I should like a table in the sun,
one with a cane back chair.
Remove the bread and even the wine,
for I shall be sitting there,
my notebook open, a pen in my hand
at my table in the sun,
just writing a picture in the morning
as the shadows begin to run.
All the garden in bloom I would see there
would be colored bloom and grand
with a rose deep violet and phlox in blue,
each flower by breezes fanned.
I should sit at my table in the sun,
the one with the cane back chair.
I’d eat of the color and drink of the breeze,
and I would feel peaceful there.
Jill Murphy
Migration
Cockroaches would crawl
from the space
between her teeth
while no one was looking.
Their glistening shells
would slip through her full-bloom
lips, one after another,
till her sallow skin was on the verge
of disappearing beneath
their insectuous migration.
In the next room, my father
stood on a balance beam. He
was a temple there, a house of cards.
He was a window covered
in moths vying for the glow
of my mother porch light. We couldn’t
touch her, just follow
her through the house, sweeping
up those thorned legs and dried
wings as bees colonized her
lungs and cicadas groaned
in her stomach.
Reaping
How do they communicate?
In circles.
How do they make love?
Separately. How does she touch
him? Sometimes she holds him
like the wheat scrapes
against the sky. Somewhere in Middle
America a field moves all at once,
though the blades are lonely. The sky asks
the grain to not make a big deal
out of it. The sky tells the grain it’s not just about
showing up.
He did his panic-research on her
body, listened for the crickets in her gut
but rolled his eyes every time she complained
of pain. Says he is familiar
with the cicadas in her skull
like he knows the sound of blood
being drawn. Can he remember how brave
she was that afternoon, lying
on the cutting board?
The sky feels right
to the grain, but does it matter?
The blight will come anyway.
The wheat holds up the sky.
Kitchens
I
Do we recycle
these feelings that stick
like oblong stains
on the countertop,
like little pieces
of butter smeared
on the cutting board, like
she clings to every kitchen
she’s ever lived in? The drain
collects bits of egg shell
3 days rotten, while she dreams
of sticking her hand down
the garbage disposal, while
the cat paces nervously, trailing
tufts of loose fur
along the windowsill wanting
for the cat in the alley, just as the girl
wants for the kitchen
of her childhood.
II
Our shoes peel off
the floorboards in dried
juice and beer.
We hear the fruit flies’ lovemaking
as they dive in and out
of the bottles on the counter
in the honey light.
III
The spaces I occupy get smaller
as I get older. I have
become less than bones.
He left in the night and took the olive
oil, the butter, left some ice packs in the freezer
and some blackened bok choy on the bottom
shelf. He left a silence
as insatiable as rust.
The negative space of hunger
filled the time we could have spent
loving each other.
For the next two weeks the only
thing that could be found in the ice
box was a fast-waning handle of honey
whiskey. I gained weight
and wisdom in the wrong
places.
Cassandra Sanborn
Remnants
Remember July rains, me in the gold poncho
you uncovered,
pale hair stuck to the side of your face.
We ran.
Water dripped down your legs
and the man sweeping the street
dug gold leaves from the grate
covered in that fake rust.
They had dusted the street in soap,
pale imitation of snow.
The remnants rose up,
filled the streets with white foam
that lasted until we touched it—
until it remembered
it was always supposed to be temporary.
Lightning cut,
peeling back the night
as if anyone with a ladder
could step up,
hold the rough edge of a cloud,
step through the bright gap
up past the sky.
And I remembered
we never had finished
that conversation about hell,
when you asked
if burning was just an easy way to disappear
and I said I thought hell was like this:
loving something, perhaps,
the way I love you—
moss on the bottom of a planter in November,
last tomato on the vine.
The World Was Supposed to Be
The world was supposed to be
bigger than this—
my mother’s blue yarn around my neck,
light around my nose,
dark around my mouth,
too thick around the dark skin of veins.
Or maybe I should say
my world was supposed to be
more than rusty yarn around my head,
covering my ears.
The world was supposed to give me white curtains
against a pale green windowsill.
