That Ache Near Your Heart, She Said
could be the tight wrap of a bud, waiting for first permission of warmth. It could be the shrouded lens from the lighthouse, forgotten, on the far shores of longing. Andrea Potos is the author of several poetry collections, including most recently The Presence…
oranges taste better in jeju
you live in the sky. dirt tethers your body to the fields, to the off-kilter porch, to me—but your eyes are tilted onto trains and oil-coated mechanisms instead of damp earth and sticky oranges. i stare at your back, thinking that it could be enough. naive; you are…
The Ghosts of Benjamin
The sky did not fall; it dissolved. It began as a bruise on the horizon, a deep, concussive purple that suggested the air itself was holding its breath. Then came Benjamin. He did not arrive with the frantic energy of a summer gale, but with the slow, rhythmic finality of a…
Kudzu
Jilted, I planted it like a curse, waited until he was gone, scattered the seeds wide enough to test its patience, how it waits for nothing. Small, I knew they would become. The vines learned his house, his heart. Those doors and windows vanished into green. We could not escape. Some growth…
Bicycle Memory
We lie belly to belly, memory slipping between ribs, thought made heat and grief and nothing held except the hum of cunning and the echo of use worn smooth by yesterday’s yesterday. Too little now that was too much. My sister said love is like a bicycle ride. I understand it,…
Roads Home
The paths we take to come home again are longer than those same roads are away. They arc, electricity lighting the sullen midnight dark, stretching out in the dim spaces between stars. Maybe tires move faster, you say, when they're taking us away. When they aren't weighed down with our…
Thirty-One
Before you the world ended, stretched on tables of tears – like every other single woman I knew at thirty – that confused everyone who didn't know and scared my mother. Made her worry that I might be suicidal, might give myself over to fear that I wasn't actually living after thirty…
Autopsy/Inventory
I splay my grandmother's organs on the dining table and inventory what nobody wants; the table itself antiquated, scratched notes to a forgotten doll, fills the space of her liver. Her stomach pops under pressure of a knife, canned peas and apologies; a metal sheath beneath her…
Bomb of Choice
evacuation is paywalled // animals run towards the light but away from the heat // they can't tell the difference // did you see? a man patted out a burning bunny with his bare hands // it lived thank God // humanity, revived // drive your Tesla down your home street in ashes // we…
We Were Girls Together
(after Toni Morrison) I'll never know what it's like to be a man to look at the world and know it's mine, but I think I will pity him anyway. He will only ever see the woman. I will always see the girl. Because women recognize women who were girls together, blunt bangs and…
First Date
The wine stains my bones and drips polished taffy, the payment of a child taking and holding. You've been in the bathroom a long time. Shakes swallow my little freak hands. I pay for both meals and leave before you come back. There's a candy mint on the plate made of my ring finger and…
Your Statutory Rights Are Not Affected
For this poem to operate properly it requires a moment of meaningful silence at its centre. A moment of meaningful silence is not included with this poem. To begin experiencing your poem to the full please insert your moment of silence: [ h e r e ] I am sorry…
Endless Game
As the boy plays tennis on his own through the terrible nights, through the hideous days, people wonder, how does he live under spotlights and sun, smeared across cement like paint? Kids stare behind the eyes of their glowing cigarettes; lonely women take snaps on telephoto lenses;…
Simplicity
For Roy M. Lyon—whereabouts unknown—he loved his students so deeply, we all became his forever-writers You said you didn't write poetry and certainly wouldn't waste time reading it. Liar. I found my poem in the pocket of your coat. I found where you'd copied it and left it on your desk.…
Everything Dead was Once Alive
The tin soldiers tightened their tin boots, filled their tin rifles with tin bullets, summoned their tin courage. The fields were soon covered in tin blood. The survivors marched home leaving a trail of footprints shivering beneath a yellow sky. The wrinkled caravan…
