belonged,
finally gave it away.
Then she found out
it was worth $800.
V.
Yeah, so there are a lot of birds
in poems these days.
So what? When I get nervous
I like to think of their bones,
so hollow not even pity or
regret is stashed inside,
their bones like some kind
of invisible-making machine.
VI.
Is that black Lab loping down the street the one someone called for all last night?
Phae -ton, Ja- cob, An -gel, or R a-chel, depending on how near or far the man dopplered to my window.
VII.
I canât decide which is more truthful, to say Iâm sorry or thatâs too bad.
VIII.
One family is living in a trailer
next to their burned-out house.
It looks like they are having fun
gathered around the campfire.
The chimney still stands
like something that doesnât
know when to lie down.
Each driveway on the street
displays an address on a
large cardboard swath, since
thereâs nowhere else to post
the numbers. Itâs too soon
for me to be driving by like this.
IX.
Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) cleared up 50 years of DC comic inconsistency, undid the messy idea of the Multiverse. It took 12 issues to contain the disaster. Then surviving superheroes, like Wonder Woman, relaunched with a better idea of who they were. The dead stayed dead.
Now the Universe is divided neatly into pre- and post-Crisis.
X.
I confess stupid things Iâm sorry for:
â¢Â saying that mean thing about that nice teacher
â¢Â farting in a swimming pool
â¢Â in graduate school telling everyone how delicious blueberry-flavored coffee from 7-11 was
â¢Â posing for photographs next to beached debris.
How didnât I know everyone liked shade-grown fair-trade organic?
XI.
I wish I could spin around so fast that when I stopped, Iâd have a new name.
XII.
Hereâs a corner section
of a house washed up
on the shore, walls still
nailed together. Some bottles,
intact, are nesting inside.
I wasnât expecting this: ordinary
things. To be able to smell
someone elseâs cherry-flavored
cough syrup. There is
no rope strong enough
to put this back together.
To escape meltdown
at Fukushima-1, starfish
and algae have hitched rides.
They are invasive. What if
they are radioactive? Thank
goodness for the seagulls,
coming to peck out
everythingâs eyes.
from New Ohio Review
SAEED JONES
----
Body & Kentucky Bourbon
In the dark, my mindâs night, I go back
to your work-calloused hands, your body
and the memory of fields I no longer see.
Cheek wad of chew tobacco,
Skoal-tin ring in the back pocket
of threadbare jeans, knees
worn through entirely. How to name you:
farmhand, Kentucky boy, lover.
The one who taught me to bear
the back-throat burn of bourbon.
Straight, no chaser, a joke in our bed,
but I stopped laughing; all those empty bottles,
kitchen counters covered with beer cans
and broken glasses. To realize you drank
so you could face me the morning after,
the only way to choke down rage at the body
sleeping beside you. What did I know
of your fatherâs backhand or the pine casket
he threatened to put you in? Only now,
miles and years away, do I wince at the jokes:
white trash, farmerâs tan, good ole boy.
And now, alone, I see your face
at the bottom of my shot glass
before my own comes through.
from Poetry Daily
JOAN NAVIYUK KANE
----
Exhibits from the Dark Museum
In a shop of bloat and blown glass,
I pry an iridescent green beetle alive
from my ear and chase a dwindled trail
paved dire with coins towards three skulls
enclosed in a box of Olympia beer. Pale
grass: vitiligo thrust from the tract
of his scalp, now mine. Your voice,
a sforzando of light as it strikes the rock-
ridge hung above the dwellings.
Or, your voice, a grim notation of the sweep
between us. All night along with you
our sons respire. I fever through memory.
The world that survives me but a dangerous place.
from Alaska Quarterly
finally gave it away.
Then she found out
it was worth $800.
V.
Yeah, so there are a lot of birds
in poems these days.
So what? When I get nervous
I like to think of their bones,
so hollow not even pity or
regret is stashed inside,
their bones like some kind
of invisible-making machine.
VI.
Is that black Lab loping down the street the one someone called for all last night?
Phae -ton, Ja- cob, An -gel, or R a-chel, depending on how near or far the man dopplered to my window.
VII.
I canât decide which is more truthful, to say Iâm sorry or thatâs too bad.
VIII.
One family is living in a trailer
next to their burned-out house.
It looks like they are having fun
gathered around the campfire.
The chimney still stands
like something that doesnât
know when to lie down.
Each driveway on the street
displays an address on a
large cardboard swath, since
thereâs nowhere else to post
the numbers. Itâs too soon
for me to be driving by like this.
IX.
Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985) cleared up 50 years of DC comic inconsistency, undid the messy idea of the Multiverse. It took 12 issues to contain the disaster. Then surviving superheroes, like Wonder Woman, relaunched with a better idea of who they were. The dead stayed dead.
Now the Universe is divided neatly into pre- and post-Crisis.
X.
I confess stupid things Iâm sorry for:
â¢Â saying that mean thing about that nice teacher
â¢Â farting in a swimming pool
â¢Â in graduate school telling everyone how delicious blueberry-flavored coffee from 7-11 was
â¢Â posing for photographs next to beached debris.
How didnât I know everyone liked shade-grown fair-trade organic?
XI.
I wish I could spin around so fast that when I stopped, Iâd have a new name.
XII.
Hereâs a corner section
of a house washed up
on the shore, walls still
nailed together. Some bottles,
intact, are nesting inside.
I wasnât expecting this: ordinary
things. To be able to smell
someone elseâs cherry-flavored
cough syrup. There is
no rope strong enough
to put this back together.
To escape meltdown
at Fukushima-1, starfish
and algae have hitched rides.
They are invasive. What if
they are radioactive? Thank
goodness for the seagulls,
coming to peck out
everythingâs eyes.
from New Ohio Review
SAEED JONES
----
Body & Kentucky Bourbon
In the dark, my mindâs night, I go back
to your work-calloused hands, your body
and the memory of fields I no longer see.
Cheek wad of chew tobacco,
Skoal-tin ring in the back pocket
of threadbare jeans, knees
worn through entirely. How to name you:
farmhand, Kentucky boy, lover.
The one who taught me to bear
the back-throat burn of bourbon.
Straight, no chaser, a joke in our bed,
but I stopped laughing; all those empty bottles,
kitchen counters covered with beer cans
and broken glasses. To realize you drank
so you could face me the morning after,
the only way to choke down rage at the body
sleeping beside you. What did I know
of your fatherâs backhand or the pine casket
he threatened to put you in? Only now,
miles and years away, do I wince at the jokes:
white trash, farmerâs tan, good ole boy.
And now, alone, I see your face
at the bottom of my shot glass
before my own comes through.
from Poetry Daily
JOAN NAVIYUK KANE
----
Exhibits from the Dark Museum
In a shop of bloat and blown glass,
I pry an iridescent green beetle alive
from my ear and chase a dwindled trail
paved dire with coins towards three skulls
enclosed in a box of Olympia beer. Pale
grass: vitiligo thrust from the tract
of his scalp, now mine. Your voice,
a sforzando of light as it strikes the rock-
ridge hung above the dwellings.
Or, your voice, a grim notation of the sweep
between us. All night along with you
our sons respire. I fever through memory.
The world that survives me but a dangerous place.
from Alaska Quarterly
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