hands clutching vast containers of caffeinated salvation.
It rained today.
We forgot it did.
It rained today.
We were released and
shuffled through heavy doors with closed eyes and
felt droplets upon knitted brows.
It rained today.
We didn’t pause
didn’t glance at the sky or seek protection.
It rained today.
We trudged on.
Dolls
Because we can paint smiles
on porcelain faces and
blink our jewel eyes and
hold our china heads high and
you’ll never realize
You’ll never see the
cracks that
etch spiderwebs across
glass bones and
you’ll never see
we’re hollow inside.
Because we can’t
speak through painted smiles or
let tears fall from jewel eyes or
lower china heads and
you’ll never notice
You’ll never know
tiny cracks form invisible wounds and
you’ll never know
we’re broken inside.
And Who Was I
And music was in my bones
smoke in my hair
burning liquid
at the back of my throat
and she turned to me and whispered
“Isn’t this fun?”
I smiled
and nodded
because I had never been to a party
before.
And when his hands were on me
tearing fabric from my skin
and his nameless voice murmured
“Isn’t this fun?”
I told him yes
because he said I was beautiful.
And when friends I didn’t remember meeting
were burning sour herbs and
forcing powders up nasal cavities and
finding new ways to fly
and they showed me how and sang
“Isn’t this fun?”
I sang, too
because I wanted to fly.
And when day and night
blurred together
when strangers showed me new ways
to forget
and when they gazed at me
between slitted eyes and foggy minds and
rasped in trembling voices
“Isn’t this fun?”
I answered yes
because I couldn’t remember why I would say no.
Emma Atkinson
So Loved the World
Maybe
only God loves the world.
I’ll admit that I have made
small sacrifices for my small life.
Here is a beige square
on my shoulder
distorted and discolored
by a nicotine patch.
Such furtive appetites
only disguise themselves
as connections to the world.
And it’s true
I didn’t leave my apartment today.
But my twin bed
is pressed by the window
so I can hear the rain at night,
and my two cats chase each other
from room to room.
Maybe
there are many ways to love the world.
Grocery stores make me feel mentally ill
It’s partly the space itself, white and cold
and endless and hollow at the center. It’s like Hell
masquerading as Heaven, you know, those thousands
of treats laced with poison. Everything is screaming for attention.
It’s partly the eyes. A dozen cameras, a dozen employees
stationed, a thousand glances. It’s the politics of movement,
and the two-dimensional gazes reflected in plastic screens.
It’s the staring, the observation.
It’s mostly my hands, my basket or cart, wide
and grasping at colors. It’s seeing my life take form
in solid objects, bleeding meat, warm cans,
PopTarts and beer. It’s seeing what I am
spelled out in a shopping list, it’s the thought of home
and what I bring there, what it lacks and what I choose.
It’s identities laid bare.
On the way home, I speed through every turn.
Séances
My mother was considered wild
(by 1960s small town standards.)
At the age of twelve she caused a scandal
by hosting a séance in the basement
of the Lutheran church. We shared this connection:
a love of ghost stories. I once asked her, “What is
a ghost?” She said, “Someone who can’t move on,
someone with unfinished business.”
For weeks after she died, every time a car
pulled into our driveway, I expected her
to climb out of it. My father said he felt
the same way. No one ever dies
without unfinished business.
The spirits who come back get all the attention,
but someone has to wonder about the ones
who never do, about what they found instead
and where they found it.
Erin Lehrmann
Block
“To make beauty out of pain, it damns the eyes—
No, dams the eyes.”—Dan Beachy-Quick
Wincing under the weight of the dinosaur
Six months could pass without
Issue.
No word, not even a letter.
Is it dammed to hell somewhere?
Or
Did global warming stick a straw in me,
Take it up through the puckering ozone?
Check:
1. My tongue is parched and list-less
2. My index has gone printless
Three
Nights in a row my depths have been
Too arid to plumb.
The perpetual pinch kept
my eyes rolling in waking
but still in sleep.
Wincing under the weight of the dinosaur
Again, despite my best intentions.
I had that recurring nightmare
Again, I was making the bed and
despite my best interventions
I couldn’t smooth the sheet
Don’t catch what ails your house, they say
Studies suggest so much these days.