Not So Unlikely
The mailman and firewoman toasted their love with flutes of Champagne, shed the scars of past romances like a snake molts skin. She called his mouth "glory." He called her mouth "rosebud." They left each other troths written on rice paper. She left his in his coffee cup. He left…
I Looked at the World and Declared it Incomprehensible
I forget when I first realized that people are windows, look into them, look through them, temporary, self-indulgent clouds of sadness, oceans of the past. But I wanted to be more, wanted to build a better me. I had the dentist pull my teeth…
You Can Learn A Lot About Love From This
Each Monday we flipped a coin to decide who would love the other more. On Wednesday we played rock-paper-scissors to decide who would roll their eyes and shake their head. If everything else failed, there was always the lightning we kept in a Tupperware…
On the French Broad River Bridge at Twilight
Because Dad refused to die, we circled the block, knuckles white while two hours turned to four, then eight and twelve. At thirteen, our hospital beepers sang like synchronized trumpets. Dad drained but jubilant, bursting back into the stream of his…
When I Told Mr. L That He Would Die
Mrs. L resolved to care for him alone, returning them to a long-past honeymoon cocoon. Ignoring my caution, she stayed with him night and day, holding off other caregivers. She did the washing and cooking and dosing and caring, and yet the wheezing in his lungs…
The Leon Russianoff Clarinet Studio
In a quieter corner of Times Square, between 47th and 48th, a smiling Sabrett hot dog vendor positioned his cart at the unattended door. The inner hallway reeked of the night's stale urine and the elevator uncertain in its labor to the fourth floor. Its single,…
The Juggler
In striped pants and a Yankees cap, he flings a cloud of balls into the air—yellow, red, blue. His feet propel a unicycle in multi-dimensional motion. He gives himself to this work, sweat burnishing his forehead, fingers dancing, wrists twisting, eyes fixed in a trance-like gaze every…
What Darwin said about the origin of species
we evolved to tear each other down / in this fishing net we evolved to remember the tiger / the rainbow meanwhile hangs outside the doorway / curled outward we evolved to not eat too many sweets / slow syrup and quick hydraulics / we evolved to sound…
choker
it gleamed once, a circle of warmth, gems soft with memory, each crystal a quiet vow. but in the night, it turned, edges sharpened by silence, clasps pulled tight by forgetting. i woke to a mouthful of blood, the cold kiss of amethyst biting into breath love does that sometimes, wraps…
Assimilated Tongue
The bullets from the bullies in the classroom Cost me my tongue From the teacher who told me To speak clearer, To speak slower, To speak English Last time I checked Guyana was the only English-speaking country in South America And we spoke perfect English Last time I checked…
The Making Of A Ghost
for Alex In a room where Silence becomes stifling You'll hear your name In their voice And wonder where it came from Snapping your neck around Only to decide It was in your head You'll find a few strands of their hair On pillowcases and on floors where they walked Like…
Home
the dog downstairs that ruins my demos. dragging out my mom's lunch breaks. my linguistic inconsistencies. calling everyone's cats fat. heart-shaped locks. the smell of forests after rain. bare feet against sunny kitchen tiles. patched up jeans. fresh nails. chipping. not so cheap perfume…
5:21pm, under Bath Abbey
there was the dusk you didn't see; the cathedral's stone walls all spilled with gold, a busker playing Walking on the Moon, his hair, too, kissed by the sun. I sat down, listening, hoping your shadow would envelop everything, but instead a grey pigeon crossed the bench and…
Strawberry Milkshake
The day I ripped you from my heart, I had to fight the sour aftertaste you left. I chopped pink-red strawberries, dropped them in a cup, poured in milk, some half-melted vanilla ice cream forgotten on the counter, then blended it all. It came out smooth, sweet, a little…
Your name shouldn’t own things
It's unnatural. I can't look at four- leaved clovers and think of it anymore; a dandelion would be more fitting. I can't set foot in Abbeys or Cathedrals, nor hear of certain saints—all because of a sinner. I deprive myself of hymns and songs, wrap them in thin…
