrubs, bone-cloth robe
I unscrewed the roof from our home
swallowed all the memories
Did I tell you the cops wrote “superficial cuts” in their report?
They didn’t understand when I said
I needed something red. They didn’t understand when I said
I needed to paint my chest vermillion
I’m scared to go home. Have I told you that?
I’ve always been
I keep having a nightmare where my hands grow into copper antlers
I keep having this nightmare where I hold
a dandelion in one hand, a robin in the other
I made you something during craft hour. A paint-by-numbers thing
Two deer in a winter forest full of birch trees
Look, a tiny spot of orange. Hunter orange
Blaze orange. See the buck? His antlers are still velvet
See how strong he’s standing? No, wait
his right front leg is soft on the ground. No
He’s not standing, he’s kneeling. Only,
He’s not kneeling
He’s fallen. Notice
There’s only one deer now and he’s still
His tongue juts from the corner of his mouth
His eyes are focused on me
Wait, his head is missing. The antlers are gone. Everything
Is gone. There’s a bright streak
of red screaming across the snow
There are only shadows now and boot prints. There’s only snow
I made you something during craft hour
A cheap paint-by-numbers rip-off of O’Keeffe
A forest of birch trees but the math of it all didn’t make sense
So I painted the numbers blank, then left
I couldn’t focus so I went and shot free throws
I thought about the man who tried hanging himself
How afraid he must have been about going home
That dandelion is his ghost. His head
A thousand yellow florets, burning. The sun
Never felt so good. I’m glad you’re here.
Copyright © 2016 b: william bearheart. This poem originally appeared in Boston Review. Reprinted with the permission of Carrie Bearheart.
Copyright © 2017 June Jordan from We’re On: A June Jordan Reader (Alice James Books, 2017). Used with permission of the publisher.