Announcement My daughter is making pasta; it is an event! I would rather be asleep where I could tell my father pasta! and maybe anxiety meds, dad. Yes, everyone thinks you're anxious. But not anymore while we're asleep. I think the dog will miss you. She's asleep in her ears where I'm not calling…

Pebbles and Bread Hansel put out the pebbles to shine in the moonlight and show the way home. One good trick deserves another. Fool me twice? The bread was eaten by the birds, and the path was dark. All roads lead to a house, but a bone can only fool old eyes for so long. Push has to come to…

Walking Beside You You're goading me again today my room is crowded with you all your avatars are shoulder to shoulder jammed into my elevator – the joker, the dreamer the setting son you're under my skin, I can feel you crawling over my bones, squeezing my organs you brush past my heart and it…

Anatomy of Joy Is love for life lived through the liver does the spleen really vent do the chambers of the heart give sanctuary to our dreams? I lost an organ that isn't on any anatomy chart I can feel the space where it should be but not why you took it away from me. You turned me inside out…

Snowman I saw you out there walking off the trail in your big black boots. Today as I looked at a line of old trees you walked as if you were floating past frozen landmarks into the forest of my dream. You're so deep in the firs now not even the satellites can find you, you love the snow, and the…

Swimming Lessons When you were four you were sure you were drowning even as I swooped you up in my arms from under the water. I made you stop and tell me the whole sobbing story ending with – you came and got me that's right, I will always come and get you when you fall below the surface when…

Solstice Prayer I've waited all year for this one To feel the load shift The longest night turns a corner Wheels grinding on their axis The soldiers of unhappiness Are returning to their barracks I've held up my end Now you hold up yours. Robert Guard has been published in Harpur Palate, Nimrod,…

WHO You say now is the time of tall trees time to hunt or be hunted. You, the voice of the long vowel open the book of night. The stars have pulled me out to my backyard with a question as high as the moon. In one lonely word you tell me how deep this night is, how long it will be, everything…

Father’s Day It's a quiet day, and he too is quiet, on his deck, with a trail of smoke and a sweaty glass of bourbon. He contemplates the carpenter bee chewing a hole in his floorboard. He stuffs a cigarette butt in it, as if to say, That fixes everything. Now he's down on his hands and knees,…

At The Phlebotomist I ask how she came to blood-letting, eldest of nine seemed enough to choose a life caring for others. There's intimacy in the needle so we keep our talk light, she says it's scar tissue the vein defending itself. Out the window the sky must be angry, how else to explain a wisp…

Knife What if a poem has a knife, does the poem have a responsibility? Does it make a difference if the knife is lying on a table or in a drawer? What kind of knife is it? Most important what is the knife used for? This is where the poem comes in: that knife lying on the table has a history,

The Story Picture a room like this, the washer agitating in the background when I awake I am not in my own bed, a single lamp with a pale shade lights a book on a wooden table, it is written in braille for only the blind dwell here. Brushing my fingers over the bumps I am surprised to understand a…

Mrs. McGillicuddy Mrs. McGillicuddy came highly recommended. I had two candidates; I chose Mrs. McGillicuddy because she had an Irish name, just like my father would have done. He was the sort of Irishman who lived and died by that code, despite only leaving New York State twice in his lifetime. I…

You call me to the window facing west where the sky has drawn down its every color. You are a dark silhouette, this the side of you I can't discern. We stand silent in our guest room with its dusters and shams and stiff duvet, antique bed too small for today's restlessness. We look out…

Still the Land Yields My daughter tells me Ohio once was so filled with trees a squirrel could cross it, east to west or north to south, and never touch the ground. We drive through empty fields that stretch and roll over mild and ambling hills, copses of bare trees curving their edges like the…

Pura Vida Come for me, but don't expect me to go easily. The air here is soft and warm, and the birds are chirp-chirping. Grass grows tall in the sun. The horses rest in the shade, their lines tethered above them to a tree. A brown bird attempts burglary at the market. This is a new country. Tell…

How to Live With the Wind On a morning when the tall grass and the trees and all things rooted but pliant are service only to the wind, running as it is across the salt marsh, bending the cord grass down and then doubling back, dark cowlicks hither and yon across the low brackish mead, when the…

