Archives of Tuesday Poem

tilted pelvis toward a velvet sky

linted with stars

                              you offer your self

                              as sanctuary

present your softest place to be shined

into                              you tell the night that

                              you have held secrets like black holes,

surely you can take constellations

and the generations that will come

                              after these stars have died

                              will find their way through life

by the stars of your pussy

Kamari Bright is our poet in residence for July. Read our interview with her

Previously: Chalice, And the Moon, Nephilim, and The Garden.

And in that moment

when he saw her

partake of the angel that

was the “forbidden fruit”

of the tree of God,

Adam realized he 

was inadequate.

Naked.

He saw what the woman

pulled from his body

knew long before, that

he was dim and 

dirt-made. That the angel

was her own piece of

forever to consume, while

he was merely her 

limitation in paradise.

And Adam felt the heave

of less-than like the first

heart that ever broke,

then told Eve to

put some fucking clothes on.
Kamari Bright is our poet in residence for July. 

Previously: Chalice, And the Moon, and Nephilim.

When you ask your mother how you came to be

she will look at you presently but be somewhere else.

Her eyes will light with the warm glows of conception

and you will see in her remembrance that you came

forth from light — pure blinding light. As you continue

reading the story that her face always tells, you will

trail her eyes as they land on the figure of her mortal

husband. And then, just like that, the light will be gone

but your mother will be back with you presently. She

will tell you again with her mouth the answer that her

eyes never seem to corroborate…

                                                                                                           “Your father.”
Kamari Bright is our poet in residence for July. 

Previously: Chalice, and And the Moon.

And the moon, high above

and removed from all,

will decide when to exile her

from eden. When to begin

the ruination of a life. When

to pull rivers from virgin wombs.

And the girl, down below

and under it all

will never question the day 

she becomes unclean. Will learn that

some things will never be 

her choice. Will see a rock 

govern her body

before she ever will.
Kamari Bright is our poet in residence for July. 

Previously: Chalice.

(for the people of Flint, MI with empty cups and running faucets)

Someone fed them

A story

Of Jesus turning water to wine

Here they heave

From their subsequent thirst
Lies wafer-thin as the body

Lead pours out as the blood

Do this in remembrance

Do this & remember it

Do this & dismember them
Amen.
Kamari Bright is our poet in residence for July

我在美白的日子

謝絕探訪

因為怕光

便不能應付朋友閃亮的鏡片

那同情和諒解

自以為灼熱

其實最會殺死正在更生的細胞
最近由於戀愛

所以患上了黑斑過敏症

那是一種會隨年月

而衰老的情愛

而且深入皮膚的內層

任算天然海底植物提煉的磨砂

也磨不掉的

一生的印記
聽說SKII有剝殼雞蛋的面膜

可以二十四小時再生暗啞的傷口

祇要循環使用二十八天

一心一意的信任和等候

你總會帶著在外面因遊蕩

而老去的容顏回來

可是我天生對雞蛋敏感

而且無法釋懷雞與蛋先後的次序

終於也搞不清楚應該

跟你相戀然後分手還是

先分手才再相戀

於是最後決定這兩個護膚程序

同一時間進行
當然

我並不想真的

把你看成無藥可救的黑頭或粉刺

因為深層的潔淨和漂白

會帶來切膚之痛

但在不能換臉的情勢下

祇好戒掉對你的念念不忘
我在美白的日子

長高了一英寸 長胖了兩公斤

不再失眠、厭食和怠倦

皮膚懂得飲水

思源 明白愛慕自己

可以去除皺紋和暗瘡

讓陽光帶來小鳥的歌唱
translation

On skin-whitening days

I politely refuse to go out

because I’m afraid of the light

and can’t handle my friends’ glittering lenses

their sympathy and understanding

seems scorching

when what actually kills is in the midst of multiplying cells
Because of love I’ve recently

developed allergic dark spots
 
it’s a kind of passion

that ages over time

and embeds deep in the skin

a bit of sand polished by seafloor flora

can’t rub away

a lifetime of lines
I’ve heard SK-II makes a facial mask from peeled eggs
 
and in twenty-four hours it can heal mute dark wounds

it needs to cycle for twenty-eight days

and with wholehearted trust and patience

you can rejuvenate a face

grown old from its travels

but I was born with a sensitivity to eggs

and I can’t forget the question of the chicken and egg

and finally I’m not sure if I should

love you first and then break up or

first break up and then love you again

so finally I decide that both of these skin-protective sequences
should be carried out simultaneously
Of course

