METEOROLOGIC DESIRE
Lightning, stretch your jagged fingers
to the earth. Something is calling you,
some slice of metal, some tree.
Spread your intricate lace tongue of char
across the ground fanned out from the kissing point
and the rain (if any) will soothe it.
Come, ion strike and tense air
snapping, rending. Split stone
or wood or bore straight into earth,
a conduit for angelic rage.
Hard to believe I’ve made it a whole week! Today’s a challenge because of my schedule, but I’m cranking this out just to stay on track.
PIECES/PEACE
Fractured and tense.
The faces are there, but their cheeks are hollow–hot air never seems to last.
Silent night
Holy night
How long can a sharp line hold?
Can it learn elasticity
or will crackle come to breaking?
All is calm
All is bright
And the pieces glow
into radient shape
They learn form, molecules collaborating
into a soft heart rhythm.
There’s been a trend on social media lately for women to describe themselves the way a male author would in a novel. The results have been highly amusing, so I thought I’d do my take on it as a poem for today.
CHARACTER DESCRIPTION
Maybe she was once the kind of girl
I could have convinced to have a drink
even though she doesn’t like the burn
of whiskey down her throat.
She doesn’t wear her late-thirties well.
You can tell she eats her feelings
with a slice of chocolate cake each night,
curled up on her microfiber couch
(stain resistant for the kids, of course).
But her breasts would fill both my hands
to overflowing
so that’s something.
SPEAK NOW
I will hold my peace:
cradle it in the bowl of my lap
so gently, lest it spill
loose ripples to the floor,
seep into the boards
where I can no longer
feel a pulse, no thrum
of rightness to absorb
with my fingertips.
Speak now, it tells me;
speak forever.
TWITCH
The weight of his gunmetal tongue was staggering,
relentless. A projectile of marked velocity, propelled
by an explosion–in this case, uncontrolled. I had deflected–
turned a vulnerable shoulder to his trigger finger, left a strand
of hair that must have tugged in just the wrong way–
just enough–or not nearly–depending on which of us you asked.
The sex we never had made him twitch. Someone told me later
it was because he liked me so much
that he wanted me to vanish. That he wanted to do the vanishing.
Today, I kept on (one of) my topic(s) from yesterday–Etan Patz, the first missing child to be featured on a milk carton–but tried the prompt from NaPoWriMo.net from yesterday to play with voice.
QUARTER IN THE POCKET
I left home
with a quarter in my pocket
to buy milk for lunch.
It jangled metallic
against a button
from my shirt
and the sound moved my feet.
You left home
with a quarter in your pocket
that we gave you
with a brown bag
full of lunch.
Your feet
still in velcro (no ties yet)
made rubber-light taps
on the front steps
hopping two at a time.
He left home
with a quarter in his pocket,
belly breakfast-full
and soft under flannel
and corduroy.
It was his first time
walking to the bus alone
but can he really
be alone
in such a big city?
Okay, I actually wrote two poems today, and I’m not really thrilled with either one, but for the sake of consistency and accountability, I’m putting them both up!
One might suspect all poems
about missing persons to sound
the same after awhile–how
unexpected, the silhouette left behind
in a previously full life-scape.
How someone, somewhere cried,
maybe still cries, at that blankness.
Not blankness, but a question that deafens
and bends its curve to other questions
that penetrate, blunt and insidious
as a stage whisper: where are you?
Etan Patz was the first missing child
to appear on a milk carton,
his sandy-dark hair bowl cut
across his forehead. How we looked
and looked at that photo, as if looking
were enough to materialize him.
Undo his last breath and add more.
The expiration date on the milk was weeks away.
2. UNTITLED
“Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?”
— Stevie Nicks
We arrived with suddenness–
a crescent slice across the belly
after two days of waves felling me
was all it took to bring him.
Outside, the August air was thick enough
to gum the throat, the lungs.
Inside, a newborn cry as if there weren’t
air enough to satisfy nine months’ worth
of being lost at sea.
I was stitched to rights, an arts and crafts project,
and handed my son, my malcontent,
the next season. The hospital window would not open
to yield a breeze, so we waited for September
to breathe again.
EASTER SUNDAY
I feel as though I’ve written
about Easter many times
but never managed to navigate
to a place of reverence,
a point at which I see
the god everyone else sees.
This morning I helped my sons
gather plastic eggs from the lawn,
the hyper pinks and yellows popping
like the chrysanthemums not yet bloomed
in the garden. They crowed with delight
finding chocolate coins inside,
fool’s gold good enough for their fingers
and faces. The overcast sky
did not speak of joy.
There is so much on this earth
that is senseless and cold, colder
than a sky with no sun
or the click of a trigger
and the hand that carries it.
I watch the world–I watch myself–
fail and fail again, lost to ourselves
and clinging to our fool’s gold,
the falsest of idols, the cruelest steel.
But this Sunday morning
there were giggles and sweet steam breath,
baskets to fill with plastic trinkets
and chocolate. There were hands
sifting through damp morning grass,
lifting their treasures high
into the light
to see them clearly.
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be reading at the Roaming Goat cafe in Grass Lake, MI on November 11! It will be such an honor to bring Infinite Collisions home to the place of its inspiration. Stay tuned for a time, although it will likely be in the late morning or early afternoon.
Additionally, check out the announcement from CALYX: http://www.calyxpress.org/LoisPrize.html Alicia Ostriker named me as a runner-up for the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize for my poem, “Child’s Pose.” The other runners-up and the grand prize winner are simply amazing, too–thank you to both CALYX and Alicia for putting me alongside such beautiful poetry!
I’ll be reading at three different venues in early June to promote Infinite Collisions! Please join me at any and all–they are all open to the public!
June 2, 6pm: FEED, (259 S. Schuyler Ave, Kankakee, IL) with Tara Betts and Danelle Lejeune
June 4, 4pm: 755 20th St., Des Moines, IA with Danelle Lejeune
June 7, 7pm: First Baptist Church, Kalamazoo, MI with Susan Blackwell Ramsey and Danelle Lejeune
Issa M. Lewis 