The Sign of Saturn - Sharon Olds

Sometimes my daughter looks at me with an

amber black look, like my father

about to pass out from disgust, and I remember

she was born under the sign of Saturn,

the father who ate his children. Sometimes

the dark, silent back of her head

reminds me of him unconscious on the couch

every night, his face turned away.

Sometimes I hear her talking to her brother

with that coldness that passed for reason in him,

that anger hardened by will, and when she rages

into her room, and slams the door,

I can see his vast blank back

when he passed out to get away from us

and lay while the bourbon turned, in his brain,

to coal. Sometimes I see that coal

ignite in her eyes. As I talk to her,

trying to persuade her toward the human, her little

clear face tilts as if she can

not hear me, as if she were listening

to the blood in her own ear, instead,

her grandfather’s voice.

Camino Real - Richard Shelton

each makes his path

his small path

quickly overgrown

but leading him slowly

to where he is going

which is not

where he is planning to go

and when the last vine

or bamboo is cut

he emerges into a clearing

each into a different

clearing

where some are met

by cannibals some by lovers

some by friends

and some by nothing

except a clearing

a sky with stars at night

and by day an unexpected

view of the next hill

which is reason enough

for the long journey

more than reason enough

HURLING CROWBIRDS AT MOCKINGBARS - Buddy Wakefield

If we were created in God’s image

then when God was a child

he smushed fire ants with his fingertips

and avoided tough questions.

There are ways around being the go-to person.

Even for ourselves.

Even when the answer is clear

like the holy water gentiles were drinking

when they realized

“Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past.”

I thought those were chime shells in your pocket

so I chucked a quarter at it

hoping to hear some part of you respond on a high note.

You acted like I was hurling crowbirds at mockingbars

then you abandoned me for not making sense.

Evidently I don’t experience things as rationally as you do.

For example, I know mercy

when I have enough money to change the jukebox

at a gay bar.

You know mercy whenever

someone shoves a stick of morphine

straight up into your heart.

Goddamn it felt amazing

the days you were happy to see me.

So I smashed a beehive against the ocean

to try and make our splash last longer.

Remember all the honey

had me looking like a jellyfish ape

but you walked off the water

in a porcupine of light, strands of gold

drizzled out to the tips of your wasps.

This is an apology letter to the both of us

for how long it took me to let things go.

It was not my intention to make such a production

of the emptiness between us,

playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano

to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.

It’s just that I could have swore you sung me a love song back there

and that you meant it

but I guess some people just chew with their mouth open.

So I ate ear plugs alive with my throat, hoping they’d get lodged

deep enough inside the empty spots that I wouldn’t have to hear you

leaving, so I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart keep saying

all my eggs were in a basket of red flags, all my eyes to a bucket

of blindfolds in the cupboard with the muzzles and the gauze.

I didn’t mean to speed so far out and off, trying to drive

your nickels to a well

when you were happy to let those wishes drop.

But I still show up for gentleman practice

in the company of lead dancers

hoping their grace will get stuck in my shoes.

Is that a handsome shadow on my breath, sweet woman,

or is it a cattle call in a school of fish? Still

dance with me. Less like a waltz for panic,

more for the way we’d hoped to swing

the night we took off everything

and we were swinging for the fences.

Don’t hold it against my love. You know I wanna breathe deeper

than this. I didn’t mean to look so serious, didn’t mean

to act like a filthy floor, didn’t mean to turn us both

into some cutting board

but there were knives stuck

in the words where I came from.

Too much time in the back of my words.

I pulled knives from my back and my words.

I cut trombones from the moment you slipped away.

And I know it left me lookin’ like a knife fight, lady.

Boy I know it left me feelin’ like a shotgun shell.

You know I know I might’ve gone and lost my breath

but I wanna show you how I found my breath to death.

It was buried under all the wind instruments

hidden in your castanets. Goddamn. If you ever wanna know

how it felt when you left, if you ever wanna come inside

just knock on the spot

where I finally pressed stop

playing musical chairs with your exit signs.

I’m gonna cause you a miracle

when you see the way I kept God’s image alive.

“Forgiveness is for anyone

who needs safe passage through my mind.”

If I really was created in God’s image

then when God was a boy

he wanted to grow up to be a man.

A good man.

And when God was a man - a good man - he started

telling the truth in order to get honest responses.

He’d say,

Yeah, I know… I really should’ve worn my cross.

Again. But I don’t wanna scare the gentiles off.

That is not what I came here to do.

He said,

I’m pretty sure

I just came here to love you.

The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?

say no.

When they invite you to the party

remember what parties are like

before answering.

Someone telling you in a loud voice

they once wrote a poem.

Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.

Then reply.

If they say We should get together

say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.

You're trying to remember something

too important to forget.

Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.

Tell them you have a new project.

It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store

nod briefly and become a cabbage.

When someone you haven't seen in ten years

appears at the door,

don't start singing him all your new songs.

You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.

Know you could tumble any second.

Then decide what to do with your time.

Solving the Puzzle - Stephen Dunn

I couldn’t make all the pieces fit,

so I threw one away.

No expectation of success now,

none of that worry.

The remaining pieces seemed

to seek their companions.

A design appeared.

I could see the connection

between the overgrown path

and the dark castle on the hill.

Something in the middle, though,

was missing.

It would have been important once.

I wouldn’t have been able to sleep

without it.

FLIGHT - J.E. Foerster

As a child I tossed

all my imaginary friends

out the window of a fast moving train

because I wanted to feel my fist

break open as I freed them,

as each of their bodies

whipped against the siding,

their insides: snow

dispersing into wind,

their little heads rolling

across the yellow plains.

Because I believed they would return.

But none have since.

Not even the ones I didn’t love.