Picture of Us
Picture of Us by Joshua Kulseth It was my birthday, and we stood—you, beautiful, youthful; me, spectacled,unable for the life of me to comb my hair correctly—in the lobbyof a hibachi steak house. After, I remember we were all over each otherin the cramped cabin of my truck, in a field, on the deck of your pool.I don’t remember you crying, though maybe you wanted to. And I wasn’t helping, being myself. We’d weather a few more months’ worthof disasters together: I took and used what you gave and after, always remorse.Rinse, repeat. It’s funny now, sort of—nothing we could make last, at least.I keep the picture as a bookmark in Auden’s Collected Poems, placed nowfacing “Lullaby,” so it’s like the two of us are reading poems together— lay your sleeping head, my love, human on my faithless arm—Auden knewwhat affection costs us in headache, heartache; ours no different, so it’s fittingto leave us there, in his care. We do look happy, standing by the lobby couches,against each other bright in the camera flash, under lights,my class-ringed finger gripping your shoulder, yours my waist. The other day I saw you engaged, saw the picture of the two of youcloser than us, faces touching, smiles honest. He looks nice, and you, happy.But between us: what we said, how we suffered, it’s all still there,though better as memory (we’d have been very unhappy together);better like this: posed always in affection, in the dark of leftover words. Poetry Home Art by Ellen June Wright
Poetry_V17-0
Poetry Menu Current Volume Archive About Us Submit Categories Polishing byEric Reid Poem Volume 17.0 Falling by Ashley Mae Hoiland Poem Volume 17.0 Granite Basin by Sofia Fall Poem Volume 17.0 Body Center byCindy Milwe Poem Volume 17.0 Droughtgrief byAngela Williamson Poem Volume 17.0 I’ve Lived So Long as a Dream Girl by Jacklin Farley Poem Volume 17.0 Transfiguration by James Engelhardt Poem Volume 17.0 Picture of Us by Joshua Kulseth Poem Volume 17.0 But, like when did you know? by.Neal Allen Shipley Poem Volume 17.0 How to Lament on Tuesday at a Coffee Shop at 16:23 PSTbyJarred Mercer Poem Volume 17.0 Missing You byDante Novario Poem Volume 17.0 Impermanence by Rebecca O’Bern Poem Volume 17.0 Contusion by Emma Galloway Stephens Poem Volume 17.0 Triptych: At the Message Therapy Clinic byJessica Poli Poem Volume 17.0 A Peach Tree by E.G. Reilly Poem Volume 17.0 Girlhood Sonnet by Sophia Ivey Poem Volume 16.2 when i say my father is homesless, i mean: by Harley Chapmen Poem Volume 16.2 Gub Dog by Addy Gravatte Poem Volume 16.2 Šljivovica by Celeste Colarič-Gonzales Poem Volume 16.2 Heart by Theo LeGro Poem Volume 16.2 The More We Go The More We Don’t Know a Thing by Briel Felton Poem Volume 16.1 Away We Go by Claire Wahmanholm Poem Volume 16.1 Dew on the Sea by Claire Wahmanholm Poem Volume 16.1 The Cabinda Spouses by Landa Wo Poem Volume 16.1 And After, No One Lowered Their Flag by Matthew Williams Poem Volume 16.1 Afterbirth (fiction) by Rachel Stempel Poem Volume 16.1 Biological Speculation by Briel Felton Poem Volume 16.1 I Licked a Leaf by Ron Antonucci Poem Volume 16.1 i bleed for the first time on a toilet in Versailles by Sirka Elspass (translated by Anne-Sophie Balzer) Poem Volume 16.1 Nothing is more sad than a waning moon by Sirka Elspass (translated by Anne-Sophie Balzer) Poem Volume 16.1 I have two DNAs one belongs to my old by Roman Iorga Poem Volume 16.1
I’ve Lived So Long as a Dream Girl
I’ve Lived So Long as a Dream Girl by Jacklin Farley I’ve forgotten what it’s liketo be real. Betweenmeals, I pinch up belly fat, chubbybunny marshmallow bitessandwiched by my suspiciousfingertips. I then attempt to conjuremetabolism like a monsoon of ChinaSlim Tea and sugar-freeHaribo gummy bears throughmy blood. So it goesfor those of us past the acceptable agefor playing Bloody Maryand comparing thigh gapsat sleepovers. As I get older, I realizeit takes velocity to existin organic form, especiallymine. One minute, my lovelanguage is sophisticated curve, peachslice drippingsweet with juice. The next, it’s an aspirin tabletdropped into a liter-sized Pepsibottle with the cap screwedshut, transparent jugularbulging with carbonated excess seekingevaporative exodus in the snack aisleof your local Walgreens. It’s on the daysI feel the emptiestthat I want to explodethe most, feel like I am runningthrough a Reese’s peanut buttercup fieldencased by green Jell-Osalad, that I want someone to unbucklemy ankle straps and call me”kitten” despite the factI haven’t been teacup-sized since I was fourteen, despitemy repressedscheming to eventually fit my fatass back into Paris Hilton’s handbag. But ifI can’t have hipdips, whipped creamon my titties, or armpit jiggle ready to embrace the lipsof a saxophoneplayer, do I even wantthis life? I must be eating more to have such energyto philosophize,to embrace living like a back alleyduct tape Brazilian: throbbingand shameless, fleshyand blushed down to the bonein places no one else can see. It’s painful, butat least I can feelmore than nerve damagein my hands, the urge to hold my coffeecup in a compactor-tightgrip to register even a Celsiusof warmth. Call it my own methodfor moderation, aftermathof disorder. Call it crèmebrûléeing the wound after it curdles. As longas you sing, paradoxof my digestive tract. For I know one dayI will cease to be cute. For all I know, todayis that daypouring into my palmsover my belt line, spilled pitcherof milkshake, too much lovein my handles. The world can tell meI am too oldto be silly or fat. It won’t stop mefrom molting, coming backin a different skin. For I thinkI am rather too young to be dead. Poetry Home Art by Winslow Schmelling
