The Beautiful Librarians by Sean O'Brien

The Beautiful Librarians

The beautiful librarians are dead,

The fairly recent graduates who sat

Like Françoise Hardy’s shampooed sisters

With cardigans across their shoulders

On quiet evenings at the issue desk,

Stamping books and never looking up

At where I stood in adoration.

Once I glimpsed the staffroom

Where they smoked and (if the novels

Were correct) would speak of men.

I still see the blue Minis they would drive

Back to their flats around the park,

To Blossom Dearie and red wine

Left over from a party I would never

Be a member of. Their rooms looked down

On dimming avenues of lime.

I shared the geography but not the world

It seemed they were establishing

With such unfussy self-possession, nor

The novels they were writing secretly

That somehow turned to ‘Mum’s old stuff’.

Never to even brush in passing

Yet nonetheless keep faith with them,

The ice queens in their realms of gold –

It passes time that passes anyway.

Book after book I kept my word

Elsewhere, long after they were gone

And all the brilliant stock was sold.

 

Aubade with Burning City by Ocean Vuong

Aubade with Burning City

South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon.

            Milkflower petals on the street

                                                     like pieces of a girl’s dress.

May your days be merry and bright ...

He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips.

            Open, he says.

                                        She opens.

                                                      Outside, a soldier spits out

            his cigarette as footsteps

                            fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. May all

                                         your Christmases be white as the traffic guard

            unstraps his holster.

                                        His hand running the hem

of  her white dress.

                            His black eyes.

            Her black hair.

                            A single candle.

                                        Their shadows: two wicks.

A military truck speeds through the intersection, the sound of children

                                        shrieking inside. A bicycle hurled

            through a store window. When the dust rises, a black dog

                            lies in the road, panting. Its hind legs

                                                                                   crushed into the shine

                                                       of a white Christmas.

On the nightstand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard

                                                                      for the first time.

The treetops glisten and children listen, the chief of police

                                facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola.

                                             A palm-sized photo of his father soaking

                beside his left ear.

The song moving through the city like a widow.

                A white ...    A white ...    I’m dreaming of a curtain of snow

                                                          falling from her shoulders.

Snow crackling against the window. Snow shredded

                                           with gunfire. Red sky.

                              Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls.

A helicopter lifting the living just out of reach.

            The city so white it is ready for ink.

                                                     The radio saying run run run.

Milkflower petals on a black dog

                            like pieces of a girl’s dress.

May your days be merry and bright. She is saying

            something neither of them can hear. The hotel rocks

                        beneath them. The bed a field of ice

                                                                                 cracking.

Don’t worry, he says, as the first bomb brightens

                             their faces, my brothers have won the war

                                                                       and tomorrow ...    

                                             The lights go out.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming ...    

                                                            to hear sleigh bells in the snow ...    

In the square below: a nun, on fire,

                                            runs silently toward her god — 

                           Open, he says.

                                                         She opens.

 

Your Name by Eileen Myles

Your Name

It’s very hard

to hunt

from indoors

I’ll say that for

you. And         

text is

at best

an attenuated

warning

sound has

a range

of many desires

not just map.

I subscribe

to the grandpa

bunny bunny school

of theory

I mean genesis

to write

is a form

of accounting

& approximate

promise

in the sunny

mouth of

time. A horny

bet. Or else

hunters

lolling around the fire

what did you

get. How can

we avoid it.

This “making

a speech.” Long limbed

& maybe

in July. Aren’t

we lucky to have

captured each

other in this

hideous neon light.

 

Special Orders by Edward Hirsch

Special Orders

Give me back my father walking the halls

   of Wertheimer Box and Paper Company

      with sawdust clinging to his shoes.

Give me back his tape measure and his keys,

   his drafting pencil and his order forms;

      give me his daydreams on lined paper.

I don’t understand this uncontainable grief.

    Whatever you had that never fit,

      whatever else you needed, believe me,

my father, who wanted your business,

    would squat down at your side

       and sketch you a container for it.

 

Touch by Terrance Hayes

Touch

We made our own laws.

I want to be a Hawk,

A Dolphin, a Lion, we’d say

In stores where team logos hung

Like animal skins.

By moonlight,

We chased each other

Around the big field

Beneath branches sagging

As if their leaves were full of blood.

We didn’t notice when policemen

Came lighting tree bark

& our skin with flashlights.

They saw our game

For what it was:

Fingers clutching torso,

Shoulder, wrist—a brawl.

Some of the boys escaped,

Their brown legs cut by thorns

As they ran through the brush.

It’s true, we could have been mistaken

For animals in the dark,

But of all our possible crimes,

Blackness was the first.

So they tackled me,

And read me my rights without saying:

You Down or Dead Ball.

We had a language

They did not use, a name

For collision. We called it Touch.

 

Gathering at the River by Philip Appleman

Gathering at the River

Is it

crossing over Jordan

to a city of light, archangels

ceaselessly trumpeting over

the heavenly choirs: perpetual Vivaldi,

jasper and endless topaz and amethyst,

the Sistine ceiling seven days a week,

the everlasting smirk

of perfection?

Is it

the river Styx,

darkness made visible, fire

that never stops: endless murder

too merciless to kill,

massacres on an endless loop,

the same old victims always

coming back for more?

Or is it the silky muck

of Wabash and Maumee, the skirr

and skim of blackbirds,

fields of Queen Anne’s lace

and bumblebees? Well,

go out once more, and feel

the crumble of dry loam,

fingers and soil slowly becoming

the same truth: there in the hand

is our kinship with oak, our bloodline

to cattle. Imagine,

not eons of boredom or pain,

but honest earth-to-earth;

and when our bodies rise again,

they will be wildflowers, then rabbits,

then wolves, singing a perfect love

to the beautiful, meaningless moon.

 

The Niagara River by Kay Ryan

The Niagara River

As though

the river were

a floor, we position

our table and chairs

upon it, eat, and 

have conversation.

As it moves along,

we notice—as

calmly as though

dining room paintings 

were being replaced—

the changing scenes 

along the shore. We

do know, we do 

know this is the

Niagara River, but 

it is hard to remember

what that means.