Navel by Robin Coste Lewis

Navel

 

We crawled out of her navel

one by one, then waited

until we were all here.

 

That lucid moment when

the last wet child learned to stand,

we began walking.

 

We walked slowly.

We took some time.

We took more than that.

 

When we began to grow

hungry, some offered to turn

themselves into animals.

 

Smiling, they said, Here, eat me.

Others turned into water, rivers, trees.

Some turned themselves to dirt

 

so we could walk a path. We crept

toward the edges, clawed and crawled to the top

of the world, and there we clung.

 

Instead of a mouth, a woman

spoke through a vibrant yellow

bill. Sometimes we visited the man

on the moon. Sometimes he let us

inside his house. Sometimes

his transparent hollow wife would dance.

 

Later, when people asked us,

Where did you come from?

We could only answer water.

 

A whole language comprised

of just one word. We walked

onto the water. We built houses

 

on the water. We had babies

on the water. We sewed clothes

made of water with needles made of ice.

 

The night so constant

changed us. The planets

taught us a vocabulary

 

without any alphabet.

The trees began to walk.

At night, the ocean glowed

 

green from underneath.

Our roofs were made of whale

ribs, our lamps were stone

 

that burned clear oil. And now

I’ve turned my face into this page

so we could sit here together again.

French Novel by Richie Hofmann

French Novel

You were my second lover.

You had dark eyes and hair,

like a painting of a man.

We lay on our stomachs reading books in your bed.

I e-mailed my professor. I will be absent

from French Novel due to sickness. You put on

some piano music. Even though

it was winter, we had to keep

the window open day and night, the room was so hot, the air so dry

it made our noses bleed.

With boots we trekked through slush for a bottle of red wine

we weren’t allowed to buy, our shirts unbuttoned

under our winter coats.

The French language distinguishes

between the second

of two and the second

of many. Of course

we’d have other lovers. Snow fell in our hair.

You were my second lover.

Another way of saying this:

you were the other,

not another.

Genesis by Mary Ruefle

Genesis

Oh, I said, this is going to be.

And it was.

Oh, I said, this will never happen.

But it did.

And a purple fog descended upon the land.

The roots of trees curled up.

The world was divided into two countries.

Every photograph taken in the first was of people.

Every photograph taken in the second showed none.

All of the girl children were named And.

All of the boy children named Then.

For Chiara by Rosanna Warren

For Chiara

 

Leaves crackle beneath our feet—tinder, kindling—

as we walk by the brook, the crab-apple tree

a crimson pointilliste nimbus.

You want to hold each wounded soul in your hands.

Autumn flares. The damaged, the human berserk,

find their way to you. I don’t know how you sleep.

In the Gorgon’s blood, one drop is poison, the other heals.

Fevered autumn, autumn I adore

croons an old song. We stroll the road

scuffing dust. And come upon

a garter snake lying motionless,

its tail, we guess, nicked by a passing car.

When we nudge it, it flips to its back in an agonized S,

squirms, but can’t advance. Its belly gleams.

We edge it into the grass. Do we stop seeing

when we walk away? The brook prattles on.

Home’s far off. Dusk settles, slowly, among leaves.

That’s not mercy, scattering from its hands.

Joint Effort by Amit Majmudar

Joint Effort

             Let the hunchback lie hump down

upon the Bactrian camel. On that snug foundation

let the leper stand tiptoe, balancing

the cripple’s cane on his nose, while the cripple,

upside down, balances atop the cane, index finger

on the hook handle. Let the cripple’s legs scissor

and interlock with the gymnast’s, whose chalked hands

should support the flat-footed orangutan.

Let the orangutan be trained beforehand

to hold a dead veteran overhead, the body draped.

On the veteran’s shoulders and hips let the retiree

align the rubber-nubbin feet of his walker

and, standing tall, wear a hard hat with a flagpole

coming off it, atop that flagpole a circus elephant,

one leathery foot planted, the body rocking back.

On the top curve of that elephant’s S-shaped trunk

let the seal lie arching its back, on its whiskery snout

a beach ball that looks like a globe, spinning.

Let the five-star general clap his hands on that beach ball.

You know he wants to. Let him do a handstand on it.

Feet on his feet, let the poet turning clockwise

support a fruit bat on his head, and let that fruit bat

in turn support a larger fruit bat, between whose ears

should rest the toe of the ballerina’s vertical left shoe.

Let the ballerina hold the stepladder steady.

At this point, the tower will have crossed the cloud cover;

the shelf should be in view, and what is kept upon the shelf.

Now let the child skip school. Let the child

climb the tower to its tippy top and place her hand

inside the jar and bring the cookies to earth.