I don’t really want

to see you as incurable blackheads or acne 

since deep cleaning and bleaching

will bring skin-rending pain

but since I can’t change my face

I can only give up thinking about you
On skin-whitening days

I grow an inch I gain two kilos

with no more insomnia or lack of appetite or listlessness 

the skin knows

its origins it knows how to love itself

it can dislodge wrinkles and dark veins

and let the sun usher in birdsong

洛楓 (Lok Fung) is our Poet in Resident for June. These poems are from the book 自我紙盒藏屍的日子 (Days When I Hide My Corpse
In A Cardboard Box), Zephyr Press, 2018, translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman


Previously: 即溶愛情咖啡 (Instant Love and Coffee), 愛上虛擬情人 (In Love with a Virtual Lover), and 給電腦的情書 (Love Letter to a Computer)

滿以為很瞭解你因為

跟你這樣朝夕相對呼吸相連

已經三年零十個月了

我的姓名、性別、履歷和理想

通通分類存檔並且定期更新

任滑鼠隨時進入或下載

你都給我無限寬容或寬頻

遊歷於上下合縱左右連橫的空間

你輕盈的樂聲總吻合我跳躍的舞步

跳出情感互動的一片藍幕

(藍幕的下角有青草

上角有小花和恐龍)

原以為可以和你白頭到老永結同心

一如酒樓菜牌上紅底金字的承諾

但原來你也有背叛的時刻

偷偷跟旁人搭訕然後搭線而且

還很小心地讓我讀到你們的情話與暗碼

於是我開始猜疑你花亂而閃爍的面容

暴力敲打鍵盤上每個凹凸可疑的指模

或用苦纏的動作拉扯已經鬆脫的電線

期求你不再板起冷漠的凝視

對我輸入的話語不聞不問

或隨意亂碼顧左右而言他

甚至突然自動關機從此不再跟我會面

是的 沒有受過專業訓練的我

並不能熟練地操作戀愛的各種程式

——密碼錯誤，請重新輸入

  (你說過會一輩子待我好

無論我們是什麼但那

    「什麼」到底是什麼?)

——程式偏差，無法存檔

  (我們曾經一起吃飯的

那間茶餐廳因為

  樓宇遷拆而倒閉了)

——網頁無法啟動，請稍候

  (當我打算在你的電子郵箱留下

  口訊時你剛巧致電到我的傳真機

  彼此的網絡因為佔線而阻斷)

——線路繁忙，請按Refresh 按下去突然一屋暗燈

牆壁發出陣陣燒焦的惡臭

當神經線錯接電腦系統時才發現

自己原來是個電腦與愛情白痴

——「懂得愛戀自己的人才得享永生!」

上帝(如果有的話)也禁不住竊笑然後搖頭嘆息

為我這句史無前例的盟誓
translation

I thought I knew you because

all night and day our breath mingles together

for three years and ten months

my name, gender, resumé, and ideas

have been classified as files and updated at the set time

entered or downloaded according to the mouse

you’ve given me unlimited broadmindedness and broadband

to traverse the up/down left/right horizontal/vertical space 

your lovely musical voice accompanies my dancing

your blue screen quits out of emotional interactions

(there’s grass in the lower corner of the screen

in the upper corner there are tiny flowers and dinosaurs)

I used to think we would grow old together

like in the promises of a red and gold menu

but you’ve had your moments of betrayal

secretly conversing with others and making contacts

but also carefully letting me read your intimate notes and codes

until I began to suspect your unruly flickering face

pounding the keyboard with all my suspicious fingers

or bitterly pulling on the loose cords

I pray you won’t ever stare blankly at me again

ignoring every word I type

or casually change the subject to code

until you suddenly shut down and refuse to see me

yes, since I have no special training

I can’t just skillfully make various attachments

——Wrong password, please try again

(you said you would wait for me your whole life

no matter what but what does that

“what” really mean?)

