Recently Added Junior Poems

From: Incantation: Memory of Water

Tonight, a strand of my great-grandmother’s hair

sashes an amber beer bottle discarded by a tourist.

A white thread of my grandmother’s baptismal robe

is a bangle on a wrist of kelp

waving its arm on St. Phillip’s eastern coast.

The ocean does not hunger

but its mouths gape and hold, like errant flecks

of...

A Thin Plea

(Falteringly)

Our national bird ­– for years – was – as A M Klein said –

the rocking chair

I don’t know what our national bird is now – but my totem bird is

the killdeer

Its names – odd mannerisms – & cry – explain bits about me – in

riddles

My daily writing self...

Cold Solace

When my mother died,

one of her honey cakes remained in the freezer.

I couldn’t bear to see it vanish,

so it waited, pardoned,

in its ice cave behind the metal trays

for two more years.

On my forty-first birthday

I chipped it out,

a rectangular resurrection,

hefted the dead weight in my palm.

Nocturne for a Moving Train

The trees I’ve glimpsed from the window

of a night train were

the saddest trees.

They seemed about to speak,

then—

             vanished like soldiers.

The hostesses handed out starched linens for sleep.

Passengers bent over small icons

of sandwiches.

In a tall glass, a spoon...

God the Tea Master

All the weapons we marshal to confront the day

You ask to be left by the door before entering.

The sword in its sheath must lie on the grass,

the quiver and bow hung off a branch.

Daily mind, that dons the armour of thought,

does not shed the weaponry easily; too many are the tasks

that require its particularity – its thrust-and-jab...

Eclipse

In every which way, I am living

for potential. I’ve mined cadmium

enough to roulette with Death

and Mars, bloodshot brute,

is swollen in my honour.

My function is action —

to pummel through concrete

and machete hedges,

to shear the irresolute

with only wit and lichen-rich

perfume. Allow yourself...

My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears

My grandmother puts her feet in the sink

                  of the bathroom at Sears

to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer,

wudu,

because she has to pray in the store or miss

the mandatory prayer time for Muslims

She does it with great poise, balancing

herself with one plump matronly arm

against the...

Mariah according to my yt mama

when I try to talk to my mom about what it was like

to grow up surrounded by yt people in the prairies

in the 80s though it seemed like the 50s

she tells me in a so-there tone

that Mariah is a mixee and that people love her

I tell my mom that Mariah has talked publicly

about feeling some type of way about

being what...

Embarrased

i thought it was ok - i could understand the reasons

they said there might be young children or a nervous man seeing

this small piece of flesh that they weren’t quite expecting

so i whispered and tiptoed with nervous discretion

but after six months of her life spent sitting on lids

as she...

Editing the Prairie

Well, it’s too long for one thing

and very repetitive.

Remove half the fields.

Then there are far too many fences

interrupting the narrative flow.

Get some cattlemen to cut down those fences.

There’s not enough incident either,

the story is very flat.

Can’t you write in a mountain

or at least a decent-sized hill...

Spacetime

We Twitter, Tinder, Tumblr through eternity. Loquacious

text messages flit from fingertips, waves of data spill

through our skulls. Every cm² of oxygen overflowing

with bank PINS, girls in yoga pants, the frequencies

of whale cries. Digital clouds brim with selfies and rain

videos on how to cook coconut shrimp. Sepia-filtered

...

from Quit Dying to Die

   When the doctors burrowed into my body, they unearthed a slew of tumours. Growths speckled across lungs and kidneys. (Later, they would find the duo nestled into my cortex.) A Starry Night, the ultrasound technician titled my organs. He said they looked calcified as an alcoholic’s liver. Before the calcification was recognized as tumours, before those tumours were known...

In Exile I Draw the Tower Card

           Spruce, inadequate, and alien

            I stood at the side of the road

            It was the only life I had.

            – Jane Kenyon

When I injured my brain

it was barely spring.

Now it is mid-October

& getting up at eleven

is a big accomplishment.

