for my asthma inhaler that
last year cost fifteen
I pause for the mom
whose young son will forget
his inhaler / on the bus /
at his friend’s house /
in the park / at the game /
maybe in his school locker /
somewhere-I-dunno;
who’ll forget to remember
he sometimes needs
that inhaler to breathe
or what $40 costs.
How she might
slap the back of his head
or try to shake some respect
into those thin shoulders
or might yell words she’ll regret
but cannot unsay
or worse
how she might
just sit down
in a slump
that faraway
given-up look
on her face
until he promises to find
that inhaler / never
lose it again ever.
Sunshine by Pat Parker
If it were possible
to place you in my brain
to let you roam around
in and out
my thought waves
you would never
have to ask
why do you love me?
This morning as you slept
I wanted to kiss you awake
say I love you till your brain
smiled and nodded yes
this woman does love me.
Each day the list grows
filled with the things that are you
things that make my heart jump
yet words would sound strange
become corny in utterance.
In the morning when I wake
I don’t look out my window
to see if the sun is shining.
I turn to you instead.
love isn’t by Pat Parker
I wish I could be
the lover you want
come joyful
bear brightness
like summer sun
Instead
I come cloudy
bring pregnant women
with no money
bring angry comrades
with no shelter
I wish I could take you
run over beaches
lay you in sand
and make love to you
Instead
I come rage
bring city streets
with wine and blood
bring cops and guns
with dead bodies and prison
I wish I could take you
travel to new lives
kiss ninos on tourist buses
sip tequila at sunrise
Instead
I come sad
bring lesbians
without lovers
bring sick folk
without doctors
bring children
without families
I wish I could be
your warmth
your blanket
All I can give
is my love.
I care for you
I care for our world
if I stop
caring about one
it would be only
a matter of time
before I stop
loving
the other.
sorrows by Lucille Clifton
who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals
that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin
sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking
their bony fingers
they have heard me beseeching
as i whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again
but who can distinguish
one human voice
amid such choruses
of desire
The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
alternate names for black boys by Danez Smith
1. smoke above the burning bush
2. archnemesis of summer night
3. first son of soil
4. coal awaiting spark & wind
5. guilty until proven dead
6. oil heavy starlight
7. monster until proven ghost
8. gone
9. phoenix who forgets to un-ash
10. going, going, gone
11. gods of shovels & black veils
12. what once passed for kindling
13. fireworks at dawn
14. brilliant, shadow hued coral
15. (I thought to leave this blank
but who am I to name us nothing?)
16. prayer who learned to bite & sprint
17. a mother’s joy & clutched breath
Now That We Have Tasted Hope by Khaled Mattawa
Now that we have come out of hiding,
Why would we live again in the tombs we’d made out of our souls?
And the sundered bodies that we’ve reassembled
With prayers and consolations,
What would their torn parts be, other than flesh?
Now that we have tasted hope
And dressed each other’s wounds with the legends of our
oneness
Would we not prefer to close our mouths forever shut
On the wine that swilled inside them?
Having dreamed the same dream,
Having found the water behind a thousand mirages,
Why would we hide from the sun again
Or fear the night sky after we’ve reached the ends of
darkness,
Live in death again after all the life our dead have given us?
Listen to me Zow’ya, Beida, Ajdabya, Tobruk, Nalut,
Listen to me Derna, Musrata, Benghazi, Zintan,
Listen to me houses, alleys, courtyards, and streets that
throng my veins,
Some day soon, in your freed light, in the shade of your
proud trees,
Your excavated heroes will return to their thrones in your
martyrs’ squares,
Lovers will hold each other’s hands.
I need not look far to imagine the nerves dying,
Rejecting the life that blood sends them.
I need not look deep into my past to seek a thousand hopeless vistas.
But now that I have tasted hope
I have fallen into the embrace of my own rugged innocence.
How long were my ancient days?
I no longer care to count.
I no longer care to measure.
How bitter was the bread of bitterness?
I no longer care to recall.
Now that we have tasted hope, this hard-earned crust,
We would sooner die than seek any other taste to life,
Any other way of being human.
Love After Love by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Finding What You Didn’t Lose by John Fox
When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you,
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you,
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.
Arthritis is one thing, the hurting another by Camille T. Dungy
The poet’s hands degenerate until her cup is too heavy.
You are not required to understand.
This is not the year for understanding.
This is the year of burning women in schoolyards
and raided homes, of tarped bodies on runways and in restaurants.
The architecture of the poet’s hands has turned upon itself.
This is not the year for palliatives. It is not the year for knowing what to do.
This is the year the planet grew smaller
and no country would consent to its defeat.
The poet’s cup is filled too full, a weight she cannot carry
from the table to her mouth, her lips, her tongue.
The poet’s hands are congenitally spoiled.
This is not one thing standing for another.
Listen, this year three ancient cities met their ruin, maybe more,
and many profited, but this is not news for the readers here.
Should I speak indirectly?
I am not the poet. Those are not my hands.
This is the year of deportations and mothers bereaved
of all of their sons. The year of third and fourth tours,
of cutting-edge weaponry and old-fashioned guns.
Last year was no better, and this year only lays the groundwork
for the years that are to come. Listen, this is a year like no other.
This is the year the doctors struck for want of aid
and schoolchildren were sent home in the morning
and lights and gas were unreliable
and, harvesters suspect, fruit had no recourse but rot.
Many are dying for want of a cure, and the poet is patient
and her hands cause the least of her pain.
Compassion Camp 