10 poems // September 10

a week late / what we call the bad year has finally let go

1 //

Sneaking onto the Reservoir Again by Robert Wood Lynn

Everything this year gave me it took back
quicker—lovers, money, reckless smiles
of restless friends. According to the awful math
of planets, summer's next. I brace for autumn
to come for it the way I used to collect you
drunk at a bar. If a season wants to stay—
to linger past enunciation like you were given to
so often—why stop it? What will October make
of its belligerence? Superheroes begging parents
to let them outside without jackets, you and I sweating
clean from the past? August is still here but you're not
so this time I paddle out alone, rowing the rare thing
easier without you. By sundown the water is warmer
than the air breezing over it. It radiates like a man
next to me in bed and I stretch my arms across it
out of instinct. The ranger's truck in a far field
cranking doo-wop because he thinks he's alone.
I stroke slow to the backbeat, harmonies splitting
and rejoining as they're carried to me over the water.
If they were birds we'd call that murmuration, fish
we'd call it schooling. If they were you, I'd know
that what we call the bad year has finally let go.

2 //

from Twin Peaks by Dorothea Lasky

I'm sadly just pure instinct in a jean jacket
A guess in a red dress
I only have time for coffee
But do you
Have time
For me

3 //

Contradictions: Tracking Poems XXVIII by Adrienne Rich

This high summer we love will pour its light
the fields grown rich and ragged in one strong moment
then before we're ready will crash into autumn
with a violence we can't accept
a bounty we can't forgive
Night frost will strike when the noons are warm
the pumpkins wildly growing         the green tomatoes
straining huge on the vines
queen anne and blackeyed susan will straggle rusty
as milkweed stakes her claim
she who will stand at last         dark sticks barely rising
up through the snow             her testament of continuation
We'll dream of a longer summer
but this is the one we have:
I lay my sunburnt hand
on your table: this is the time we have

4 //

from If I Could See All My Friends Tonight by Peter Twal

Every few seconds, the whole world crowds around
the drag of your cigarette & then
darkness inhales our dim

silhouettes but when you touch me— the blowing out of light
bulbs in my chest The burning bouquet you rooted there

5 //

Save Yourself for Better Times by Maureen Seaton

— Virgil, Aenid

I will not save myself for better times.
I will use myself up now––and then

I will use myself up again tomorrow.
It’s why my eyes stay open all night

and my heart throws itself to the stars.
To see which ones decide to stand still

and grow a constellation around me.

6 //

Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light by Richard Siken

What can you know about a person? They shift
in the light. You can't light up all sides at once. Add
a second light and you get a second darkness, it's only
fair. He is looking at the wall and I am looking at his
looking. Difficult thing, to be scrutinized so long.

7 //

Male Beauty by Richie Hofmann

I bought a bag of hard green pears today.
I came home and sat in our room
listening to music for hours,
solo piano, things from France, from the beginning
of the century.
When we were very young, your forgiveness
humiliated me. I knew
you would be asleep when I got back.
It is night outside
and raining. It is the same night
that fills the ruins.
You are naked, drowsy, lost. Stay like that.
In my favorite recordings,
you can hear the pianist breathing.

8 //

from Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery by Pamela Sneed

I keep coming back here over
and over I ask
is it love?
But it isn't desire
that drives me back to her
it's the fact
she has a piece of me I want
the pain to end
to belong to myself
and freedom to love someone
who loves me back
the way I need them to
I don't want anymore illusions
no more women who appear powerful
and underneath have the emotional life
of a two year old
I am keeping the same standard
for myself
I am aware and responsible
for my life
and it's hard to believe that
I want to give my power to anyone,
anything passing by
because I'm terrified to own myself

9 //

Girl is the Warmest Color by Lydia Havens

two girls kissing in paris, ignoring the politics in this // a film about two girls who are not depressed because they are gay // a film about two girls who are not dead because they are gay // they give each other flowers // there is no grave in this // no scene in which the heartbroken walk back down the street, away from the camera // the end is not elegy // the end is not blue // running cornflower // fistfuls of cerulean // cold sky // they know how to love each other // there is no choreographed sex // no brief infinite tenderness // they learn how to use their mouths // a folding of soft // no crash // no broken windshield bodies // no tears // just imagine: a movie about two girls where neither of them have to cry

10 //

Leap by J. Sullivan

Nothing my friends tell me shocks me anymore. No wild
dream or unadvisable plan or moonshot idea. Recently, my
friend told me she wants to move to Wyoming to be closer
to horses. She tells me horses can hear your heartbeat from 4
feet away. That's enough for me right there.

Another friend is relocating to Peru. Another to Alaska in
search of his true north. Another is adopting a child.
Another is turning down a killer job so she can finish the
book she's been trying to write for years. Another is leaving
the man of her dreams for a woman.

Look, America is awful and the earth is too hot and the
truth of the matter is we're all up against the clock. It makes
everything simple and urgent: there's only time to turn
toward what you truly love. 'There's only time to leap.