And so I creep up the street with a dent in my tail
Dreading the thorough woman and the zoom lens
I run in circles
I run off the page
I took that pill
I bound the way we were with the way we remember we were.
___________
Why did they beige the building
once the color of sky?
And the hawk dives low, scattering the gulls
And the hawk dives low to whisper in my ear
Honey, what do you know of sky?
Fear
We wait for the ball to drop,
No, we wait like figurines
in a clay animation waiting for the ball to be lowered to us
by a hand in the sky
on a piece of orange thread.
We wait for another year to bring change
We make offerings to the calendar
And while we wait, the waves of the ocean are being drawn for us
by a diligent child scooting along on hands and knees
connecting point to the next with shaky graphite.
It occurs to me, to name it
but I dare not speak the name.
I wash my hair twice,
Lather rinse repeat
Lather rinse repeat—
Is that four times?
Is that me, reflected in the flesh of a prickly pear?
Do I escape one cactus snare just to reach for another?
It is amazing, the propensity we have to see ourselves in non-reflective surfaces.
Site
I entered the house on a drill bit.
I entered the house and installed semi-permanent fixtures.
I entered the house to pull a drawstring close around my small life. The world puckered around it. I centered the kitchen table on an antagonistic rug and awaited chairs.
I picked this house from a list but it picked me first. There were three eyes embedded in the walls when I entered. Three out of five eyes in the room blinked expectantly, the other two gaped. I picked up my belongings and carried myself across the threshold.
I look different to myself but the house sees me. It sees my lipstick and my shame. I pretend that it’s just the wrong color lipstick but the eyes of the house raise their brows.
Two of the eyes are gray and the third is blue. The gray eyes have mile-long lashes. When I leave the house, two additional yellow eyes guard the door and the darkness.
You might feel strange in a house with eyes. You might wonder if the eyes record information about you as you drink day-old coffee. You might become aware that you neglected to clean the crack between the stove and the countertop.
But I have seen many houses. This house sees me.
“Learning to smile a certain way to disarm without appearing vulnerable is drag. Learning to see how you are seen . . .” —Mindy Nettifee
This too, you must own
Today I bought a dress covered in chameleons
Like Pablo, I, too, was tired of being a man
I had wandered the post-festive, already consumed
Already devoured aisles
And having plucked the drooping,
Crepe-paper-after-the-party from the wall
It swelled like a second-wind balloon, it
Transformed on me playing dress-up
I traded up for chromatophores
I see how I am seen and raise the world $29.98-plus-tax
Of forest green chiffon
Now feel drops coming:
Turn slick water-beaded yellow.
Feel psychology buzzwords fletched and flung:
Turn porcelain-white shoulder-to-shoulder front line, curving upward.
Feel scope zeroing in:
Turn red-ringed electric stove burner.
Feel pierced, distanced to the point of fringe, glossed-over:
Turn sequin-studded, catered-to queen.
See silver platter:
Turn flashing-in-the-hands-of-Judith.
See severed head:
Turn hydra,
Turn madman butterfly,
Turn reptile-clad iron woman.
Own the ways that you shift under gaze;
Shift gaze back with 137 scaly hooded eyes.
D. H. Turtel
On Margaret Filled with Smoke
Don’t you know? Hero grows in broken home,
Swollen cheeks and eyes are fine, just hide and
count minutes on her wrist, give mom a kiss.
Margaret did. Light and violence birthed a kid,
name him child, name him boy, name him girl.
name him anything. Better—name it nothing.
Airplane bottles, tiny cocktails, make a mobile,
set in motion metronomes overhead,
both before and after bed, tucking in,
set the thermostat to cold. Shiver you!
shiver boy! Uncertainty is velvet,
it is sure to keep you warm. Winter’s warm,
when winter comes at all, spring and fall and
No. We are not children of the sun.
when darkness came, when darkness comes,
do greet him warmly (with uncertainty)
welcome him across the threshold that keeps
out the dirty forest. Frost covered earth.
the open doorway, you could just make out
quick flash of right eye cataract, follow
boy, he’s grown up now, has buried things,
has killed things too. Stands waiting in the room,
Margaret rocks her rocking chair, air compressed,
Her perfume dense. She waves you in. Accepts
your pendulum of nothing, of nothing,
you of nothing, of nothing, of nothing,
Of light and violence. Of shallow silence,
Shallow, yet still deep enough to drown in,
I have seen men drowned in puddles. So do
call home. Scream through the screen of swinging doors,
where your voice carries the same frequency,
swallowed by lights. Ceiling’s circular bulbs,
of lamps in the street, of sky on the lake,
of cloud covered moon. You’ll talk again soon.
