Issue 25 Poetry

Aphorism 57: You Cannot Fail at Being You

By JOHN BLAIR 

We cherish ourselves even to the bones
which like some mother’s rigid hangers
hold us to our lacquered shapes in the smug 
dialetheia of am and briefly was until 
we come to our raveled ends       everyone 
just taking up space until space takes us back
one washed-out moment at a time        like tea 
leaves steeping in a cup until we’re ready 
for someone to bow in close and take
a quick ceremonial sip       then turn the cup
       wipe clean the rim and hand it carefully 
to yet another honored guest who       mindful 
of what we might let go to waste       will not 
leave until every drop is drunk.

Aphorism 57: You Cannot Fail at Being You
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For Acedia

By ROBERT CORDING

Thomas Aquinas prescribed fervent prayer,
and I do pray, but, oddly, a bird has been
my best medicine when I find myself shrunken
and absent, as I do each year as the anniversary
of my son’s death approaches. And so I turn again
to this: a dipper I watched in Zion’s Virgin River.

For Acedia
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Jack Benny

By MITCH SISSKIND

John Ashbery called me after he died
So you can imagine my excitement
When in his droll hyper-nasalated
Timbre quite undiminished by death
He chatted on about the bowls of
Pitted cherries provided as snack-food
In the upper worlds and of afternoons
Climbing trees with Edna Millay to read
Comic books with her in the branches.
Then his voice dropped two octaves
And he spoke solemnly of Jack Benny:
‘You can say funny things or say things
Funny but silence was the punchline
For Jack Benny.’ And he was gone.

Jack Benny
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Walden

By STEPHEN HAVEN

Whatever Walden is to me—we swam there two Julys—
I hope to skirt that never-ending trope,
Drowning like a pilgrim in that pond.
We pushed past mothers and their kids,
Cedared summers in Wellfleet cottages,
Past foreign languages that hummed across
The narrow circle of that one dirt path

Walden
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