Impermanence
Impermanence by Rebecca O’Bern The bay window opens to the north.It’s foggy out. I grab the gray, knittedsweater you bought my last birthday. The dead pull us apart so easilyas if we’re the ones wrapped in tight string,transmuted into nothing in the dark. I never used to believe in dying. No needwhen an afterlife awaits, a resurrectionsuspended in clouds and dust. Death, then, becomes a cold marathon,maybe a sprint, but somethingwith end. Something measured between existing and existing again,moon to next moon. Sleep and light.Your daughter picked up your ashes today, and as our fingertips touchedI was reminded again how I didn’t callenough before our last words diminished to smoke that always tastesof home, doesn’t it, wood stove burningevening timber. I wasn’t lying about the bay window, curtains drawnand tied back, staying put, can’t help ifsmoke plumes escape to the trees. Poetry Home Art by Keegan Baatz
Granite Basin
Granite Basin by Sofia Fall I used to run up there on Perseverance Trail when I lived in the apartment on top of Gold Street where it met Basin Road and all I had to do all day was run or walk for miles in the rain and try to think of nothing except false hellebore holding droplets on its pleated leaves in perfect viscous spheres. It was early in June. The only person I knew in the whole drenched town had taught me that false hellebore was poisonous to humans. It causes the heart to slow, induces vertigo. I couldn’t stop picturing how it would feel to chew the leaves to stringy pulp and watch the mountains go blurry and succumb to the mists that always enveloped them, until it was all dizzy and invisible, me and the narrow trail above the gorge through the illuminated valley. I wanted my heart to go so slow no creature could discern its beating. Instead, I just kept running, tried to make it every day all the way to the washout without stopping, ran faster so the hellebore became so smeared and green in my peripheral vision it glowed. I hated having to live every moment in real time, always seeing with utter clarity. I hated letting every single leaf of that abundant verdant poison go. Only the bears ate it. Poetry Home Art by Robin Young
Polishing
Polishing by Erica Reid after Laura Read I store recordings of birdsong on my phone. I don’t know which birds, or how to learn, or if it’s important to know. I need to earn prizes for things, always have. My mother called me an apple polisher & she was right. Who gives someone a dirty apple? I do everything the right way, & when I can’t I cry. On my phone you can listen to birds from 2016, they may not even be alive anymore. Did they say all they needed to say? Would they be proud of me, replaying their chittering with a studious expression? My mother was not proud that I wanted the world to love me, that I craved little head-pats from strangers & made homework for myself, then completed it. Cemeteries are great places to overhear birds. Often I read wives’ names from the headstones, in case no one else has spoken them aloud in a while. I polish the marble lambs on baby graves with my sleeves. See how good I can be? See what doesn’t bother me? It is time I knew these birds: where do they sleep, do they learn faces, do they play favorites? Which ones drill holes, which ones like apples, which ones are red? Word by word I’ll learn their language, the kind things they might have said. Poetry Home Art by Marina Leigh
Falling
Falling by Ashley Hoiland Last night my daughter came to the side of the bed with a nightmare still in her eyelids. As I slid her body, like a velvet puppy, under the sheets next to me, she said the dream was about a war. And I see how the soft folds of her six-year-old brain could get there. The next morning, she fell on her scooter and told me after, “I fell violently to the ground.” And is there another way to fall? When the cottonwood tree in the backyard had to come down, five men pulling with a rope guided her body, 80 feet of it, piece by piece, back to the earth. The whole house shook when each section hit the sloping summer grass. I wondered if the tree would forgive me when I took down the fence and allowed the men into the yard to take her. And today, on a Wednesday morning, when my sister and her daughter went to get the breakfast check at Denny’s, an older woman in a booth alone had already paid for it. So, to my own daughter going forward, some falls are violent, and sometimes a stranger catches you believing, at all costs, that you cannot be broken, not this time. Poetry Home Art by Emily Rankin
Transfiguration
Transfiguration by James Engelhardt The lake is only a lake because water. Time filled the valley, drowned the stream, covered the sedges charging up the tree line. The lake is a lake because someone hauled rock to some line they imagined, and now a boat glides over that imagination past the lake’s edges and inlets. A sandhill crane angles through, tracing a path cranes have traced for millions of years. And the day is gone like a breath. The forest, too. The lake will drain. The boat will become earth—as will we, sitting in its belly, watching what is strange become stranger. Poetry Home Art by Kathleen Frank
But like, when did you know?
