Drifting
After You Left
Jean Jackson
Drifting through my day
from one task to another
the ringing of the cell phone
jars me from complacency
sends me down that chute
of uncertainty and fear.
Not knowing again
what lies at the bottom
I listen for level tones
in your voice—no panic,
no desperation, no elation—
signs of some stability.
We’ve both been dashed
on the rocks before
have lost perspective—
thinking we’ve found an answer.
Any moment now
I could pop out of my skin
my oozing insides desiccating
in stark atmosphere
or I could soar
at the sound of your calmness
swim the river of rationality
throw away my Xanax.
You are the riptide in my life.
I am pulled by you
have learned to swim with you.
Since we can’t go back, we tread water.
Song: to Celia
Ben Jonson
Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever;
He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain.
Suns that set may rise again;
But if once we lose this light,
’Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumor are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies,
Or his easier ears beguile,
So removèd by our wile?
’Tis no sin love’s fruit to steal;
But the sweet thefts to reveal,
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.
18
Voices de la Luna, 15 April 2015
Wallis Sanborn
Today,
After you left,
I missed you so much
That I poured your water into my glass,
And drank it,
Trying futilely
To touch you.
I Could Have Been A Scientist
Greg Stone
I could have been a scientist
if you had gone to another school.
The calculus of your curvature
is like a flesh manifesto that
the algebra teacher always seems
to be drawing on the board.
The square root of my hypotenuse
sits next to your two unequal sides,
and though we’ve yet to be squared,
I know what Einstein did when he
figured out the theory of relativity.
He ran home to his wife and told her,
“Space is curved, honey, just like you!”
e=mc2
at times like this, still
physics will tell you how to calculate
the size and shape of volumes in space
and the way of liquids mingling in a vacuum,
but algebra is for calculating curves.
(I can’t believe that Isaac Newton
invented calculus but ignored women.)
A piece of chalk broke off like a fingernail
leaving a screech ringing in my ear.
The xy axis completed, you are an equation;
a polynomial pregnant with meaning;
an irrational number with a definite ending;
the answer is given that is no solution.
I bet if Euclid had known you
his book would have been a whole lot more fun.
The Poets See
Eugene “Gene” Novogrodsky
The poets find new grass blades in a cracked sidewalk in midMarch, slush surrounding.
The poets find two garbage collectors waiting for two business
women and one business man to step past.
The poets’ eyes see.
The poets’ minds warp.