Poetry
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“Move Along, Nothing to See Here” by Michelle Boisseau
Like a fly from the air, Christina was zapped
from a crosswalk when she was five,
Rosemary from a highway in Ohio,
Rick from a tennis court.
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“All the Way to the Bone” by Vern Rutsala
Words from the East
filter through
the leaves, whispering
news of the dead
you can’t stand to hear, . . .
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“What Comes Next” by Ann Linde
My father did the killing and the cleaning up. In the fairy
tales he put me to sleep with, there were plenty of sweetmeats
and tigers for every journey. He shook them out of his hands,
or so I imagined.
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“When the Boy Arrives with a Telegram for John Berryman, Berryman Turns to His Student Phil Levine and Asks, ‘Are You John Berryman?’ ” by Amy Newman
When the boy arrives with a telegram for John Berryman,
Berryman turns to his student Phil Levine and asks,
“Are you John Berryman?”
“No,” says Levine. “Then I must be,” says Berryman . . .
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“A Man Mistakes Me for a Mannequin” by Nance Van Winckel
But he was a stranger, the album of his
life 30 percent off. I stood considering the price,
and to the one who’s just said he’s sorry
he didn’t realize I was real, I shrug.
No problem. No matter.
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“Transatlantic, 3:00 am” by Greg Vargo
Not awakened by fear or the infant’s hunger,
the tables and systems, the compounding debt,
the spasm in the leg or the headache that follows you,
nor by the formula split open, the long-sought insight,
the forgotten lover glimpsed in the alchemy of the dream,
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“Every Couple before Us” by Bethany Schultz Hurst
This is a love story: It turned out
the tattooed man and the bearded woman
were just mannequins doctored with Sharpie
and fake hair. What did I expect? No freak
would work for a fifty-cent show. You could still see
the perfect mouth behind the mannequin’s beard.
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“It’s Springtime, Elise, and You’re Missing All of It” by Rebecca Hazelton
Boxing ring girls, sans spangles,
they leg in heels from corner to corner,
the culmination of suffragettes
and Betty Friedan, . . .
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“General History” by Brian Swann
As we ride in his Jag,
I recall riding into the Bronx on the elevated tracks, so
I tell him about the mayor who made landlords
of shattered tenements and buildings stick pictures
of flowers in jars onto the windows that remained,
or pitchers of flowers on plywood where they didn’t,
one after the other.
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“Restoration” by Dean Young
One hope inside dread, “Oh what the hell”
inside “I can’t” like a pearl inside a cake
of soap, love in lust in loss, and the tub
filled with dirt in the backyard restore us.
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