G’afternoon’, South Bend & beyond!
It’s 4:13 PM on the eighth day of October.
Here are two poems and a photograph of a bass guitar…
GHOST
By Leila Chatti
I like how easily I see
through you. There,
the slumbering bulb
of your heart
between the dead-branch-
thicket of your ribs.
Your fingers spindles
of air, slightly blue around
each tip. All
day I feel their cold
constant touch. You are heavier
than I thought; you cast long shadows
in the dark. I want to spend all night
talking into your silence.
In bed, you curl your whole nothing
against me, arm at my waist
my arm, breath on
my neck, my breath.
* poem from decomP, August 2014 (http://www.decompmagazine.com/ghost.htm)
THINGS THAT ARE MUFFLED OPEN
By Kristin Abraham
We start off slow like this, red. Watch
the stones tipping off our shoes, the snow.
Each second small and aspirin-flavored,
the learning of childhood. May I sit? May I
stand? Look both ways, please & thank you.
(Curtsy to the crowd.) (Pause for applause.)
May I sit? The world is gathering itself up
to answer, making hesitant check-marks.
May I stand? Lists of hurt already long
enough. Long enough, the world begins,
begins a sigh. So we’re looking at the
cracks in the lampshade. Looking for
the yellow to come through, where there’s biology: electricity: math, meaning
the more we touch it, the more it spreads.
Like menthol, heat rash. The louder it gets.
Stand back; I’m going to need that air.
the stones tipping off our shoes, the snow.
Each second small and aspirin-flavored,
the learning of childhood. May I sit? May I
stand? Look both ways, please & thank you.
(Curtsy to the crowd.) (Pause for applause.)
May I sit? The world is gathering itself up
to answer, making hesitant check-marks.
May I stand? Lists of hurt already long
enough. Long enough, the world begins,
begins a sigh. So we’re looking at the
cracks in the lampshade. Looking for
the yellow to come through, where there’s biology: electricity: math, meaning
the more we touch it, the more it spreads.
Like menthol, heat rash. The louder it gets.
Stand back; I’m going to need that air.
* poem from Little Red Riding Hood Missed the Bus, Subito Press, 2008
42milespress.com 