My sister cries the sea

My sister is crying and crying

her tears grow to salt stormy showers

to rain and to rapids and rivers

they run to the sea to the sea.

My sister sobs softly she knows

she listens at shells and the shoals

she hears from fish sleeping at nightfall

she gathers from mushrooms and moulds.

Hears walking...

aubade for the BPD subreddit user who wrote can people with BPD love?

        bedtime ritual     summon a stranger     tonight you

linger on my laptop screen

                                          in the apartment hallway a door slams like a bird

                                           into glass     I will never know

                                        melts like snow

on a warm window

Let's Not Get It Together

The world has become corrupted

from our hearts

to the way our gods love us

as if they know they’re already dying

and they’re determined to drag us down with them

and just like a flagpole in winter

demanding our affection

we’ve stuck our tongues to their ancient religions

leaving us dumbstruck and blinded

Great Intimacy

It is like an exquisite spider web, this world, but I

don't get trapped.

I have ceased to tie the strings of one shoe to

another in the morning,

so now I don't trip over my wants. This leaves me

nimble. Any mountain I can scamper up.

A long rope shoved quickly into a sack can easily

get tangled...

Comfort

11 am. Time to wake up.

Muscles sore, jaw clenched, warm light

scattering dreams of violence across

the bedroom. I've chosen a self

too large for this body. Too willing to

change for others. Too beautiful

to appear in public. I’d tell you to walk

in my...

Bilingual/Bilingüe

My father liked them separate, one there,

one here (allá y aquí), as if aware

that words might cut in two his daughter’s heart

(el corazón) and lock the alien part

to what he was—his memory, his name

(su nombre)—with a key he could not claim.

“English outside this door, Spanish inside,”

he said, “...

Internet Safety

My dad taught me to never give out my real name, age,

address, or photos. This seemed obvious to me. My fake

birthday entry was always my crush's birthday plus a

random year from the early 1900s. I spent hours making

my avatars look like everything, anything but myself. It

didn’t matter how people (mis)pronounced my name, how

young I was...

Picking Up a Dandelion

Before dawn,

I pick you up,

then bring you closer.

My fingers slowly roll

over your body,

removing seeds attached to you,

free them into the air.

I hear you sigh

as if breezes swirl at the bottom

of mountains. Through wheels

of twilight, I see you naked and fresh.

A shadow, and now a...

Packing for the Future: Instructions

Take the thickest socks.

Wherever you're going

you'll have to walk.

There may be water.

There may be stones.

There may be high places

you cannot go without

the hope socks bring you,

the way they hold you

to the earth.

At least one pair must be new,

must be blue as a wish...

On My Tongue

Bismillah is my first memory.

I became a bird in the Qur’an

at hardly eight years old.

I opened the dark green cover

and revealed the slippery

two hearts: Arabic

and its English translation.

On Saturdays, I learned to repeat

passages in Arabic,

to...

I Am

l am

gap tooth black girl

back corner of class

scribbling left-handed

poetry on blank paper

save the school's

curriculum for later

I am

overflowing tales by moonlight

trickling off the tip

of my grandmothers tongue

you will find my mother

tongue here

fast...

Finis

Give me a few more hours to pass 

With the mellow flower ofthe elm-bough falling,

And then no more than the lonely grass

And the birds calling.

Give me a few more days to keep

With a little love and a little sorrow,

And then the dawn in the skies of sleep

And a clear tomorrow.

Give me a few more...

My Poem Without Me in It

My poem without me in it—would it be like

my room when I had returned to it

after my mother was done with me.

Under my bed, only the outer

space balls, of dust, only

the asteroids of hair, no bent-legs

spider drawstring purse, no fly, no

I. My poem without me in it, would it

be like her house before I was granted

people arrived

people arrived from portugal. people arrived from africa. people arrived from

india. people arrived from england. people arrived from china. people

predated arrival. people fled predation. people were arrayed. people populated.

whips patterned rays into people. people arose. people rayed outward to

toronto, london, boo york. people raided people. people...

bhater mondo