Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jade Kleiner
Deeper Than
After Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
There is the green that birthed all pine trees. I had a green turtle necklace just like that once, I lost it, not in a pocket, not under my bed, not down a drain, just lost. The shell wasn’t turquoise not emerald not verdant not turtleshell and so on, just green for its own sake, the kind of green that points north, that can’t be contained in paint, a deeper green than my eyes. I can’t retrace my steps, it’s lost like I never owned it. But a green that true isn’t anyone’s to own, not mine, it’s not even free, just loose.
Jade Kleiner is rooted in New England. Her poetry, fiction, and haiku can be found in Free the Verse, Bright Flash Literary Journal, Haikuniverse, and elsewhere. She is transgender.
Karina Jutzi
I think today of the boy in choir class
who closed his eyes when we sang
about Jesus. Who swayed, as if the Lord
Isabelle Thompson
We saw a kingfisher threading the bright needle
of his body along the river. We saw a shag, stamping
her prehistoric shadow on the sky. We saw a hobby,
Roger Robinson
We walk from cane fields,
cotton in our nightshirts, sweet
Amirah Al Wassif
My double sits before me now. I stare deep into her, as I do every day after midnight. When I raise my hands, she raises hers.
Sophie Lankarani
Even though I only once traced your streets with my own feet,
you wandered into my dreams anyway
sliding in through my grandmother’s stories,
Mark A. Hill
She wills his brush in colour
and chalking, fierce hued flaws,
which fall flat on the canvas
Rebecca Wheatley
He thought his heart was broken yet the day began again.
Katie Beswick
We were on my pink love seat
skin touching skin
I was drunk but longing
circled me, like stars
from a cartoon head wound
Kate Hendry
So what if there’s a dead patch.
Remember the havoc
unfettered fire makes –