——ERROR, your file has not been saved

(we used to eat together

but that café closed

when the building was torn down)

——This page cannot be opened, please try again in a moment

(just as I planned to send you an email

you sent a message to my fax machine

and with the line busy, neither one could go through)

——The line is currently busy, please refresh the page

and when I refresh it things suddenly go dark

the wall lets off an acrid stench of burning

and when I mistakenly connect my nerves to the system I realize

I was an idiot when it came to computers and love

——“Only those who understand love will live forever!”

even God (if there is) has to snicker and sigh

over this unprecedented oath of alliance.

洛楓 (Lok Fung) is our Poet in Resident for June. These poems are from the book 自我紙盒藏屍的日子 (Days When I Hide My Corpse
In A Cardboard Box), Zephyr Press, 2018, translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman


Previously: 即溶愛情咖啡 (Instant Love and Coffee), and 愛上虛擬情人 (In Love with a Virtual Lover)

相思如雪花

抖落閃動的黑白

不在地上在心上

擾亂了高清的熒幕

你的面目糊了

哭笑拉成曲線

似有還無

我企圖伸手撫捉

電腦仍然溫熱

但鍵盤早已冷成一堆摩斯密碼

不肯吐露真情
甚麼時候喜歡都可以

隨便會面或道別

祗要打開電源

鍵入角色的名字

你必定依約前來

比情人準時

說鎖定的對白

走預設的刀光劍影

凝視鏡頭的所在

掛一個因果不變的微笑

這樣煽情的劇目

你我都演得生死與共

從搜狐到土豆

我們各在天涯的網絡

所思在遠道
不在眼前

眼前祗剩下一堆死灰

人去如燈滅

這些年來他總蒼白無語

曾經抱住的身影

最後祗給我一個漂流的網址

承諾、問候

祗寄存於病毒的電郵

打從一個人開始愛上自己之後

便註定不同心 也離居

於是我把他的名姓和密碼

一拼按下消除
Translation

Yearning like snowflakes

shakes off the twinkling of black and white

not on the earth but in the heart

distorting the high-definition screen

your face is blurred

laughter and tears pulled and warped

like a return to nothingness

I try to catch it

the computer is tepid

and the keyboard has long since frozen into Morse code

unwilling to reveal the truth
Whenever you like is fine

you can come and go as you please

just flip the power on

type in the role’s name

and you’ll arrive as you promised

more punctual than a lover

for a canned conversation

with the preinstalled glint of cold steel staring at the camera

putting on an unwavering smile

this rousing play

that we acted out holding nothing back from sohu.com to tudou.com

we’re both on the internet

and the one we love is far away
Not before our eyes

before our eyes is nothing but a pile of dead embers

people leave like a lamp clicking off

these past few years he’s been pale and silent

and the form I once embraced

only gave me a website in the end

promises and best wishes

are sent in infected email

after one begins to love oneself

hearts will separate and live apart

and so with one stroke

I delete his name and password

洛楓 (Lok Fung) is our Poet in Resident for June. These poems are from the book 自我紙盒藏屍的日子 (Days When I Hide My Corpse
In A Cardboard Box), Zephyr Press, 2018, translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman


Previously: 即溶愛情咖啡 (Instant Love and Coffee)

Translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman

最近愛上即溶咖啡

溶掉你 像溶掉我心

留下污漬

在牆壁、衣角和抽屜

發霉 沒有發臭

許是咖啡因已經過期

連閨怨也無法保鮮
是因為神探伽俐略才愛上咖啡

心跳、手震

與愛情的凶案無關

(誰是無辜的殺害者?)

跌宕、懸疑

和你的行蹤脫線

(你的不在場證明!)

偶爾會在網上發現

跟你同名同姓的人

但網海恢恢 疏而缺漏

我的死前留言如被肢解的屍身

總載浮載沉

祗好離座離線走長長的階梯

從前半生走到下半世
最後落腳空曠的天井抱著貓看天

清晨的陽光濕著昨夜的雨

鳥聲啞著城市的煙塵

貓的尾巴很短 比我的愛念長

倏忽鬆手便從此滑落

貓毛與虛無
我低頭對自己的影子發笑

舉頭尋找一片青天

祗得來一張藍幕的暈眩

像電腦的閃光

然後樓下傳來兇狠的狗吠

尖銳的嘶叫咬住我的聽覺不放

狼心 如鐵

我追著黑貓咒罵

胃裏一陣翻騰

決定再來一杯咖啡

溶掉你 像溶掉我心
Translation

Recently I’ve fallen in love with instant coffee

dissolving you like dissolving my heart

leaving dark stains

on the walls, clothing, drawers

mildewing odorless

perhaps the caffeine has expired

not even love poetry can keep things fresh
I fell in love with coffee because of Detective Galileo

my heart leaps and hands tremble

but that has nothing to do with love’s homicide case

(who murdered the innocent?)