All These Seasons We Have Weathered I imagine now my warmth for you, the subtle hum of heat from fire burning low upon the hearth in the early days of June. Barely cold enough to justify, and its glow, meager in the later light cutting slantwise through a trailing rain. Who said all things needed…

I don’t ask you how you are, though your mom died suddenly just weeks ago. I ask, instead, how is your dad, and is he gaining back weight? Did your siblings take good care of him when you left with your family on the trip you had planned long before? Did you all like the spot, and are you ready…

You haven’t seen the color amber until you've witnessed the morning sun advance across a low-country marsh in early spring, its dark pools trembling in the cold maritime breeze, cut only by the stilted legs of egret and heron. Is this religion? Could there be on the far side of earth at sunset,…

This poem could be about beauty through change, like seasons, always seasons—or a chrysalis, or the grass greening from bottom up after months dormant. Always, it is more beautiful after— the cold or hardship, the rebirth, after the transformation. Now, I am a woman in the after— after the making…

Of God and Dust A small boy sits behind me, speaks through the crack between seat and window, seemingly into my ear. The plane is broken. The plane has broke off. We made it. We did not die. He laughs, not believing himself for one minute. I don't fear it, but I text my kids, I love you with all…

Creation You are sure you cannot be happy, rolled like corpse in dark blanket, curled into the curve of your sadness, despair pulled up to your chin with one hand, the other arm extended, one finger nearly pointing, like painter's Creation of Man before the fall. The many walls since, etched with…

When I’m Craving Something Salty Sometimes I cry in the CVS parking lot just thinking about what it feels like to love you Tasting my tears while the radio plays and Joni Mitchell gives me advice I'll harmonize but won't heed Salt seasons the flavor of your name on my tongue You taste like joy and…

Instructions For Opening Fall in love with someone you shouldn't / for the first time / be brave / allow it / lie to yourself / this is fine / the only heart at risk is your own / let that wagered heart overflow / display it on your sleeve / not a fashion statement / but an open question that…

Call Me by Your Name For the first several months after you died everyone would call me by your name. It was like I was channeling you. The vacuum your sudden inexistence left was too large to overcome. It had to go somewhere, so it took root in the center of my chest and broadcast itself…

Without Friends I. Unexpected, a friend invites me to wander the little shops selling their wares. We talk the whole time. I wonder how often I can get her to laugh tonight. It is a pleasure to hear my friend laugh. We buy and sometimes un-buy in our heads and laugh. I bring some small print home…

The Last Time I Talked to My Father I told him I was fine. He told me he was fine. Talked about football. How bad our team was going. Hoping they wouldn't finish last. Agreeing second-last would be a victory. He needed to pee. I carried him to the toilet. His body was lighter than a dry shirt.…

Coda I didn't speak to my father on his final day. Didn't feed him his final meal. Didn't wipe away his final tear. Didn't hear his final laughter. Didn't cherish his final breath. Didn't smile like hell, saying everything positive I could think of to make death a little less like death. I was…

The Upside-Down Shaker Chair The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it. – Thomas Merton The chair hangs on a hook flat against a silent tongue and groove wall, upside down and empty. What's the…

Astronomers Explain Why There Are No Green Stars We're told it has to do with our eyes, what they can and cannot perceive, that the multispectral light emitted by stars won't allow our eyes to see only green. But I like to think it has more to do with how long the stars have existed, precisely…

Caving The old man sat at his desk, one hand scratching at an itch beneath his brown corduroy pants, the other scrolling, his finger guiding the wheel of the mouse. The only sounds in the stillness of the house were the whirring of appliances. He paused his scrolling on a story of people who went…

The Last Time We Spoke I was in labor. I take solace in the knowing That the last goodbye wasn't casual It was not a breezy see you later It was a breathless I can no longer speak through The splitting of my searing cervix. Dolo Diaz is a poet with roots in Spain, currently residing in California.…

Annoying Stranger You used to be the adored only boy— the spoiled rotten, the only one that could eat bananas, the pupil of her eyes. You were also the youngest, so then double cherished— specialness compounding. And now, that one is still her beloved in her memory, and you are the idiot in her…

