Good Bones

By Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real s---hole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful

Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People are Dying

By Noor Hindi 

Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks
seconds before becoming daisies.
I want to be like those poets who care about the moon.
Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons.
It’s so beautiful, the moon.
They’re so beautiful, the flowers.
I pick flowers for my dead father when I’m sad.
He watches Al Jazeera all day.
I wish Jessica would stop texting me Happy Ramadan.
I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them. 

Lady Lazarus

I have done it again. 

One year in every ten I manage it— 

 

A sort of walking miracle, my skin 

Bright as a Nazi lampshade, 

My right foot 

 

A paperweight, 

My face a featureless, fine 

Jew linen. 

 

Peel off the napkin 

O my enemy. 

Do I terrify?— 

 

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? 

The sour breath 

Will vanish in a day. 

 

Soon, soon the flesh 

The grave cave ate will be 

At home on me 

 

And I a smiling woman. 

I am only thirty. 

And like the cat I have nine times to die. 

 

This is Number Three. 

What a trash 

To annihilate each decade. 

 

What a million filaments. 

The peanut-crunching crowd 

Shoves in to see 

 

Them unwrap me hand and foot— 

The big strip tease. 

Gentlemen, ladies 

 

These are my hands 

My knees. 

I may be skin and bone, 

 

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. 

The first time it happened I was ten. 

It was an accident. 

 

The second time I meant 

To last it out and not come back at all. 

I rocked shut 

 

As a seashell. 

They had to call and call 

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. 

 

Dying 

Is an art, like everything else. 

I do it exceptionally well. 

 

I do it so it feels like hell. 

I do it so it feels real. 

I guess you could say I've a call. 

 

It's easy enough to do it in a cell. 

It's easy enough to do it and stay put. 

It's the theatrical 

 

Comeback in broad day 

To the same place, the same face, the same brute 

Amused shout: 

 

'A miracle!' 

That knocks me out. 

There is a charge  

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge 

For the hearing of my heart— 

It really goes. 

 

And there is a charge, a very large charge 

For a word or a touch 

Or a bit of blood 

 

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. 

So, so, Herr Doktor. 

So, Herr Enemy. 

 

I am your opus, 

I am your valuable, 

The pure gold baby 

 

That melts to a shriek. 

I turn and burn. 

Do not think I underestimate your great concern. 

 

Ash, ash— 

You poke and stir. 

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- 

 

A cake of soap, 

A wedding ring, 

A gold filling. 

 

Herr God, Herr Lucifer 

Beware 

Beware. 

 

Out of the ash 

I rise with my red hair 

And I eat men like air. 

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

The Rider

By Naomi Shihab Nye

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

The Guest House

 

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Monday, May 3, 2021

The Conditional

By Ada Limón

Say tomorrow doesn't come.
Say the moon becomes an icy pit.
Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.
Say the sun's a foul black tire fire.
Say the owl's eyes are pinpricks.
Say the raccoon's a hot tar stain.
Say the shirt's plastic ditch-litter.
Say the kitchen's a cow's corpse.
Say we never get to see it: bright
future, stuck like a bum star, never
coming close, never dazzling.
Say we never meet her. Never him.
Say we spend our last moments staring
at each other, hands knotted together,
clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.
Say, It doesn't matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you'd still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.

Sunday, May 2, 2021

The Dream of Knife, Fork, and Spoon

By Kimiko Hahn 

I can’t recall where to set the knife and spoon. 

I can’t recall which side to place the napkin 

or which bread plate belongs to me. Or 

how to engage in benign chatter. 

 I can’t recall when more than one fork— 

which to use first. Or what to make of this bowl of water. 

 I can’t see the place cards or recall any names. 

The humiliation is impressive. The scorn. 

No matter how much my brain “revises” the dinner 

to see if the host was a family member— 

I can't recall which dish ran away with which spoon.

Saturday, May 1, 2021

The Soul has Bandaged moments –

By Emily Dickinson 

 
The Soul has Bandaged moments –
When too appalled to stir –
She feels some ghastly Fright come up
And stop to look at her –

Salute her, with long fingers –
Caress her freezing hair –
Sip, Goblin, from the very lips
The Lover – hovered – o’er –
Unworthy, that a thought so mean
Accost a Theme – so – fair –

The soul has moments of escape –
When bursting all the doors –
She dances like a Bomb, abroad,
And swings opon the Hours,

As do the Bee – delirious borne –
Long Dungeoned from his Rose –
Touch Liberty – then know no more,
But Noon, and Paradise –

The Soul’s retaken moments –
When, Felon led along,
With shackles on the plumed feet,
And staples, in the song,

The Horror welcomes her, again,
These, are not brayed of Tongue –

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