Love Poem
by Linda Pastan
I want to write you
a love poem as headlong
as our creek
after thaw
when we stand
on its dangerous
banks and watch it carry
with it every twig
every dry leaf and branch
in its path
every scruple
when we see it
so swollen
with runoff
that even as we watch
we must grab
each other
and step back
we must grab each
other or
get our shoes
soaked we must
grab each other
Eulogy
You must speak not only of great devastation—
we heard that not from a philosopher
but from our neighbor, Alfonso—
his eyes closed, he climbed other people’s porches and recited
to his child our National Anthem:
You must speak not only of great devastation—
when his child cried, he
made her a newspaper hat and squeezed his silence
like two pleats of an accordion:
We must speak not only of great devastation—
and he played that accordion out of tune in a country
where the only musical instrument is the door.
from Deaf Republic
Here is a poem I’ve always loved by Solmaz Sharif, whose necessary work, including her first book Look, I can’t recommend enough–and who I am lucky to know not just on paper but in life as a dear friend.
“Beauty”
Frugal musicality is how Kristeva described depression’s speech
Cleaning out the sink drain
The melted cheese
The soggy muesli
My life can pass like this
Waiting for beauty
Tomorrow—I say
A life is a thing you have to start
The fridge is a thing with weak magnets, a little sweaty on the inside
A bag of shriveled lime
Arugula frozen then thawed then frozen again, still sealed
I haven’t touched anyone in a year
You asked for beauty, and one morning, a small blue eggshell on the stoop, shattered open, its contents gone
Likely eaten
M asked if I’ve ever made a choice to live and why
I lied the way you lie to the suicidal
A few times, I said—not Most days
Most mornings
No, not morning
Morning I am still new
Still possible, I’m still possibly
Usually by 3:00
When grandmother died, she hadn’t been called beautiful in at least half a century
Is never described as such
Her fallen stockings, the way she spit, thwack of the meat cleaver, the little bones she sucked clean and piled on her plate, not really looking at anyone, and certainly not me
live in the layers 