By RAE PARIS
for my niece, who got the part of a vine in The Secret
Garden at her predominantly White school
Your worried face wonders if you can do this. How does
a vine think? What does it feel? Do vines own hearts,
and if so do they beat fast or slow? What about souls?
I always hide behind my hair, even when I don’t have hair. I disappeared
inside my shaved head, identity de facto of college, coming out. Camouflaged
in plain sight, a faux reveal, ersatz openness of skin & neck.
By WILL SCHUTT
I
After a shower I fill the tub with water, stick fresh candles into candlesticks and brace each heavy planter in the yard. From the rain guard gutter I rake leaves. Watching the sun press through shuttling clouds, I see there’s no such thing as reprieve without broad damage. Electricity comes and goes, yellow leaves circulate in clusters, treetops contort. The dissonance is too like the news, external hysteria masking an inward calm that moves it, a wave of pictures uploaded to iPhones, the opposite of poetry, which prepares the long confusion for its shape.
and I can’t sleep so I’m up thinking
too hard scribbling these words in the dark
because the physics science news I read
before bed is making me crazy now
with incomprehension—it makes
no sense to me that gravity should exist,
what I know about is love:
Guess I should forget to buy
the lottery ticket every time
I buy my generic cigs
at the Get ’N Go. There’s no chance
my get-rich dream will happen.
Like to think that way though.
At The Common we’re welcoming spring with new poetry by our contributors.
At The Common, we’re celebrating the shortest month of the year with new poems by four contributors to our print journal.
Book by KERRIN MCCADDEN
Reviewed by
Kerrin McCadden’s poignant debut collection of poetry, Landscape with Plywood Silhouettes, is filled with composed wisdom for how to cope with separation in general, and divorce in particular. The collection won the New Issues Poetry Prize in 2014, and McCadden’s poetry has appeared widely in Best American Poetry 2012,American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere.
At The Common, we’re celebrating the New Year with four poets new to our pages.
Please enjoy four new poems by The Common contributors.
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