10 poems // November 10

as always, she was late

1 //

and I’m not sure // by Dick Lourie

I must become my hero and you must
become your hero in spite of this I
ache I actually ache to be less
alone than I am. and I’m not sure
of my strength maybe saying that will make
me stronger I think of you I think of you

as much as I think of myself I still
refuse to stop thinking of you swords and fire!
snow! the incision I have to make to
get myself born hurts I think of you. I
think of you I think of you

2 //

We Can’t Undo the Moment Our Organs Develop a Taste for Fire // by Justin Karcher

I’m stuffing my face with the best
Vietnamese food in Buffalo
when Chris tells me old kidneys
stay inside your body when you have
a transplant. He is skinnier
than the last time I saw him

and I wonder how many of us
will disappear completely
in the months to come.

After dinner, I walk by
the old KeyBank, which is now
a Trump pop-up store
and in the parking lot
shirtless methheads are hotwiring
what’s left of the sun.

3 //

[…] // by Fady Joudah

Not everyone
is a physician

but sooner or later everyone
fails to heal.

In Gaza, a girl and her brother
rescued their fish
from the rubble of airstrikes. A miracle

its tiny bowl
didn't shatter.

4 //

Song of Innocence // by Thomas Devaney

it's true, every day really is a new day, as i don't
remember the one before. i get paid in snacks. rice
crispy treats. sour patch kids. chocolate-covered
caramels. my mind and hands have melted into the
sweet life. it's like god in america, take a leap
of faith, or take a seat, you can get the god-thing
right here. i need another job to have a job like this
one. but no one believes in it more than me.

5 //

Having a Great Time Being Transgender in America Lately // by Jackie Sabbagh

It is day infinity
of everyone wanting me dead. People are having fun
bringing lemon squares and automatic artillery to the anti-trans community meetings.
Divorced legislators harangue
about pedophile cults and surgeried infants and what ever happened to forever ago.
I am more beautiful than you and I would like to be loved.
I am getting concerned
about the monomaniacs who make their entire lives about deadnaming and transvestigations:
obviously it’s working but aren’t you exhausted, don’t you remember
when someone loved you without knowing what you were?
I am eating shortbread on a patio table overlooking the enormous green ocean.
Somewhere an octopus is being eaten by an octopus and not panicking.
Black dress to the floor, red acrylic nails, silver teardrop earrings, waterproof mascara.
I am excited to do this for the rest of my life and be terrified.
I hear a noise behind me and I don’t turn around.

6 //

from October // by Louise Glück

So much has changed. And still, you are fortunate:
the ideal burns in you like a fever.
Or not like a fever, like a second heart.

The songs have changed, but really they are still quite beautiful.
They have been concentrated in a smaller space, the space of the mind.
They are dark, now, with desolation and anguish.

And yet the notes recur. They hover oddly
in anticipation of silence.
The ear gets used to them.
The eye gets used to disappearances

You will not be spared, nor will what you love be spared.

A wind has come and gone, taking apart the mind;
it has left in its wake a strange lucidity.

How privileged you are, to be passionately
clinging to what you love;
the forfeit of hope has not destroyed you.

Maestoso, doloroso:

This is the light of autumn; it has turned on us.
Surely it is a privilege to approach the end
still believing in something.

7 //

Revolutionary Letter #1 // by Diane di Prima

I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

8 //

Naomi Poem // by Ana Božičević

I dreamed of us falling asleep
In a garden holding hands
And our friends took a picture
And said They fell asleep
Like this

9 //

eschatology // by Eve L. Ewing

when the clerk says how are you and i say ‘i’m blessed and highly favored’

i mean my toes have met sand, and wiggled in it, a lot. i mean i have laughed until i choked and a friend slapped my back. i mean my niece wrote me a note: ‘you are so smart + intellajet’

i mean when we do go careening into the sun,

i’ll miss crossing guards ushering the grown folks too, like ducklings and the lifeguards at the community pool and men who yelled out the window that they’d fix the dent in my car, right now! it’d just take a second—

and actually everyone who tried to keep me alive, keep me afloat, and if not unblemished, suitably repaired.

but I won’t feel too sad about it, becoming a star

10 //

from Sweet Heart // by Eileen Myles

A bee
wants
to sting
me and
in that
moment
I would
notice
everything. Why
do you
think I’m
sweet. Why
must I
die.