You’ll talk of light and violence. Of shadows
Come to haunt you, come to kiss you, kill you,
They come disguised as infant poltergeist,
And promise already to grow old.
And you’ve grown old.
You’re still as stone and sad,
A sorrow common in things without hearts,
A patience reserved for lawless winter.
We were minerals. We knew nothing of
Breath. But we breathed nonetheless, our denim
Matchbox pockets filled, our heavy guilt, our
Gasoline. Sing something sweet, and scream the wind,
We watched your words curl up like smoke. They rose
They fell, they froze in cold November air,
Some arsonists, some anywhere. We watched
Your words curl up like smoke. They rose, they fell,
Like passing phantoms in the night. Tidal,
Fleeting, running, repeating, ‘it’s alright
It’s alright, it’s alright.’ Those seeds are sown.
And don’t you know? You breathed, you didn’t, no.
stand we there
stand we there
smoke sting eyes
whirlwind dream
alibies
rocket star
broke moon dark
distant drum
clicking heart
you—me—here?
why not now?
pulling hair
sky fall down
violent grass
red stripe skin
wind collapse
stop begin
siren call
screaming—now
trembling neck
hears no sound
pinkwhite eyes
why so still?
margaret—breathe
lungs or gills
margaret—speak
night commands!
pulse on wrist?
warm on hands?
violent grass
cover sin
spade move earth
stop begin
To a Bride Growing Thin
The clock in the kitchen, it didn’t count seconds
His idiot tongue knew no words,
The hour hand moved on the hour, we reckoned,
And screamed with a clay cuckoo bird
Minutes said summer and doors grew in frames
Agoraphobe Margaret, going insane
The clock in the kitchen it slept all through June,
The cuckoo bird missed all the sun,
The hours had promised to wake Maggie soon,
But the comatose minutes unspun,
The calendar laughed but did not eat a thing
And July was as thin as she ever had been.
A red-stitched white ball flew back through the window
The shards of glass mended themselves
The kids ran away and Jack called them pussies,
And screamed them to all go to hell,
The cuckoo’s green tears fell and pooled on the ground,
And awoke in September, red, yellow and brown.
The hour hand looked at the closed and cracked window,
And saw himself for the first time,
The clock in the kitchen, it froze in December,
The Seconds they shivered and died,
The calendar’s name, nobody remembered,
Margaret asked, but winter unanswered,
And both just a twelfth of their size.
The cuckoo bird called to come out every hour,
But the minute hand hung, fifty-five.
The clock in the kitchen, it melts in the spring,
And the wall it looks empty and white,
The hour hand’s broken, pneumonic, asleep,
In a puddle of sad, phantom time,
The Calendars wasted away to a bone,
She hasn’t died yet, but already a ghost,
Grey cardboard square with a mannequin’s soul.
And the west facing windows, they never see sun,
They dreamt of pink settings that never did come.
Margaret, again
When you asked about a soul,
I laughed, ‘You mean the brain,
And the way the veins can take the shape,
Of something shapeless in your head
And be invincibly invisible but not at all concrete.
But when mother grew her headstone,
We watched the moving clouds,
Kept our heads out of the ground,
Left my thoughts unspoken,
Hidden,
Like the tattooed wall behind the school,
Where you asked me about love,
I laughed, ‘The heart just forces blood,
To heads and hands and places
It might not really want to go,
those girls off chasing bottles,
golden Johnny Walker Red,
To be whisked by boys to bed,
The same way they once knew,
Cranes dropped children on front porches,
Like the one that held your yellow house,
An empty picture frame,
We’d disregard the inside scenes,
Your mother’s swollen wrists and eyes were fine,
As long as that old wooden chair,
Kept swinging we’d keep sitting,
And you’d keep asking about fate,
Like it was something that existed
Outside the pages of some book,
(star-crossed lovers who died at the same time,