boldness, suspense

and your whereabouts offline

(your alibi!)

once in a while on the web I’ll discover

someone else with your name

but the internet is vast scattered and uneven

my last note before I die will be like a dismembered corpse

bobbing up and down

it’s better to go offline and climb a long flight of stairs

from the first half of your life to the second
At last I’m on the open patio with the cat watching the sky

the early morning sunlight is wet from last night’s rain

the birdsong is hoarse from the city’s pollution

the cat’s tail is quite short it’s longer than my affection

I let go swiftly and off slips

cat fur and nothingness
I bow to my own shadow and smile

I lift my head to look for a bit of clear sky

but all I see is a dizzying blue curtain

like the flickering of a computer screen

then a ferocious barking drifts up from a lower floor

the sharp yapping sinks its teeth into my senses

a wolf heart like iron

I chase the black cat cursing

my stomach churns

I decide to have another cup of coffee

dissolving you like dissolving my heart

洛楓 (Lok Fung) is our Poet in Resident for June. These poems are from the book 自我紙盒藏屍的日子 (Days When I Hide My Corpse
In A Cardboard Box), Zephyr Press, 2018, translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman, and used with permission.

Last night while watering the garden,
 
I mistakenly elbowed a yellow jacket

or perhaps it was a carpenter bee 
casually bathing in a galaxy
of purple astor. And then, as if

taking the Circle Train home,

we accordioned together vaudeville-style —
our physical margins shaken
by the surface of bright lies.

And through the torn sleeve

of my sweater, I felt the stinger 
insert until you stumbled, slow-motion, 
into the flowerpot; inert like a lover

who has overexerted himself,

then lies down in the gold husk  
of a late July night. 
Now all that remains of us is a raised scar,

burning like a silver dollar —

swiftly seen-to with wet tea bags and copper pennies —
the way we tried to exorcise the toxins 
from our lives: a blue basin next to the crib

of a sick infant or a vacuum cleaner hung,

then ignored, in the guest room closet.  
When you left, I didn’t recognize myself in the drapes.
I took down all the mirrors
 
from the walls, subsisting on huckleberries

and the machinery of my heart
which came as a continuous surprise —
the new knowledge that
 
my body could outlast death —

could heal this deep, sharp sting.

    Susan Rich is our poet in residence for May. 


    Previously: Present Tense: Seattle, Profiled, The Scare Crow, and Map of the London Underground Painted on a Miniature Cocktail Tray.

From my room I retrace the intricate lace of maps,
 
trails of saffron and blue. I begin my story
anywhere, pull a thread of burnt sienna

to the Elephant and Castle, 
or travel a Circle to the Barbican.

The world submerged makes sense to me —
the scent of a man’s Cadbury, the sound

of a voice asking please do not leave…
I savor the place names of stations I have dreamed.

It’s what isn’t here that interests me. 
How this trinket tray adores deception —

provides a legend to the Angel,
a lover for the Piccadilly train.

How this late 20th century souvenir
keeper of beach glass, tea bag, one tiny bell

creates more than any cartographer would tell. 
I lean toward a stranger, grey eyes reading

mine before the doors next open, slightly
close, before we rise and go —

past a young girl offering Puccini
by the escalator’s puddled edge —

past travelers, erotic and unknown. 
How we must forgive a map its half-truths,

its absent streaks of grief,
and arrive in a back-lit glance

to where time for one moment rinses clean.

    Susan Rich is our poet in residence for May. 


    Previously: Present Tense: Seattle, Profiled, and The Scare Crow.

One must have a mind of a gardener

To regard the dirt with thoughts

Approximate to wonder, to live in
Fascination of the earthworm —

Pink hermaphrodite of the jiggling zither;

And to behold the Mrs. Jekyll rose,
To note the light’s addictive sugaring

In sun gold tomatoes

And not to think of quiet 
Promises in the winter’s chill and frost,

The past delicious juices, that in time
 
Attaches bitterness to skin, to rot, then snow —
Which alters the birds predictive packages of shit —

Companion to the gardener who knows

She must garden through the rain and in light snow. 

