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.
Elizabeth Barton
On Diamond Hill
I didn’t
think of you once
as I climbed
past stunted willows
straggles of gorse
Susan Jane Sims on Mothering Sunday
Matter cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed.
I think of this as I pour the almost white ash from
the green plastic container that came in the post
into the vibrant red metal urn I have ready.
Daniel Sluman
just as the night sky shifts
beyond the minds
of the animals outside
the ceilings
we are pressed beneath change
in aspect & colour
Farah Ali
Notes from nature on how to survive this:
1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog
2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches
James Benger
We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
Graham Clifford
Check the cavities in you where hurt goes,
exactly the right shape to house an insult
like a power tool snug and clipped in its case.
Gill Horitz
I woke to workers with blades
along the verge, yellow-jacketed
to signify contracted rights
Anita Karla Kelly, CE Collins, Clare Painter on International Women’s Day
In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite.
Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole.
Elaine Baker
To my Ovaries
My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.