10 poems // October 10

I never saw light that way again

1 //

Fall Song // by Joy Harjo

It is a dark fall day.
The earth is slightly damp with rain.
I hear a jay.
The cry is blue.
I have found you in the story again.
Is there another word for ‘‘divine’’?
I need a song that will keep sky open in my mind.
If I think behind me, I might break.
If I think forward, I lose now.
Forever will be a day like this
Strung perfectly on the necklace of days.
Slightly overcast
Yellow leaves
Your jacket hanging in the hallway
Next to mine.

2 //

The Moment // by Linda Pastan

What can I say in this moment  
before you leave—  
summer is leached  
of its clear pastels,  
the fueled sunlight on your skin  
still warm to my mouth,  
though fading?

Autumn, that turncoat,  
waits at the edge  
of the woods with the first  
darkening leaves.  
And I feel the world move  
under our feet on its way  
from solstice to solstice.  

An involvement in light  
presupposes an acquaintance  
with shadow, Rothko said.  
Didn't he mean us?  
Didn't he mean the way  
we've waited for this moment  
all summer long?

3 //

Carly Rae Jepsen — E•MO•TION // by Hanif Abdurraqib

There is more than one way to cover a temple in platinum. Maybe we both long for an era when there were less things to record death. In the interview, they asked if you believe in love at first sight. You said I think I have to. You didn’t say we are all one hard storm away from dissolving, vanishing into the frenzied dusk. But I get it. I know what it is to walk into the mouth of an unfamiliar morning and feel everything. I touch hands with a stranger who gives me my change at the market, and I already know their history. I suppose this is survival. I will love those who no one else thinks to remember. This is all that is promised: there will be a decade you are born, and a decade that you will not make it out of alive. All of the rooftops where the parties were in the year of my becoming are now dust. No one dances so close to the sky anymore. I say I, too, am a romantic, and I mean I never expected to survive this long. I have infinite skin. I keep dry when the rain comes. There will always be another era of bright suits that don’t quite fit, but must. There will always be a year where the cameras are hungry for whatever sins we can strangle out of the night. There will always be another spoon for boys to lick the sugar from.

4 //

I’ve Been Thinking About Love Again // by Vievee Francis

Those who live to have it and
those who live to give it.

Of course there are those for whom both are true,
but never in the same measure.

Those who have it to give are
like cardinals in the snow. So easy
and beautifully lit. Some
are rabbits. Hard to see
except for those who would prey upon them:
all that softness and quaking and blood.

Those who want it
cannot be satisfied. Eagle-eyed and such talons,
any furred thing will do. So easy
to rip out a heart when it is throbbing so hard.

I wander out into the winter.
I know what I am.

5 //

Animals // by Frank O’Hara

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it’s no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn’t need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn’t want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

6 //

The Two Times I Loved You the Most In a Car // by Dorothea Grossman

It was your idea
to park and watch the elephants
swaying among the trees
like royalty
at that make-believe safari
near Laguna.
I didn’t know anything that big
could be so quiet.

And once, you stopped
on a dark desert road
to show me the stars
climbing over each other
riotously
like insects
like an orchestra
thrashing its way
through time itself
I never saw light that way
again.

7 //

So Much Happiness // by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

8 //

When the Crows Came // by CT Salazar

I didn’t hate them.     They needed to roost
and I needed a purple   deep enough to con
-vince the neighborhood boys              of my

skin’s milkiness.      I don’t mind         seeing
strands of my hair in their nests —      pages
of scripture I’ve torn out,        strips of silver

chocolate wrappers,                    stray threads
from old sweaters,   they take it all,   curious
gods.         The young ones chirp.          Every

morning my body’s outlined        in feathers,
the whole bed                               dappled dark
as a beginning.        I don’t know what to say

so I say thank you.     The crows don’t know
what to say,      so they don’t speak, they just
keep finding parts         of me to make useful.
​
I thank them for that, too.

9 //

Morning Love Poem // by Tara Skurtu

Dreamt last night I fed you, unknowingly,
something you were allergic to.

And you were gone, like that.

You don't have even a single allergy,
but still. The dream cracked. Cars nose- dived

off snow banks into side streets. Sometimes
dreams slip poison, make the living

dead then alive again, twirling
in an unfamiliar room

It's hard to say I need you enough.

Today I did. Walked into your morning
shower fully clothed. All the moments

we stop ourselves just because we might
feel embarrassed or impractical, or get wet.

10 //

from Nevrazumitelny // by Wendy Mulford

So there went your life
person to person
running wild again