When I was with the bartender,
I didn’t see a field of yellow flowers
when I closed my eyes.
There was no superbloom
the way there’d been with you,
and my heart didn’t burst open
when he put his mouth to my mouth.
Darkness, my sibling,
I have a story to tell you
Last shabbes I was chased by the law into Bed
Stuy streets for passing out pamphlets
decrying America’s uncles.
I’ll never know the rupture and the gush,
the crown, or the crowning, the gummy grin
of the vulva, hair for teeth, the soft orb
forced forth without volition, the pungent room,
king mushroom wrenched from its mycelium.
This is the body, the eight year old body, cream skinned, cat boned, silent.
Call the body Johnny.
Bend the body—it will not break.
Bend forward, Johnny.
The two tall boys, brothers, both
with wire-rimmed glasses, with wicker
creels, fly-fishing gear, and vests
with patches of sheepskin shearling
dotted with troutflies, worked their way
downstream in their rubber waders.
Corby, England, 1972
What was so terribly frightening
about the dark wood elephant heads
that hung in my grandfather’s hall,
tusks aligned, trunks slightly upturned
at the end, as if signaling luck—?
By ARAN DONOVAN
wait for me. you have perhaps
been out there and married unsuccessfully
to several ladies. you’ve been maybe
like a feudal lord a little
gluttonous with your helpings, have gulped
By LINDA ASHOK
While you play with your tresses,
and suckle your diamond with trust,
while you play with the bubbles
in your lime-soda with that straw,
there’s something you are trying
to place and I am missing it.
New work by our contributors TINA CANE and TOM PAINE
WORK by Tina Cane
I can’t stop horses as much as you can’t stop horses,”
“Other Horses,” Michael Klein
What is work but a horse is a beast to be one with the broom I bristle
toil tool and trade work is a poem I made is my children is family a broken
The Common brings you a special two-part series as a preview to Tesserae: Poetry of Community – A Reading & Celebration of Immigrants & New Americans, coming up on Sunday, April 22 3:30–5pm at The Parlor Room in Northampton, MA; free admission. You can view Part One of the series here.
Part Two – featuring poems by Tamiko Beyer, Leslie Marie Aguilar, and Oliver de la Paz.
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Celebrating 15 Years