    Susan Rich is our poet in residence for May. 


    Previously: Present Tense: Seattle, and Profiled.

— for LaMonte
An ear bud without music
 
expertly hangs from his collar like a safety line

for closing down the world.

This body, he works so hard to make invisible —

this body, he cannot make invincible —

walks into College English, his head held

towards the floor. Seventeen. He picks the space apart
from classmates. He’s a window, he’s a door —

his golden eye telescopes, examines the air above —

a third eye with visions he will one day learn

to steer: pathway to a Shakespearean atmosphere.

He argues with himself, his professor, in the arc

of a world not yet understood.

He writes 100 sonnets but shows no one. 

    Susan Rich is our poet in residence for May. 


    Previously: Present Tense: Seattle.

A bell ringer hipsways by market stalls,
 
bellows hello to the man who brings the chanterelles, 
the immigrant families building bouquets of tulips

to launch like ships, the cheese makers and fishmongers, 
knife sharpeners and kombucha concocters. 
She rings her instrument along each row signaling time

for the buying and selling to begin. 
Are you feeling lost? Did you think I shifted

scenes to a mercado in San Salvador or an Irish city street? 
Please! There’s no need for a Starbucks here! 
At the Farmers Market, the tangerines reign supreme

along with local lettuce and trendy Tuscan melons.
When the bell ringer passes the blueberry farmer with eyes
 
of indigo spangled in gold, she tells him if a fork falls,
a stranger is coming to dinner and then walks on quickly
looking into the light snow of the cherry blossoms.

Her grandmother would have washed her mouth with soap 
for even looking at a man — a light bulb turning on
 
in the old woman’s head: gangster, predator, no-goodnik. 
Don’t sweep after midnight she’d say — or you’ll miss 
your good luck. She of the Lithuanian shtetl,
 
she who knew what it was like to have to obliterate
the scent of winter Daphne, the acres of daffodils.

    Susan Rich is our poet in residence for May. 

The rain pinched the glass

of the windowpane.
The rain’s tiny pelts nagged at the glass

like the conversation

she was avoiding having.
The avoidance made her feel

removed from herself

while at the same time even more

introspective.
The room in which she sat

was well lit, so outside

looked like asphalt

on a playground’s court.
She could see the orange ball,

bouncing lower, lower, lower —

until it stopped.
The ball, its visibility, then disappearance,

reminded her

that her words, too, dissolved like this. 
Or were her words, against the dark,

a bright, bright blue?
Jeanine Walker is our Poet in Residence for April.


Previously: As soon as the man says to the little girl, "I want to touch you,", First Confession, and At Night, Asleep

She comes into our room again,

her first time in weeks.

I hear a small stir on the floor,

the rustle of crumpled paper or a bag.

Last month I would have covered my head

at this noise, groaned in irritation,

but not so today. I lie quiet in hopes

that she complete her first return. 
On the phone last night, a surprise,

my mom said, Your dad

and I divorced when you were ten.

For two or three years, you didn’t have stable
 
parents. I was caught up in my head

and couldn’t really be there for you.

Her years-old absence, precise, pristine, still stings me,
 
though I feel some shame that it does —
it’s like being a child again,

though I am all grown.

An aching need for my mother
 
originated decades ago, landed,
 
dug a hole, and took root. She was gone.

Sadness grew then, sprouted up and bloomed,

blue and dark, with petals that peeled easily
 
from the slight stems when I touched them.
This was all I knew of growing,

so I tended it

and cultivated a garden

of these flowers, navy-dark, gray-rimmed, the kind
 
of night in which no stars can be seen
 
by the eye that searches up for them.

I mistook the sadness for beauty. It was.

I mourned each blue petal that fell.
That was a thing, my mother said.

It’s not surprising 

that loving causes you worry.

Sometimes sadness seemed the heart of love. Tonight,

though, I lie in wait for her, the cat.

I’m hopeful she’ll come back. With her here,

I’ve learned some joy, how to honor another’s

right to be. So too with my Boo,
sound asleep, snoring, not worried

when, or if, she will

return. He settles in his sleep
 
against my body, his warm skin on my skin,

solid and soft, a quiet promise

that some loves are here to stay. They will.

