Poetry is what gets lost in translation. – Robert Frost
Orange
The orange hung by a tether so thin,
So much promise in its rough, orange skin.
Imagined the sweet, succulent flesh on your tongue,
Quenching your needy thirst for desire, sweetness, and acidity all in one.
The bruise was the problem,
On the opposite side from where it hung,
Obscured from view,
Away from you.
In the breeze it swayed,
A little too virulent was the sway,
So you looked away.
It fell, with a plop and a splat,
At your feet,
Sweet liquid glistening your legs,
Revealing its dark innards.
Up and Down
Pick me up
Put me down
Love me a lot
Let me down
Odd Pearl
Love is an odd pearl
Coveted within soft flesh,
Grown more beautiful by the composition
Of its irritant.
Hidden within the ocean depths
For someone or no one to discover,
Exquisite to the beholder’s eye.
By design,
Perfect white, halo yellow, sky-cast gray
Our Father
Our father who art in Heaven,
Her eyes follow his lips in the familiar prayer
Hallowed be thy name
Her name sounds hollow in her mind
Thy kingdom come
Please rescue her
Thy will be done
Thy will cannot be to suffer?
On earth as it is in heaven
Dear god, let heaven be nothing like earth
Forgive us our debts
What debts do we carry to the grave?
As we forgive our debtors
All is forgiven
And lead us not into temptation
Temptation leads to the same exit
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever
Amen
Amen to that.
Unmoored
I am becoming unmoored
Drifting out to sea
In sync with the ancient pull of the tide
To drift directionless
Disentangled
Unanchored
Unattached
Deliciously unmoored
Messy
Love is indeterminably messy
What writer hasn’t messed with it?
Spun it dirty in their melancholy hands
Spread it greedily to the vacant page
Smeary, dark, and pleasingly wet
Where it reluctantly dried
Caked and flaked
Like mud, only lonelier
Hard
Salty tide thundering against my bare chest
Invisible from my innards
Downing a cup of hot tea
As if it were hard with something bitter
I am becoming bitter with something hard
And you were always patiently soft
In quiet ways
When the world was hard
When my name parted your lips
In the inky darkness
Where it was easy to forget
Yet easier to get caught
Between a rock and a hard place
Where all that is unspoken
Is articulated with hearty implication
There were lies of omission
Because it was easier than saying what’s hard
He said:
‘Next time I wear a condom’
And that I was motionless, inertia
Did he just say I was emotionless?
I feel emotionless
I love when he uses words like inertia
His temper was tempered
His voice gentle
I couldn’t utter a word
I was still fixated on motionless
I tend to get stuck
Inertia
Dream
I awoke this morning
Feeling warm, rich, and thick.
A sunset of molten colors
Inside
The non-descript
White plane of sleep.
I had been
Entwined in a passionate kiss,
Long fingers of desire
In my hair.
He was my inside,
I was his outside,
Skin on skin,
The naked touch,
Soul enmeshed with soul.
The alarm clock,
Splintering the façade,
Leaving me with
Desert thirst.
Camp
The first day of camp
I got up late
Long weekend nights
Sluggish blood protesting the morning
I prodded you to hurry
We arrived at the bus parking lot
A minute to spare
I made light
Attempting to gloss over my morning frenzy
The packing of my bag for tonight
The unpacking of my bag from last night
The weekly divorced shuffle
Throwing lunch and camp clothes into a bag for you
Dinner on the stove for my absence
Freshly washed clothes out of the dryer
No time to fold
Hurry, scurry, worry, weary
Did you apply sunscreen?
And the words tumbled out of your mouth
Like little flames
Once, then twice, then a string of fire
Mom, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
There you stood
Raw innocence like beads of sweat on your forehead
Your green-russet eyes wide with melted honesty
My deepest, greatest love and joy
Blaming yourself for my messy life
Familiarity crawling up my neck
Clawing my veins
Exposing my own deep apology memories
In the sticky July morning
Losing
A lifetime of worry
Melted into a momentary phone call
Your voice, a high pitched panic
How do I write a check?
Strength and tenacity slipping with the ink
Into oblivion
The second call, days, weeks later
How do I dial a phone?
And your voice
In little quivering bits
Left your mouth
Fell into the abyss
Swallowed up by the darkness of your eyes
It rested there
Hardened by blame
Lost
Cut a lost river canyon
Wearing sandstone and silt
Revealing layers and colors
Pink sunrises and rusty sunsets
Marius Venter
Commit
To commit to a thing
Is a little death
A little life
A ball of messy wax
I want to wax wisely
Thread the words through a tiny needle
Too large for my hands
Losing yourself is sometimes finding a new way home
Or a detour, or a roadblock
It’s difficult to see the difference
Among the fog on the unmarked road
What curves await
What cliffs hug and hide the edge
Ruins
Swathed
In safe-haven warmth
Untangled my veins
Like tugging on a slip-knot
With hazel eyes
Swam the moat
Circumnavigated heavy doors
Unearthed ancient terracotta
Ruins
The rush in my ears
I barely heard the knock
On massive double doors
Of my sanctuary
I answered dark doubt
Like a beggar’s toothless grin
Settled in
With its black, gaping holes
Slithering tongue bulging
Between yellowed teeth
With each word formed by supple lips
I loved to kiss
I tumbled through the darkness
The stars a laser-like blur on the descent
Saltwater like cement, my greeter
Flattened
Floundered
Found
A tangible tree
To accommodate me
Wrangled away from the grin
The sin
The damaged remains
Panic chasing her beyond your reach
Lights
Untangling all these lights seems so unnatural
The glow enmeshed into a ball of wires and heat
Now cooled into a massive tangle
Some lights missing
Some broken
Overwhelmed to find the beginning
Or overtake the ending
Treasure
All those years I held back
My voice but a shadow
In the back of my throat
All the doubt-filled darkness
And craggy edges
Age can smooth
Like a tumbled stone in a riverbed
Refine, refine, refine
Until you are enough
For a child to come along
Spot your rare beauty
Pluck you from the babbling stream
Place you in his pocket
A treasure
Courtesy of Hologic
To the Area of Concern
To the area of concern in my left breast
Please contain your concern
Stop inching your way into my busy mind
Reciting the what ifs, one by one
It could be nothing
It could be something that is really nothing
It could be nothing that is really something
It could really be something
It is the latter I can’t get by
Trips me up like a high hurdle when I try
Smacks me to the rough pavement
1 in 8 chance
Don’t you betray me, left breast
Who fed my only child until he was plump
Who holds up pretty well for forty-two
Who compliments my orgasms perfectly
I could do without you, left breast
If I had to
I could bid you adieu
Recyclables
Late last night
My husband placed the recyclables by the roadside,
Innocently enough,
As he does every other week.