But like, when did you know? by Neal Allen Shipley after torrin a. greathouse i When I was thirteen, huddled around a portable DVD player with other guys from my class. No one else home, we still closed the door and blue light radiated from a screen hardly larger than a Gameboy. We felt dangerous, watching stolen porn: Ragged breathing. No talking. No eye contact. We didn’t do anything – just shifted, uncomfortable, legs twitching to the pulse of an unfamiliar dance. Later, they talked about imagining themselves the man. That’s when I knew there was something different: Knew I should have been watching the woman cupping her breasts, tossing her hair back, moaning; knew she was beautiful, if not a little campy; knew my legs should have twitched for her. The cameraman seemed to know: Zooming in close on the man’s face so I could watch the corner of his lips curl while he whispered, fuck yeah; panned down his chest and arms (tan, smooth, just a little muscle), and still downward across taut abs; only stopping to come even closer to his dick. I convinced myself I was only looking to compare my own. I watched straight porn for a long time; the women usually seemed to have a great time with men, who I told myself I wasn’t looking at when they whispered fuck yeah to me from the blue light. Later: Search terms like just men lead me to videos that made more sense. ii When I was thirteen, huddled around a portable DVD player with other guys from my class. No one else home, we still closed the door and blue light radiated from a screen hardly larger than a Gameboy. We felt dangerous, watching stolen porn: Ragged breathing. No talking. No of an unfamiliar dance. Later, they talked about imagining themselves the man. That’s when I knew there was something different: Knew I should have been watching the woman cupping my legs should have twitched for her. The cameraman seemed to know: Zooming in close on the man’s face so I could watch the corner of his lips curl while he whispered, fuck yeah; panned down his chest and arms (tan, smooth, just a little muscle), and still downward across taut abs; only stopping to come even closer to his dick. I convinced myself I was only looking to compare my own. I watched straight porn for a long time; the women usually seemed to have a great time with men, who I told myself I wasn’t looking at when they whispered fuck yeah to me from the blue light. Later: Search terms like just men lead me to videos that made more sense. iii When I was thirteen, huddled around a portable DVD player with other guys from my class. No one else home, we still closed the door and blue light radiated from a screen hardly larger I knew there was something different: Knew I should have been watching the woman cupping my legs should have twitched for her. The cameraman seemed to know: Zooming in close on the man’s face so I could watch the corner of his lips curl while he whispered, fuck yeah; abs; only stopping to come even closer to his dick. I convinced myself I was only looking from the blue light. iv When I was thirteen, huddled around a portable DVD player with other guys from my class. No one else we still closed the door and blue radiated from a screen hardly something different: on the man’s face so I could watch the corner of his lips curl while he whispered, fuck yeah Poetry Home Art by Nick Hurlbut.
Picture of Us-old
Picture of Us by Joshua Kulseth for Rachel Anthony It was my birthday, and we stood—you, beautiful, youthful; me, spectacled,unable for the life of me to comb my hair correctly—in the lobbyof a hibachi steak house. After, I remember we were all over each otherin the cramped cabin of my truck, in a field, on the deck of your pool.I don’t remember you crying, though maybe you wanted to. And I wasn’t helping, being myself. We’d weather a few more months’ worthof disasters together: I took and used what you gave and after, always remorse.Rinse, repeat. It’s funny now, sort of—nothing we could make last, at least.I keep the picture as a bookmark in Auden’s Collected Poems, placed nowfacing “Lullaby,” so it’s like the two of us are reading poems together— lay your sleeping head, my love, human on my faithless arm—Auden knewwhat affection costs us in headache, heartache; ours no different, so it’s fittingto leave us there, in his care. We do look happy, standing by the lobby couches,against each other bright in the camera flash, under lights,my class-ringed finger gripping your shoulder, yours my waist. The other day I saw you engaged, saw the picture of the two of youcloser than us, faces touching, smiles honest. He looks nice, and you, happy.But between us: what we said, how we suffered, it’s all still there,though better as memory (we’d have been very unhappy together);better like this: posed always in affection, in the dark of leftover words. Poetry Home Art by Ellen June Wright