Today’s choice
Previous poems
Genna Gardini
When we die, do we
go back, small cell, atom
slit by light. It takes up
space, an ocean, a planet, a
god. Too large to understand
the scale, although we accept
the concept. Constellations,
tongues of vibration. Unlearnable
logic between us. Our sameness, our
strangeness, lows deep and seismic.
A language translated. Thin whistle.
If we could speak it, we would
crumble. Above us,
a black and wet sheet is washing
forever. Clockless expanse, science
in darkness, the moon’s clean conduction
of time. Satellites, submarines, sink
and climb, and can’t find what’s there, and
what’s there? Listen
to me, carefully. One day
you’ll ask the right question,
and that’s when you’ll see it.
Look! That’s when
I’ll tell you—
Wait—
Genna Gardini is a writer, theatre-maker, and educator. Her poetry has been published widely, most recently in Prairie Schooner, The Amsterdam Review, and New Contrast. You can see more about her work at www.gennagardini.com.
Fran Hayden
a friend messaged me:
“every time I see sunflowers,
I think of you”
Betty Doyle
Both cast out to sea, I wonder –
did your ashes ever meet?
It was under the same sun setting,
although years and miles apart.
Mark Rutter
when the people are gone
and the wooden house
has been burned down
to recover its nails
Gráinne Daly
Not for me the tomb of Irish soil.
Put me on a plane
and let me make one last journey
before my final departure.
Rebecca Cohen
If you don’t believe in God, my friend says,
why don’t you eat pork?
Rhian Thomas
On my phone a newsreel shows a car boot lifting
just above the flood. Tail lights like eyes
caught in a comic gasp, while its body, like the carriageway,
lies under sixty million litres of last night’s rain.
Sue Norton
Today I tipped the packet of coffee
into the cafetiere instead of the tin.
Caught myself in time, didn’t pour water in.
Steph Morris
Who’s idea was it? I think his, as I’d started
wearing everything from Oxfam. Among my finds
collarless shirts.
Kathy Pimlott
Going down to do lights and curtains to fool any burglars Twilight: one after another security lights click on illuminating pathways, steps, empty front lawns, triggered by my benign progress, then, disappointed, click off. The sky is a layer cake...