Poetry – Page 19 – PLEASE SEE ME

OBSESSIVE / COMPULSIVE—Shay Alexi

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 OBSESSIVE / COMPULSIVE by Shay Alexi OBSESSIVE / COMPULSIVE ++++ Shay Alexi reads “OBSESSIVE / COMPULSIVE”: Shay Alexi is a poet and performance artist currently based in Atlanta, GA. Their work has been featured by The Rumpus, APOGEE, and Homology Lit, amongst others. Shay is the author of Diary of a Ghost Girl from Glass Poetry Press. Header image by Marilyn Hallett Granzyk

Saving Sylvia—Laurinda Lind

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Saving Sylvia by Laurinda Lind Saving Sylvia First, assume the au pair there on time. Then, peel back past your problems to their base: naming them enables joy. Next, armed with yourself, stubbornly stay and stay, go incandescent with your staying, don’t be lady anybody. Ladies lay their heads down in ovens. Seize Lazarus out of his biblehole and set him begging bootless with daddy, barefoot in the seasons. Shove the guilty lovers down the stairs. The fiery eye, that’s ...

The Fall—Aubrey Zahn

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 The Fall by Aubrey Zahn The Fall Every September, Persephone pretends she won’t go back to Hell, and yet descends from Grace, and graceless rails and digs her nails into the face of Mount Olympus, raw, compelled— and yet aware that as a god herself she’s held to higher standards, she is held above the fire and can never tell a soul except in select soundbites that suggest she’s in control above all else, professional—her role remains that she maintains composure so as ...

A Morning Lesson—Preeti Shah

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 A Morning Lesson by Preeti Shah A Morning Lesson The first winter without father I am watching the chai on the stove as cardamom and garam masala sputter and kiss metal. I pour a glass for Maa and me, breaking hundreds of buttery layers of my crisp and crackling laccha paratha, dipping crust into my steaming teacup to find iridescent pools of glazed ghee swirling at the surface. From the chair beside me, the blessed scent ...

Two Poems—Vincent Casaregola

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Two Poems by Vincent Casaregola The Life of the Ball Turret Gunner After Randall Jarrell’s “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” The sound of his anxious breath, labored in the tightening mask, seems his whole fearful world in this moment encircled by the dark. He cannot remember where he is. Then his eyes open revealing not the glass and metal cage that once had trapped and sheltered him, but this somber, grey-white room, filled with ...

Two Poems—Wilda Morris

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Two Poems by Wilda Morris meditation at the cancer care center breath still we surrender to light endure doubt dark++chaos meditate on suffering rebirth++ balance touch peace create a new path Wilda Morris reads “meditation at the cancer care center”: Embracing the Dead I. A Native American drums his grandfather’s spirit to heal his soul from years of boarding school where he was punished for speaking his native tongue, whipped for telling traditional tales, abused by a priest. II. Brazilian natives keep skulls in their homes, light cigarettes ...

Two Poems—JI Kleinberg

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Two Poems by JI Kleinberg one decides JI Kleinberg reads “one decides”: temple JI Kleinberg reads “temple”: JI Kleinberg, twice nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards, is an artist, poet, and freelance writer. Her visual poems have appeared in many print and online publications worldwide. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, USA, where she tears words out of magazines, and posts frequently at thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com and occasionally on Instagram ...

black woman’s guide to not dying in childbirth—Mia Wright

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 black woman’s guide to not dying in childbirth by Mia Wright black woman’s guide to not dying in childbirth 1. imagine aminata diallo, fictional catcher of slippery brown babies. the one with quick, small hands. imagine her cooing answer to your pain-wails, the call and response written in your spine. hear her “push, mama” in west african lilt, sorghum-slick. paint the pink impassive fingers pecan when they enter ...

The Bones of the Hospital—LindaAnn LoSchiavo

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 The Bones of the Hospital by LindaAnn LoSchiavo The Bones of the Hospital (Le ossa dell’ ospedale) We’re making a novena for grandpa. I stumble on words like leukemia, Don’t understand bone marrow transplanting. Before my father goes to donate his, We’re having bone soup. “It’s nutritious food,” Explains my mother. But the real reason’s Because we’re broke, my classmates like to taunt. I wonder if physicians will respect Grandpa if neighbors hate poor foreigners Like us, ...

Two Poems—James Littwin

Poetry Issue #4: Hope March 31st, 2020 March 31st, 2020 Two Poems by James Littwin Dream of Secrets (for Cair) I line my secrets in a row, in golden boxes Buddhists use to hold the ashes of ancestors. I pour my secrets into a leather pouch. Relatives sow them on my grave, and weep when weeds begin to grow. I pick up secrets like stones and skip them over waves. I watch them splash and sink, but they swim back like fish. I bring my secrets to you, laying ...