A small rustle, just a thread, and she jumps

from the wooden floor to the bed. 
Jeanine Walker is our Poet in Residence for April.


Previously: As soon as the man says to the little girl, "I want to touch you,", and First Confession

The color in the room was yellow.

I don’t know if I knew then why,

or that yellow is as much the color of nerves

as it is of cowardice, as I stood stiff-straight

in front of Father Panda and examined his face.

It was wide, porous, ruddy, full as a moon beneath

a wave of curly hair the color of the pews. 

We both wore white, he in his vestments,
 
me in my dress, all decked out
 
with the things I knew I must have done wrong.

From the vestibule, the smell of incense wafted in.
 
Outside the room I could hear the sound of children

trying hard to be quiet. A bit of holy water

splashed from someone’s finger to his forehead.

I was bad. I was definitely bad. I thought. The bell

tolled. Father Panda’s wide face split into a smile.

I amused him with my silence. I was not a sinner,

after all — was it possible? No. I gulped, stammered,

dug in: “I can’t think of anything.” That was the sin.
Jeanine Walker is our Poet in Residence for April.


Previously: As soon as the man says to the little girl, "I want to touch you,".

            a saw stirs up its loud whine

            to separate the limbs of the tree

            from its trunk. 
A car stereo begins playing

                        the entire soundtrack of Good Morning, Vietnam
      and she hears “hot and wet” “hot and wet” —

                                    “it’s nice if you’re with a lady”
                  and she feels the last, labored breath of Robin Williams

                        like a dull machete attempting to slice through the swamp grass

                                    as he suffocates himself

                                                outside his closet door
and all of the suicides inside of her

                                    lift their heads and eyes,

                        like turtles lined up alongside

a creek in which

                                    the bruised, naked torso

                                                of a woman floats by,

her breasts full of gravity, nipples staring off dully to either side

            as if she never in her entire life

                                                            saw anything that surprised her
            The man does not reach out to touch

                        the girl, though his intention

               is like the sheet pulled back

                           from the skin of that dead body —
there’s no stopping it now,

            not the unfeeling hands that lift the cover
            nor the grief that will live

                forever in the blood        of the mother

                        who stands over her daughter’s torso, the roots of her severed limbs
not even able to speak the words
            Yes, that’s her                                         that’s her
Jeanine Walker is our Poet in Residence for April.

late morning (after a long restless
 
night) blurry eyes focus on the ceiling,

sky in shadows, the clock projects
 
11:11 neon against the wall
an accusation somewhere vague

in my brain, tainted modern

criminal, off-balance, sleeping-in

11:12 is the turn-key
out of bed into the cool room
 
exit the womb between
 
blanket and sheet, blasted
 
with air, light and dust
 
one must cross through
 
each day with an agenda
 
(formed, or not) this critical
 
movement, one world to the next
we traverse our time
 
fractured, come to terms
 
but the point is to awaken
 
alive, to drag our self from
 
the dead of sleep 
Julene Tripp Weaver is our Poet in Residence for March.


Previously: Ordinary Essentials, How I Came to this World, and Rusty Chain Heritage.

The antique cards from my great grandmother,

the photographs of ancestors I did not know,

so much regal furniture, I sat in a closed off

parlor, quiet in a King George chair, looked
across the room at the matching couch,
 
the grand organ, the gold trimmed tall mirror
 
with marble at its base, hung full length
 
between tall windows formally draped. 
I loved the quiet in this room, the history I

never understood. The organ no one played,
 
out of tune, a museum for far away relatives
 
in England or Holland, mother’s side
of the family, who tried to stay wealthy

but exposed to the elements oxidized
 
in a slow decline, till it wore thin this family

chain, clear to inevitable death.
So much no one remembers, only two chairs

left, reupholstered, and the mirror, yes, the

mirror, now on sister’s wall in Philadelphia,
 
no longer with its marble stand, but it hangs 
a view to see ourselves, how we have walked
 
through to this other side — some of us — who
 
would be us, long disappeared, those still here
 
with traces in our blood, on our walls, in the
pictures we grow older and more distant
 
every decade — this rusty chain still present —

binding like a cross, there is no escape, no matter
 
the life we live now.
Julene Tripp Weaver is our Poet in Residence for March.


Previously: Ordinary Essentials, and How I Came to this World.