Small fingerprints
smudged on insulated glass.
And light—
light through the window
not one shaft,
straight,
alone.
Enough light
to fill a room,
enough
to make white carpet warm.
The world was supposed
to give me days like this:
lying on the hood of Shawn’s car,
his fingerprints
and the outline of my hair
in the layer of construction dust.
Tracing trees in the dirt
as if drawing a thing
could make it real,
as if the oil on my skin
could make all this last.
My mother once told me God holds the world in His hands
I asked her if it got heavy.
She leaned over,
sweat a thin,
gleaming line on her back,
plucked a dandelion
from the overgrown patch in our front yard.
She gave it to me, said
it grows and dies right here
a whole life
and you
barely feel it.
It was soft against the skin of my palm.
I pulled a white seed from its head,
watched it float down,
disappear into the grass:
I asked her
what happens if He drops it?
She laughed
then threw my flower
in the compost heap
with its younger lives:
still yellow,
seeds not ready to separate.
When she went inside I saved them,
laid them in my orange wagon,
dragged it behind me,
right wheel squeaking.
I dropped them in my neighbors’ yards,
two blooms each.
I am a good god I said,
as they fell:
stems arching toward the ground.
The petals, heavier,
always touched the earth first.
My stars against a green sky.
My hands were stained
for days.
Hands
Kate says,
write about your uncertainty.
Write about the wilderness
as if you are an Israelite in the desert,
as if you are hungry
and your food is monotonous.
I tell her I am writing about
the future of my life in the workforce.
A desk with two broken drawers,
the smear on my window where I killed a fruit fly,
my blue lamp.
But really, I will write about my hands—
the right one, especially.
How they betray me, wrists to fingernails,
when it is cold.
How my wrists ache,
how my ring fingers swell,
turn white, stiff.
How the bones in my right hand crackle
when I make a fist.
How the doctor says, well, it could
be your mother’s arthritis
or your father’s bad joints.
Or circulation, or some kind of bone disease—
but before I panic
just wait
and wear gloves.
She says, you’re young.
(My body was supposed to be certain.)
Probably nothing.
I try not to think
about blood vessels constricting,
bones rubbing together,
all that cushion dissolved.
Old Grief is the Rusty Padlock on My Parents’ Toolshed
it won’t close
but we wedge it around the handle
so everyone passing by will believe
we know something
about security.
Kendall Grant
Winter Love Note
I tromped a snowshoe love note
in a mountain meadow.
The note, as imperfect as I am,
connected from no beginning to no end
and crossed a rabbit’s trail.
It will melt and run by our house
in the river that connects us to these mountains.
The molecules will separate,
but you’ll notice them bumping over the trout.
And in a waterfall,
you may hear what I made the snowshoes say.
A Rare Congregational Member
I like an aspen grove below pine line
on the morning side of a small mountain
where wild clematis seeks the sun early
then folds purple blossom in solemn prayer.
Eyes of the forest, lost-limb quakey scars,
witness to God these wildflower sacraments—
and that I ate and drank and worshiped there.
Unknown Priest
I followed a Western-wood peewee
to where peace and liveliness coincide:
A corner where periwinkle grows to hide
and my friend can eat in spring greenery.
His referee-whistle shrill stops me short:
“It’s not secret, but sacred,” he sounds.
With kind heart, he invites me along—
in reverence we escape the world’s throng
and he ordains me.
Who Called the Owl’s Name
The gale must have pressed her into the electric lines;
She fell on the front grass.
Now, two feet deep looking for the sky,
the snowy owl lies next to our golden retriever.
It seemed without honor to put the carcass in communal trash
though the garbage truck was coming down the block
and we could soon forget.
Instead, we determined a sacred owl burial.
Now the yard seems wiser,
and so are we.
Autumn Dance Championships
Of all the colored slices that danced from limb to earth
a weeping willow leaf won grand champion.