Dead Seal on Asilomar Beach An archipelago of balding flesh mapped across your muted gray fur. The abandonment of a corpse— a full surrender to gravity, nestling you in the sand. Your hind flippers, pallid flesh exposed with some pink. Is there blood remaining? Like the languid hand of a dame with…

The Day I Broke the Pink Step The staircase was pink and white granite, glistening new when we moved to the new house— the one my father had built beside the old house where his own father lived— because my mother was bringing her father, and the two grandfathers did not get along. There was an…

Prepossession At the end of the process, we do not own — The product. Correct. The product? We don't own our baby? The debt must be satisfied. We're talking about a baby. Nine months, then a baby. That's your definition. It may be less. Could be multiples. What's your definition? We don't define…

Pick ourselves up Because Wilfred Brimley said we must, we threatened to enjoy our sexuality. A mustached man knows what's best when he's singing. So I sang to you & grew extra whiskers. You tried too. Listen to old Gus. He's a jazz singer. (Aphrodisiacs come in dusty packages.) Born in '34, at…

we always find the sunlight folding bodies folding light into crooked shadows— tapestries of crabs and archers and serving spoons from stains leftover in the sky–and stretching wrist-to-ankle over the patio. we reached for the stories they promised: the moon pulling at the ocean, cows grazing on…

Planting/hallucinations —For Ayi Could we suck on the pap of milkweeds again, eyes sunned-in, freckles forming on unmasked faces? Could we turn over soil ungloved: stones, earthworms, and all? Chilis would get under nail beds, reddening our split cuticles, and we would take it all in. Because,…

Us, while a tornado brews with gunshots —For J Chicago is windswept nights curled up in the fire escape and bags forming under our eyes, while they still shine like stars erupting into laughter as we stare ourselves into the center of each other's universes. Chicago is us leaning against washers…

At the laundromat with you We exchange five-dollar bills for quarters. You hand me the red coin dispenser from Chuck E. Cheese so I fumble the copper-wrought disks in, one by one. I drop one, but you catch it in your calloused palm. You press it back into mine and the smell of iron sinks into my…

Instruction for your twenties you know so little you are nobody. civilize your handwriting, razor milk moustaches, learn Paul Cézanne, participate in democracy. my dear, axe the umbilical root to your fully beautyless hometown; choose your birthplace. learn you are not the center of universe but…

Taking the Time You have to take time, at least once a day, to tap and squeeze the peaches, plums and nectarines when you pass the wooden bowl sitting there on the kitchen table. Jason Ryberg is the author of twenty-two books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders,…

Feast and Famine I can distinctly remember the sounds. My father screaming at us to get out. My battered mother crying hysterically and begging him to calm down. The gun going off, its bullet smashing into the screen of the massive 1980s television set that my little brother and I were standing…

ghazal for a homebody after Angel Nafis know what the chiffon curtains know. stitch by stitch, your body has made a home here. her head a veiled bride. when your family leaves, hang their coats. when all voices are gone, frame their songs. the his and her towels wait for next autumn's bride. the…

Ode to Laufey and All the 13-Year-Old Selves After Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib By the time I wake up, another one of my half-grown friends has posted your new bridge to their story and I hear it all the way from the other side of the world. And it was then that I wished you could teach me how to cry.…

How to Hold a Storm You don't. You let it chew through your roof tiles first. Let it lick the salt from your collarbones, let it take the porch swing like a hostage. This is how you learn: by being the last thing standing in a room full of flying debris. Some nights you'll mistake thunder for your…

Six Hours I have not existed in the absence of silence with a stranger for so long lack of oxygen metal tube when the plane landed we guessed each other's names, we got them wrong I watched you walk away never saw you again, thought of you often Haley DiRenzo is a writer, poet, and practicing…

Base Broken Broken bristle of your bone at the wrist left to mix with the dust on the baseball diamond. Sliding into home at crushing force breaking open, spilling blood. A sticky pool of black gravel beneath you as you witnessed the half of your arm dangling like from another body. Did they pluck…