During the night, the wind blew fiercely.
I fell asleep pretending
Waves were crashing on distant shores.
In the morning I awoke to the alarm.
Dread and thankfulness for another day,
All coiled into bleary-eyed confusion.
I padded to the living room
Glimpsing the sun’s beginning journey,
Over the horizon.
Then I saw it,
The wind’s carnage strewn up and down our county road.
The dog and cat food cans,
The milk containers,
The water bottles,
The bottle of wine that helped me find my tears,
Scattered.
The empty receptacle stuck in the bushes across the street
Among the leafless, winter-dried picker bushes.
I pulled on my hoodie,
Tramped outside in my best
Leave-me-alone sweatpants,
And started picking up the pieces,
One by one,
Wondering what would happen if I just left the mess,
All those tiny details of our lives,
Scattered on the road for all to see.
It Is
“It is what it is”
Is a death
A whatever of will
An indecisive flick
Of the tongue
A lopping of love
From the equation
Stilled sonnet of the heart
Death march of the soul
A turning of the back
On resolve
It is what it is
A black-veiled good-bye
Complacency
I will make them
Artichokes and fish for dinner
I will have some beans
Later, after a bedtime story
We will wait
For his slumber
You will want me
With the lights on
The windows curtain-bare
I will want it dark,
Thick and private
I will win
We will begin
Our lips will not meet
Hard, quick and done
I will slide on my clothes
Climb under the covers
Our backs to one another
On our separate journeys to slumber
Maybe tomorrow I will make
Stew
Me
The word me
Lost,
So small and naked
Like a cork floating on the white waves
Of I.
Muddy
My toes are muddy
From the swim to the bottom
Of your heart.
Temptation
Amber light
Turning red
I feel like speeding
Weary of stopping
At each light
Along the way
All others were red
So this amber one
Baited me
While I awaited
The hue to change
And send the flashing
Lights dashing
In pursuit
I cruised on through
Unsuspected
Undetected
Slip
Slipping into that nice little
Slice of oil
Covered water
It taints you
With its rainbow-black hue
Slick and smooth
It drenches your wings
Keeps you grounded
Too thick and heavy
To move
Stay exactly where you are
Now that you’ve chosen to swim
Gentle Wind
Tantalizing your skin
On this silent beach
Beaconing your twisted
Comfort home
Time is faded black
To gray
There is no other way
For the sweet divine kiss
To begin
This is the element
You
Have been seeking
The wonderment of every sentence
That leaves you stranded
At the word go
Time felt safe when you remained
Yet safety never wrapped you in warmth
Or filled those tiny crevices
That make you weep
It is a tender keep
Strength
I ain goin’ to defend him!
I ain carryin’ his sorry ass!
I ain stickin’ up for that fuckin’ crack-head!
What kind a woman do you think I am?
She said flailing her arms wildly
Eyes bulged with determination,
Not caring who overheard.
I walked by
The woman
Whose edge nearly cut me
In two.
I began
Willing the wind to blow
Her overblown strength,
Sharply,
To shore up my pasty bones.
Love Unending?
There are tiny cracks
Through which love
Seeps
Like thick cold crimson blood
In time
It finds crevices
Through which to escape
Holes to empty
The life run out
Some stay
Some go
Some wait
Some say no
It forever has an ending
Becoming only a runny
Memory
Smeared with muddy salt
Laughter just an echo
In empty halls
Tell me differently
Does it ever endure?
Have you held a great love
That transcends veracity?
A smooth vivid glass vase
To catch the spills?
A self-contained fountain
Continually renewing?
Poet Jealousy
I stepped out from the darkness
To view the street below.
I was annihilated by the stark contrast
Of someone’s bare soul against the concrete
Mimicking their own voice yet somehow coming up short
Of their expectations.
I did not realize there was so much more give to my strings.
I thought I had experienced all the pangs that were possible.
His body there,
Pulled harder and stealthily stole breath
That I did not know I possessed.
I turned back to my door,
Closing the thick heavy oak of it,
Encasing myself in the familiar darkness
That would no longer comfort me.
Upstream
Swimming upstream
Going against the grain
Lighting up again
Until it’s out
The spark and then the flame
The rain to douse it out
It seems repetitive
This down and out and back
Again
Along this same course
Only different landmarks
Your arms around me in the dark
Culling familiarity in my bones
Sowing blood, and fear along with love
In the dark soil
To be uprooted, replanted
In someone else’s garden
With the old carrots and tomatoes of familiarity
Will I grow?
Will we tend each other well
Gently
Till the soil
Or wilt and die?
Jeannine M. DeHart 