Lantau

While sitting prostrate before the ivory feet of the great Buddha, I spilled almost an entire can of Diet Coke on the floor. I quickly tried to mop up the mess with my long hair. I peeked over my left shoulder: the short nun said nothing and averted her eyes; to my right the skinny old monk was consumed by a frightful irritation of his own. He was at once swatting and dodging two bombarding hornets that were fascinated by his newly shaved head. “I hope he’s not allergic.” I chuckled softly. And beyond us was the motherless Asian sea, glittering with the promise of eternity.

- Marilyn Chin

Pilgrim Bell

My savior has powers and he needs.
To be convinced to use them for good.
Up until now he has been.
A no-call no-show. The menace.
Of ecstasy like a hornets nest buzzing.
Under ice. Like scabs of rust.
On a plane wing. I am younger than.
I pretend to be. Almost everyone.
Is younger than I pretend to be. I am a threat.
And full of grief even.
In my joy. Like a cat who kills.
A mouse at play and tries.
To lick it back to life. The cat lives.
Somewhere between wonder.
And shame. I live in a great mosque.
Built on top of a flagpole. Up here.
Whatever happens happens.
Loudly. All day I hammer the distance.
Between the earth and me.
Into faith. Blue light pulls in through.
The long crack in my wall. Braids.
Into a net. The difference between.
A real voice and the other kind.
Is the way its air vibrates.
Through you. The violence.
In your middle ear.

- Kaveh Akbar

Buildings

I see their streaked faces and recessed entryways, their windows
washed white by the rain. How cheerful, how brave
your voice was as you asked if I wanted anything from Whole Foods,
where you had to go, amid all the other Wednesday clutter—
turning back, you paused in the door, backlit by the morning gray.
Between us lay five years of love, which you talked about
as a quantity, that accumulates. And that morning was the beginning
of that night, morning, day, and night, those thirty-six hours
ten months ago now, when you convulsed with a new, raging sorrow
which I surprised you by returning, but more viciously, finding, as I broke
from the self I’d made, charring ecstasy—hours of weeping and reasoning,
of fucking, drinking, and takeout, hours of storming out and creeping back
and kissing dead lips once more to be sure, hours I refuse to remember
that hardened into the low city I walked out into, already retreating from me.

- Noah Warren

Four from Ivan Presser's "Intimate Lighting" (1965)

“You see? People enjoy different things everywhere.
But sorrow is the same everywhere.
You know the saying—
’With one sad song, you’ll go around the world.’”

The Tradition

Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning
Names in heat, in elements classical
Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer.
Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will
Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter
On this planet than when our dead fathers
Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby's Breath.
Men like me and my brothers filmed what we
Planted for proof we existed before
Too late, sped the video to see blossoms
Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems
Where the world ends, everything cut down.
John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown.

- Jericho Brown, from THE TRADITION, from Copper Canyon

Swell

Mid-March, on the daily a.m. drop-off 
through a bunch of affluent side streets 
between school and here

a refrigerated dairy produce truck 
keeps catching almond and dogwood branches, 
so much that blossoms blizzard

the windscreen and moonroof 
and I have to switch the wipers 
to intermittent in its slipstream.

All I mean to say is that it was lovely, 
that not every given is bleak or wrong 
and some even are as gorgeous as they are elementary.

The kids come home on different buses 
the same shade of egg yolk. 
We call my mother from the shore for Easter.

That truck and blossoms story gets longer, 
hokier, with each retelling. I'm not bothered. 
April's bright stretches, the mailman says, are swell.

Our local 'Y' widens its opening hours a smidgen. 
The clay courts opposite pock and shuffle. 
I learn to swim. 

- Connor O’Callaghan