Springing from tree,
the narrow tumbler went prone
and rolled like an old-time mower blade
chopping the air
beatboxing the fastest spin Indian summer had ever judged,
gliding over warm and cool currents
until a mile of October sky had been clipped.
Donna French McArdle
White Blossoms at Night
In dark, we forget ourselves.
Blow out our lantern light.
Light in you, stars in the night sky.
Night sky, night-blooming
Imagination. Ipomoea alba spirals open.
Opening spiral: from lantern
Darkening, from bound revealing,
Then full white moon-flower.
Awakened to unfurling, a hawk moth
Swoops the expanse, its strength
Audible. A strongest sphinx rubs
Past anthers to the nectary,
And sips a sweetest nectar, most
Plentiful of all night-bloomings.
In dark, let’s forget ourselves.
Blow out our lantern light.
Gone
Somewhere between Mt. Morris and Canandaigua,
driving route 5 and 20, I tap the brakes because
up ahead something is not right.
A pickup has pulled over, its flashers on.
Then I see a doe in the middle of the road, fallen or pulled
onto the painted stripes of the turning lane.
She is so still, so plainly gone;
not even the air currents of cars speeding past
ruffle her reddish fur.
I want so much to stop the car and go to her
and stroke her neck.
But this is a rural highway, and I do what’s safe:
I tap the brakes and drive slowly past.
Where He Floats in Shallow Water
“You get your rest,” I had said not even a week before.
He had shot morphine for his pain, and his head rolled back.
Now, where he lies in his polished casket, I pause
on the kneeler, this moment nearly as intimate,
a last chance to study the brow, the nose, the curve
of the ear. He did not bear this still face last week;
he is slathered with makeup and painted with lipstick.
I do not entirely recognize him.
As I stand to turn away, I see his big watch ticking
with enormous energy—solid proof time is relentless;
it drags me around like the thread-thin hand sweeps
past the seconds, drags me back to this scene, this room
when I had wanted to leave lightly, to deny how much of him
I did not know, to drift backward, to walk with him
down the street to the stone stairs, to watch him
slip off his sneakers and step into the black mud of low tide.
Two bleach bottles full of
sand and rocks anchor
his small row boat. He walks carefully,
sinking to his ankles in the mud. He does not slow
when he reaches the incoming tide, so I know it is
a warm tide, heated by the late summer Gulf Stream
and its own drift over the flats to this cove.
The ocean is nearly to his knees when he arrives
at the tiny blue boat. He finds his bailer, a coffee can,
and sits, with careful balance, on the square stern.
There, where he floats in shallow water, he pours
a full can over his muddy feet and brushes the mud
off with his free hand. He racks the oars and rows to shore
to let me climb in, wobbling, and to drag my hands
in the water as he maneuvers us out of the cove
where a fine mist lifts off the water and we breathe in
the ocean air on that hot summer day.
The Edge
First delicate arc of waxing moon and sky still sapphire overhead
but darkening just above the trees. Venus off to the left,
as if it had spilled from the lunar goblet. I know I will yearn
for this. I tell myself, remember: sapphire and moon.
I have reached the river bank where spilling past is half fresh water,
half sea. Kaleidoscope of fog, leaves and the soft, greenish feathers
from the bellies of goslings swirl the air. I grab at paper flying by,
but it is past reach. Words so carefully written: my instructions?
I squint, as if I were fighting astigmatism of the mind or of the spirit,
where not the spot, but the notion, is unreliable, dubious.
Will I be wading into bliss or into the Acheron, the river of woe?
Here is the boundary between myself and the rest of possibility.
Past the demark, what? At this edge so often, I’m prepared
when my half-hearted self refuses to step, so when the strain hits
I unwrap a sandwich, ponder the crunch of its cucumber, sting of its salt.
Remember this, I whisper to myself: cucumber and salt.
But already my world is shifting. The wind tugs at my resistance.
I pull off my shoes and reach one foot into the river current
and swirling fog. I must walk; I must arrive. If I need a way back, I must
remember: cucumber and moon; sapphire and salt.
They Are Revealed by Their Shadows
I see but reflection of the morning light